Worst place you've lived/almost lived in?

drillyeye

I've come across a few gems in my time.

One time I was in bandcamp another European city, finding it very difficult to find a place to rent, and not for lack of money.

Saw a local ad, arranged to go see it. I was led into this VERY old mansion-like gaf by a 12/13 year old boy, all the way down to the basement. The interior looked like it hadn't been touched since world war 1.

There, sitting on an ancient, mouldy yellow couch was this geezer who was just as old as the furniture. Already this place is out of the question, but I go through the paces so as not to be rude.

The geezer asks me, in quite terrible broken English, "how long you want?"

I tell him what I'm after, then he starts, out of nowhere, telling me that my English is very bad. Now I speak very clear English, as you tend to pick up when around foreign places. So this question is weird.

I tell him that I'm from Ireland, and that English is my mother tongue. But no, he insists its terrible, while hes speaking barely understandable English. He also insisted that his own English was "perfect". The fooking irony. He kept this up long enough that I wanted to slap the cobwebs off him.

So, feeling fairly peeved already, the boy leads me down another set of stairs (bear in mind we were already in a basement). There, in the weak light of a bare lightbulb, is a manky mattress that filled most of the floor. I forget the exact price of it now, but the clown was looking for at least a grand a month for that shythole. It was a kinda surreal experience!

Plenty more dodgy experiences. But what about the dirty fookers here on after hours? Worst place you've seen/stayed in?

bodhrandude

Probably when I stayed in Duke St in Glasgow, the gaff itself was great, my mate owning the place, a top floor attic flat but the area was fecking scary. Just at the start of the East end of Glasgow coming from the city centre and surrounded by grotty housing estates and marauding gangs with chibs. It could be tricky and freaky getting back from the town at night. I remember watching an Orange march through the streets one Saturday from the gaff and these nutcases running up through the centre of it with crowbars and axes. This was back in the late eighties and early nineties. Having passed through it a few times now since on holidays to Scotland its very much cleaned up and is apparently popular with the students and hipsters now.

Cutie 3.14

Waterford

Graces7

Cutie 3.14 wrote: »

Waterford

... and?

ELM327

Graces7 wrote: »

... and?

I think it's pretty self explanatory tbh

Katgurl

I've stayed in or viewed some very dodgy places when I was younger but a more recent one is sticking out in my mind -

I was a bit shocked when presented with an immediate and dramatic rent hike in my accommodation as I'd only been there a couple of months and it was already high for the (not great) area. I said I'd give it a couple of days thought and in the meantime decided to check out some neighbouring rentals to see was I being taken for a ride.

I went to view an owner-occupied place on the next road. The rent was slightly less than mine. The owner turned out to be a woman mid-thirties. She told me as soon as I arrived that she was glad I was female as she has a ten year old daughter and she has been uncomfortable leaving her with the male tenant. When I walked in the house was spotless so I breathed a sigh of relief. She opened the door to the living room - no couches and filled with camp beds. Air bnb she explained. Then she took me to my 'double room'. I have no idea how she got the bed in as it filled the width of the room entirely. There was no other furniture and maybe a foot to spare lengthways. She told me I could keep my things under the bed.

I knew already it wasn't a runner but she was nice so I stayed for a chat. It turned out she worked night shifts and slept during the day. Her daughter (all of ten years old) was 'out and about' all the time but it would be great that I was a teacher as I could help her with her homework. The last male tenant had made her very uncomfortable and the air bnb guests were usually male so she wanted a female around to keep an eye on things. I wasnt allowed any overnight guests myself either.

I told her the truth that I didn't think it was for me but I left out my feeling that it was her that should have been offering to pay me to look after her daughter instead of charging rent.

garbo speaks

Raqqa.

timthumbni

Bundoran. I believe the devil sends bad people there as punishment.

heldel00

Lived in an "extension" on the back of this old witch's house in Ranelagh. She controlled the heating and regardless of weather it didn't go on until November.
Bedclothes riddled with mould, clothes stank of damp.
Entrance was through her front door and every time, EVERY fooking time I'd come in the door you'd hear this witchy old voice panicking - "who's that? Who's there?"!!!
Accused me of tampering with the meter because i wasn't buying enough tokens - eh no i was just hightailing it out of there at every opportunity.
Bought myself a new car and was moving out at the same time. She refused to take the rubbish bags that i had filled when packing up. It exceeded her policy of one small binbag a week. Seriously wanted me to bring the rubbish with me in the back of the car. Needless to say it was left sitting at her gate.
Oh I'm actually getting vexed here even thinking about the old bint.

bear1

Charleroi.
I can't even begin to describe the hatred I have for that place.

