The appalling offer in Bethnal Green is the ultimate nadir in the city’s spiralling housing crisis
We all know London’s expensive, right? It’s one of the first things that someone will say to you when you move to London. "It’s expensive, you know". You’ll laugh them off because you’ve landed a half-decent job with a not-so-meagre salary, or been accepted onto a Media Studies course at a place that your uncle still calls a "polytechnic". All you need to sort out now is that comfy spot in Zone 2 and you’ll have the keys to the city in no time.
Easy enough, you think. But then you get to London and you realise that everyone who warned you was right – you probably will end up living in a garden shed in a SpareRoom stranger’s lounge hiding under your duvet listening to other strangers do cheap drugs, talking absolute nonsense about politics until 7am, precisely 15 minutes before your alarm goes off to ensure you trundle off to work.
Joe Peduzzi is a brave man who managed to escape the grim reality of actually living in a shed with blacked out windows in the corner of a living room. Speaking to the Mirror, Peduzzi explained that he’d found the room advertised online but was unwilling to offer cast himself into hell quite that easily.
"I couldn’t believe what I was seeing," he said. "There was no chance I was paying £530 a month for that. When I first walked in I sort of noticed the shed in the background but didn’t really take it in. Then I scanned around the room and couldn’t see a bed so I asked where it was and the guy just pointed to the corner. I stuck my head in for a look but there was basically no room for movement. The mattress was right against the walls of this shed and the windows were blacked out. I had quite a hard time getting my head round it to be honest. I didn’t ask what the story behind it was but he seemed to think it was pretty normal."
Me, I’m intrigued by the guy who thinks this is normal. I’m fascinated by the guy who puts a shed in his living room, blacks out the windows and sets up a SpareRoom account. There are so many points at which a lot of other people would say, "ahhh shit, this is a bit odd isn’t it, think I’ll take down the shed and the advert."
Worryingly, the advert reportedly describes the shed as the "biggest room in the house". Flat with a shower under the bed, anyone?
