Working for your landlord, as I did, is becoming more common. But it sets a very dangerous precedent

What has become obvious in the last few years of Tory leadership is how few rights tenants now have in comparison to their landlords

Holly Baxter
Monday 19 October 2015 20:12 BST
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Something that has become obvious in the last few years of Tory leadership is how few rights tenants now have in comparison to their landlords
Something that has become obvious in the last few years of Tory leadership is how few rights tenants now have in comparison to their landlords

Back when I was blasé about such things as heating, bathroom access and windows, I lived above a community theatre in north London. The deal went like this: I could live rent-free in a rat-infested hovel, and my “landlord” – who also ran the theatre – was able to offload work on to me, like inspecting the tickets for the week’s latest theatrical performance, Hoovering the stairs or making sure the lighting technician didn’t get electrocuted.

This seemed like a fairly cosy arrangement, even though the cracks in the window let snow blow into the bedroom and the cracks in the floorboards often swallowed my feet as I descended the stairs.

But after a few months of ripping ticket stubs and ringing bells for the end of the interval, I realised that I was doing more and more work for less and less pay-off.

Rodents had set up camp in the oven and my underwear kept getting eaten by the pub manager’s dog whenever I left it hanging in the building’s shared bathroom, yet my employer-cum-landlord was now knocking on my bedroom door after midnight to get me to check that the candles outside the theatre door were symmetrical.

It started to feel less like a great way of cheating my way out of skyrocketing rents and more like straightforward exploitation.

This is why I have mixed views about the news that the number of people who share their skills in lieu of paying rent is rising. Some examples seem like a brilliant temporary deal for someone moving to the area or looking for more dependable jobs: a double room for £50 per week in a hotel in York for someone willing to occasionally let in guests who have requested late check-in, for instance.

But most of the adverts that appear on sites for those seeking rented accommodation in return for their time and labours are troublingly vague. A large double room offered by a businessman for £1 per month in Dunstable “for an IT/business studies graduate with web/mobile development skills” mentions no specific duties or hours of work. Elsewhere, “occasional childcare” is an offer that could range from the odd babysitting duty to pulling little Damien out of the path of speeding cars whenever he gets in one of his funny moods. The devil, as always, is in the detail.

As someone who continues to live in rented accommodation with no realistic prospect of ever getting a foothold on the property ladder, what has become obvious in the last few years of Tory leadership is how few rights tenants now have in comparison to their landlords.

Encourage those landlords to charge in working hours instead of money for their properties – or allow that situation to become normalised – and I guarantee you’ll create a generation of underpaid workers crammed into unacceptably overcrowded flats across our cities and towns. It may seem like the ultimate manifestation of the ‘big society’, but, let’s face it, it’s the reinvention of feudalism.

So before we sleepwalk into a society where live-in servants once again become the norm, let’s consider the ramifications these increasingly common developments might have on social mobility.

At least if you pay a rent cheque, you have the security of knowing that for the next month, your landlord won’t turf you out on the street if you fold the napkins the wrong way.

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