FizzleSticks

This post has been deleted.

LirW

The first apartment I ever rented was a bit of a trainwreck.
It was back home in Austria, they come unfurnished and standard would be a 3 year lease. Damp issues wouldn't really be a problem, especially in the cold season because it's quite dry there.
Anyway, the apartment itself was actually quite neat and beautiful, it was under an old roof with exposed beams.
The building was bought by a solicitor who renovated the whole thing, having the office in the ground floor and the first and second floor are apartments.
It would have been so fine if they wouldn't have cut corners at every occasion and put the cheapest finish for literally everything in.
The whole 3 years I lived there the heating was a constant issue, winters over there get REALLY cold and the heating would have constant issues leaving the house cold for countless weekends.
Suddenly I started having a severe damp problems in my bathroom, that had insufficient ventilation. When the lady below me started to report damp issues they sent a plumber in who never told my anything of what's going on and I only heard from her that they covered the old walls with cheapy plasterboards and didn't mount the pipework properly, leaving one of the pipes of my rads leaking and all the water ran down the wall into her apartment.
Same reason why my bathroom was so damp, the walls were just soaked.

At some point my neighbour got so upset over the non-working heating, he was absolutely losing in and giving them hell.
There were a couple of dodgy tenants in one apartments, they never were lucky getting grand people into that one, but then the landlords were dodgy af too, so not feeling too sorry about them.
After moving away from the area, even though being super posh there were a lot of break-ins in the time I lived there, I never went back for a walk or so.

McMurphy

Redfern in 2004.

That is all.

KatW4

I lived in Forest Gate in London for a year. The flat itself was okay, good bit of mould but we got on with it.

It was the area that was a problem. We had to walk down a tiny alleyway to get to the flat which wasn't nice when you were alone.

We were on the ground floor. The corner of our flat was obviously used as a drug dealing corner because we used to get offered drugs through the window. We also saw countless people get arrested outside our window. One time some kids got bars and smashed all the windows of the cars. It was a horrible place to live.

Lived in Ilford too which was okay until I saw a guy get a glass smashed into his face at the train station. An old drunk man screamed at me to "**** off back to your own country" there too.

Billy86

Katgurl wrote: »

I knew already it wasn't a runner but she was nice so I stayed for a chat. It turned out she worked night shifts and slept during the day. Her daughter (all of ten years old) was 'out and about' all the time but it would be great that I was a teacher as I could help her with her homework. The last male tenant had made her very uncomfortable and the air bnb guests were usually male so she wanted a female around to keep an eye on things. I wasnt allowed any overnight guests myself either.

As much as this kind of thing is an eye roller for you, the absolute bang of sexism and misandry off that woman is already nauseating.

Katgurl

Billy86 wrote: »

As much as this kind of thing is an eye roller for you, the absolute bang of sexism and misandry off that woman is already nauseating.

Yeah I agree. She had met me for ten mins. I could be a sociopath, not safe to be left alone with a child.

Billy86

Katgurl wrote: »

Yeah I agree. She had met me for ten mins. I could be a sociopath, not safe to be left alone with a child.

You see them quite regularly - where I work we share the building with HSE Primary Care and only a week or two back a woman had to go to the bathroom badly during an appointment her daughter had, and was losing her rag because she insisted someone find a female staff member to 'supervise' while she was away in the toilet as she did not trust the trained child psychologist because "you know what men are like."

Lord only know what she'll do if that daughter ever gets given a male primary school teacher. :pac:

Graces7

Billy86 wrote: »

You see them quite regularly - where I work we share the building with HSE Primary Care and only a week or two back a woman had to go to the bathroom badly during an appointment her daughter had, and was losing her rag because she insisted someone find a female staff member to 'supervise' while she was away in the toilet as she did not trust the trained child psychologist because "you know what men are like."

Lord only know what she'll do if that daughter ever gets given a male primary school teacher. :pac:

I would not leave a child alone with any man, or woman. The rules re a child being accompanied for these visits are there for a reason.

Specialun

dublin

full of druggies and jackeens. dunno which one is worse

rosmoke

Citywest.

Cars burning, knackers doing doughnuts regularly, houses getting broken into often, guy on a gta spree caught in citywest shopping centre, lidl taken down and seif brought in my estate, another guy shout in my estate, I was once asked by a 6 year old If I wanna get stabbed, I'm almost 30 and not a small guy .. imagine ..

Tommybojangles

Ballyfermot. Bad enough to be there but I realised after moving in one of my housemates was a local. Moved out sharpish after the landlord had to be called to break up a cocaine party

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

I went to see a room in Chapinero Alto, which is quite an expensive area of BogotThe house was huge with about 8 rooms but just one small kitchen and the room I saw was in the basement with only a tiny window for light.

I later met a Scottish girl who had lived in a similar house in the same neighbourhood and the owner used to rent out the living room for meetings and lectures on Saturday morning. On her first weekend there she came into the room and found loads of strangers taking notes while somebody recited stats from a whiteboard he had brought along.

chopperbyrne

A bedsit in a house at the bottom of Howth Road (Fairview end).

Moved in in November.

I was on the ground floor, and there was a shared bathroom on the middle floor with no working lock.

We were supposed to pay each time to a meter to heat the water, but the existing residents had already rigged it to not be required.

The boiler for the sink in the kitchen area of my room didn't work, and was never fixed when I reported it.

When I moved in the fridge had been left unplugged and was manky inside.

The only window in the room was an old style pull down window.

It was held closed with nails, but they rusted and broke so it was stuck open by about an inch.

When nothing was fixed after the first month, I didn't pay the rent, found somewhere else, told the landlady I was moving out and when she could come get the key from me.

She never turned up, so I closed the door behind me and never looked back.

heldel00

Graces7 wrote: »

Billy86 wrote: »

You see them quite regularly - where I work we share the building with HSE Primary Care and only a week or two back a woman had to go to the bathroom badly during an appointment her daughter had, and was losing her rag because she insisted someone find a female staff member to 'supervise' while she was away in the toilet as she did not trust the trained child psychologist because "you know what men are like."

Lord only know what she'll do if that daughter ever gets given a male primary school teacher. :pac:

I would not leave a child alone with any man, or woman. The rules re a child being accompanied for these visits are there for a reason.

Seriously?
When the male ed psychologist visits our school he works alone with the child. It's not an issue.

(Oh god but i do worry for the future ...)

duffman13

I'd one when I was in Australia. Rent in Melbourne was astronomical for people on Working Holiday Visas so a lot of what was available was through gumtree. Myself and my missus seen a room share for $380 a week in the city in a new block of apartments. Two bedroom, all mod cons etc.

Rang the guy who said there's two others living there and thought cool sounds good. We got to the apartment and went in. Turns out it was a one bed apartment with the sitting room converted to a bedroom. 3 sets of bunk beds in the sitting room. Brings is into "our" room which is pitch black as the blinds are pulled because the the people living there are asleep. There is two sets bunk beds in the room so when he said sharing with two he meant sharing the room. So 10 people living in a one bed apartment paying 190 dollars each a week. Absolute joke.

The other one is kinda funny and kinda scary. Me and my other half had gotten a job in Queensland doing regional work for our visa. An English guy (Josh) I lived with decided to come along with the hope of landing a job on the way. We'd a 5 day drive and we set off early in the morning. At the end of the first day Josh had found a job on gumtree which wasn't too far away from where we'd be finished for the night on the second day.

We got directions and he was about 8 miles from a town we'd be passing through. We pulled up and the house looked a little run down to say the least. Met the farmer who seemed ok but had lived alone for about 15 years just employing seasonal workers.

My mate thought it was grand so we left him there and went on to the next big town about 80 miles away to stay the night before setting off. Got a phone call at about 6am the next morning to come back, apparently when Josh got up for work the next morning the guy was sitting there in the nip playing with himself in the kitchen. The guy had refused to drop him into town and when we met him he'd walked about 6 miles towards town and was totally freaked out. Some of the pictures of that place were scary.

Graces7

heldel00 wrote: »

Seriously?
When the male ed psychologist visits our school he works alone with the child. It's not an issue.

(Oh god but i do worry for the future ...)

Standard child protection rules that I thought applied beyond the church .

the purple tin

Moate. What a fcuking inbred dump, the kindest thing they could do is dig a deep moat around Moate.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Graces7 wrote: »

Standard child protection rules that I thought applied beyond the church .

Not at all! Teachers (male and female) take children on a one to one basis for learning support every day of the week. Speech therapists work one to one with children as well.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

I wouldn’t leave a child with a priest, but a Garda vetted male/female teacher/she worker there’s no issue
I wouldn’t be mad about the thoughts of leaving them with nuns either to be honest.

Worst place I lived was probably when I lived in a house that resembled a poor mans geordie shore. Only girl with five boys, house parties from Thursday night til Sunday. Threesomes, riding in the hot tub, riding in the jacuzzi bath, putting bubbles in jacuzzi and flooding the downstairs hall, snorting coke off the kitchen worktops, an oven so dirty it went on fire when someone put on the grill, infested with mice every year, one of my housemates was dealing coke and benzos, a female husky locked up and used for breeding, a housemate who stole from everyone from money to the dealers drugs, there was one girl who’d come over and leave her three year old downstairs while she was having sex with one of the lads. Nobody would contribute to buying oil so there was no heating, house was so damp the clothes on a clothes horse wouldn’t dry, the bathroom was absolutely filthy, and after the kleptomaniac got thrown out for stealing he came back a few weeks later and robbed the house

heldel00

Jimmy Freezing Anger wrote: »

Graces7 wrote: »

Standard child protection rules that I thought applied beyond the church .

Not at all! Teachers (male and female) take children on a one to one basis for learning support every day of the week. Speech therapists work one to one with children as well.

Exactly.

Anyway, my Ranelagh story earlier pales in comparison with some of the dunkels the rest of ye have had to live in!

badtoro

An estate in Galway, neighbours wouldn't have been out of place in a Dickens novel, shower of scum. Only answer in the end was to move.

facehugger99

In Melbourne a long time ago.

Lovely city but we rented a really cheap ( and ****ty) place in a neighborhood full of prostitutes and drug dealers.

Only became apparent to us after a couple of days there. Never had too much trouble other than regular propositions. We didn't have anything worth robbing which probably helped.

fullstop

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

Redfern in 2004.

That is all.

It's actually a nice enough area these days, same as Newtown and some of the other suburbs have been regenerated.

Big Nasty

Worked in an Irish Pub in Germany 20+ years back. There were two long term rental apartments that staff used to stay in, lads in one, girls in the other. Apartments themselves were fine apart from the fact that every inch of free space had a bed in it meaning there were usually about 10 people living in each two bed apartment. To be fair that kind of happened organically as new staff were taken on and the landlords weren't aware of it.

As tends to happen when people are working abroad the sessions were unreal. There was very little drugs involved, mostly just drink. 14 hour work days followed by marathon drinking sessions. One lad ended up in hospital burned out. Anyhow the riding that was done was unnatural. Staff literally paired off and some nights there could be twenty staying in the one two bed apartment. It was like an orgie in every room with couples openly riding the hole of each other bareback as others went about their business.

Good times!

Stonedpilot

Big Nasty wrote: »

Worked in an Irish Pub in Germany 20+ years back. There were two long term rental apartments that staff used to stay in, lads in one, girls in the other. Apartments themselves were fine apart from the fact that every inch of free space had a bed in it meaning there were usually about 10 people living in each two bed apartment. To be fair that kind of happened organically as new staff were taken on and the landlords weren't aware of it.

As tends to happen when people are working abroad the sessions were unreal. There was very little drugs involved, mostly just drink. 14 hour work days followed by marathon drinking sessions. One lad ended up in hospital burned out. Anyhow the riding that was done was unnatural. Staff literally paired off and some nights there could be twenty staying in the one two bed apartment. It was like an orgie in every room with couples openly riding the hole of each other bareback as others went about their business.

Good times!

Haha.

Germany was always very Gay friendly .

Big Nasty

Stonedpilot wrote: »

Haha.

Germany was always very Gay friendly .

Maybe I explained it wrong but nobody was gay. Although given the chance I'm sure a few of them wouldn't have said no! :eek:

Stonedpilot

Big Nasty wrote: »

Maybe I explained it wrong but nobody was gay. Although given the chance I'm sure a few of them wouldn't have said no! :eek:

Ha was joking BN.

FakePie

Some shuddering stories, but - I have, the grand-daddy right here.

Wait'll you hear this:


In a highly populated city, where it was very difficult to find accommodation, let alone good accommodation - I was like, two months living in this 24 bed dorm hostel.
Folks getting their valuable lifted, nightly; the majority there to use drugs.

To be honest, most of them were so disengaged from reality on narcotics, that that atmosphere itself was quite tranquil.


I eventually find this place I can afford.

What, a dump - but I had a large room all to myself.

I'm talking, smell, uncleanliness, everywhere. On the walls, on the ceiling.
The curtains in the kitchen, they were so soaked in grease fat, that they had basically become rigid.
We're talking, more than a couple millimeters pure filth, on the floor.
Mouse infested, needless to say; though surprisingly I didn't see any roaches.

The dude that lived there, basically a social recluse.
Alls he did was sit on his computer - I kid you not - all day, every day.
It seemed he had become delirious via isolation.
He was also morbidly obese.


Anyways - this is the truth.
I thought I was pretty tough, so I could handle anything that might transpire in this depraved cesspit....

Cont. next post

FakePie

So I take the place.

Now, the guy had made some effort at tidying the room I was renting (2 bedroom flat), so, whilst the living quarters were obscene, the bedroom itself - for sure squalid, but not yet at "crack den" levels of unsightliness.

Give me - 4, maybe, 6 weeks.

I kid you not.
I had the place strewn with crumbs and "run off" effectively, from my binge eating of junk food in there.
Somehow, the mice never found their way into my room - which was a miracle.
We're talking, the bed, the floor, in couch.
I had basically accumulated this array of beer cans, stood upright and side by side, just beside the couch - which had began to take up a fairly hefty portion of the floor space.

The obese guy that lived that, had pretty much immediately began to blame me for the filth and depravity of the domicile; by example - there were food stains on the walls, probably dating back 10 years; pretty much part of the fabric at that point.
No cleaning material stood a chance against them.

The first week I was there, he started yelling at me for the awful mess in the kitchen.


So, naturally - I wasn't about to do this dude any favours.

The smell in the place already bad - but even he began to complain about the stench from my bedroom that materialized after my first few weeks there.

I had basically decided that washing bedclothes was not an option.

In addition to - being an absolute broke cheap skate - the guy would only allow me to use his wash machine on "eco-wash", which basically damped the clothes, but never cleaned them or took the smell out.

The upshot being, opening my bedroom window, would result in birds falling out of the sky.

Cont....

AllForIt

....Cont. The End.

FakePie

So you've got a clear picture.

Heinous already - I move in, and somehow, manage to accentuate the immoral level of filth.

I had acquired the habit of smoking these fcuk-off cigars, and decided - just as minor pay back, among other things to my obese living mate - to use his glasses as ash trays.
So my bedside locker was strewn with several glasses, containing cigar butts and ash - corresponding odours, etc.


Anyways - one fine summers evening, two or three months in, I was feeling peckish - so stuck on a pot full of pasta - on the gas stove in the kitchen - beside the grease soaked curtains.

I then retired to my bedroom, where I promptly fell asleep on the couch - given the warm sticky heat of the day.

My housemate was out, for once - basically not present.

I woke up maybe, 40 minutes later, and decided to go into the city center, have a mooch, leer at some hot girls etc.

So, some hour and half later, it was like - "I've forgotten something".

I realize in a panic I've left the dudes stove on full blast under a large pot of freaking macaroni.

When I enter the building upon my return, after having rushed back immediately, I can smell the smoke from the bottom of the staircase.

When I enter the apartment, I'm engulfed by a cloud of smoke.
I make my way into the kitchen - to see the entire cooker blackened, the wall half charred, and billows of black carbon smoke wafting out of the cauterized pot.

So, I handle the situation from there.


As you can imagine, in any normal environment with normal people, someone being so absent minded as to quite possibly almost take out the building via pyro-carelessness, will normally spell "walking papers".

Some time later when my housemate returned, he seemed to indulge himself initially in some yelling, and then when I offered to join him for something to eat - gladly accepted, and all was forgotten.


The reason being, he was so chronically socially withdrawn and malcontent, that anyone, offering to share time with him, let alone sit over food with him, would be so appreciated and valued - that it would transcend the possibility of a his apartment going up in a raging inferno.

FakePie

To surmise the rest of my time there:

The apartment would also be used to house stolen goods.

A temporary abode for prostitutes coming into the country from eastern europe.

A cocaine addict stayed over one night, and vomited all over the floor.


Yeah - we had some good times.
Good memories.

deisedav

ELM327 wrote: »

I think it's pretty self explanatory tbh

Please explain id like to hear. I Live in Waterford and think its a great place to live.

Big Nasty

Think I'd rather live with him than you tbh

Church on Tuesday

Went looking at a room in Galway one time.

The pictures on Daft looked fine, I was a student at the time and the rent was cheap.

Turns out there was a reason for that.

The house was owner occupied, it would only be me and him. Was welcomed at the front door (when It was eventually answered) by a fairly fidgety chap.

The front room was full of rubbish and clearly had not been cleaned in some time. The kitchen was knee deep with rubbish, I mean you could barely walk in.

All the time the owner is getting more and more nervous. Think he mentioned something about knocking down a wall in the house too.

Was shown the bedroom which had a load of his things strewn around and a not so new mattress.

My skin and hair was starting to get itchy at this stage, I assume from the less then hygienic surroundings, and at this stage I just wanted to get out and have a shower.

drillyeye

Another place I viewed was in Fairview/drumcondra. A "2 bedroom apartment" was the advertisement.

The reality was a dingy downstairs flat. And that's being generous. The living room was so narrow that the couch took up half the width, like, if you stood up from the couch you were practically face to face with the wall.

The 2 bedrooms are hard to describe. It was like someone put up a flimsy divide "wall" of plasterboard or something. The entrance to both bedrooms were beside each other, and the jewel in the crown was that the dividing wall between the bedrooms had a pane of glass/plastic at about shoulder height.

In other words, if you stood right next to the wall, you could look straight into the other bedroom.

Didn't even bother looking into the jacks, it was an "i'll call you" situation

Kip. This was back before the true boom took off in rental prices. There must be some pure, dantes inferno's out there now. You can only imagine!

ToddyDoody

Cutie 3.14 wrote: »

Waterford

I was on to Waterford and they told me to tell you... 'Go f*ck yourself'

ArnoldJRimmer

At the height of the Celtic Tiger, rented part of a house in Ranelagh. It was extremely difficult to get something at the time, and the rent was semi-reasonable. It looked like it was a fine house at one stage, but in typical Irish landlord fashion, zero effort was put in to make it habitable, and he cheaped out on everything

The carpets probably hadn't been replaced in 30 years, or at least it was impossible to make out what colours they originally were. The window frames were rotten, which became very evident once winter came. I had to tape up the windows in my bedroom to keep out the cold

Like a previous poster, the heat was controlled by the landlord. Only went on at certain times of the day and night during the winter which was fine during the week if you worked 9-5, but it was absolutely baltic when sitting in during the weekends.

The tiny bathroom had a leak in the ceiling coming from upstairs. I pointed this out to the landlord who blamed it on the tenants upstairs 'not using their shower curtain' which was kind of missing the point. We watched as the damp patch on the ceiling spread throughout the floor.

When we eventually had enough, the cheeky fcuker tried to bill us for the state of the jacks (all flood related). But did so before we had paid final rent which was cash in hand so I told him where to go. Left on amicable enough terms though and a few months later I was passing by so decided to check if there was any mail for us. To my surprise, the landlord answered the door, saying he was doing some work upstairs. Turned out the tenants on the second floor had a new years party, and the ceiling (very water damaged) collapsed into our old apartment below. No one injured thankfully, but our place was still vacant at that stage. Even after all this, the landlord was fixing it up himself to save a few bob

corks finest

Israel in the 86

drillyeye

Church on Tuesday wrote: »

Went looking at a room in Galway one time.

The pictures on Daft looked fine, I was a student at the time and the rent was cheap.

Turns out there was a reason for that.

The house was owner occupied, it would only be me and him. Was welcomed at the front door (when It was eventually answered) by a fairly fidgety chap.

The front room was full of rubbish and clearly had not been cleaned in some time. The kitchen was knee deep with rubbish, I mean you could barely walk in.

All the time the owner is getting more and more nervous. Think he mentioned something about knocking down a wall in the house too.

Was shown the bedroom which had a load of his things strewn around and a not so new mattress.

My skin and hair was starting to get itchy at this stage, I assume from the less then hygienic surroundings, and at this stage I just wanted to get out and have a shower.

A real professional landlord Sounds like renting a room was an afterthought, but putting up an ad would take more than 5 seconds!

corks finest

After Israel, kilburn,then leafy cricklewood