"It's basically just bad luck," says Anthony P, "that you lot got that house and not some other poor fuckers".
-Yeah, aint that the truth of privately rented accommodation in inner city student areas. The landlords can really take the piss with the rents and the standards coz they know plenty of people are gonna want to move in regardless, and on the whole they're gonna be naive 18 year olds fresh-faced from the Home Counties, the whole thing's a big adventure and as long as mummy and daddy keep on paying the rent everyone's giggly happy.

Shared houses. Communal living. After 5 and a half years I'm sick of it. Sick of fag butts in cups or on the plates. To be honest I'd rather they went on the floor.. Hey, call me obsessively clean if you will... Arguments about the washing up waste time I could be making it big, I'm not even gonna cry about, "Why can't we all just get along and live together?" coz I no longer want to hear other people's music, argue about bills, or fall out with friends anymore.

So my house is falling apart, even the fridge light's broken which I believe is just symptomatic of the state of things. Going to the Housing Advice Centre for tips on dealing with insane landladies was like having your worst nightmare confirmed. "Yes, we've heard of her already and got her down as dangerously disturbed, the last tenants..." Tales of harassment, intimidation, baseball bats and belongings in bin bags in pub car parks. Most of what she had told us seemed to be a complete fabrication. Where was the motive behind being a pathological liar cum landlady? I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I just wanted to leave, making sure I slapped her around a bit first, that's what I wanted. Legal and `proper', sensible channels would not give me the same satisfaction.

And now when I have my home visit from the housing fed, tomorrow, ready to offer me a luxury flat all of my own, the crazy goat has finally started doing the repairs overdue from the summer and being normal. I mean has she suddenly started taking the medication? I still don't trust her. She's only doing it to jeopardize my chances of ever leaving the treadmill of privately rented accommodation...

-When I lived in Bradford a lot of punks, mainly foreign kids, would ask why no-one in Bradford squatted and I would explain that it wasn't really like London and housing was reasonably easy and cheap to get hold of, so there wasn't really the same desperate need. I've always felt a bit of a lazyass coz I was never politically motivated enough to squat, but it's not something you can do on your own-I mean who squats in Leeds now save the Meanwood Rd lot, and it took people from outside the area with years of squatting experience to get that off the ground.

D'you know what Housing Advice did? They sent me a letter asking if I wanted to be on a BBC documentary about bad landlords-very constructive! I felt like I was on Neighbours or something-well, we won't help you, but here's your 15 minutes of fame anyway...
The moral? Never trust landladies or landlords with weird friends called `Tim' or `Trist', who may be christians, who try to take the place of your mother. In fact, never trust any landlords ever-just screw 'em for everything you can get...

-Nothing much else has happened...
thanks to Dawnbreed and The VSS for bringing in the new year with some excellent live music-pity most of the kids are too unimaginative to give something a bit different a chance... I do Shag Stamp zine and no.6 came out in December, £1 postpaid from me, I also disto female-made things... Till next time it's P.O Box 298, Sheffield S10 1YU,U.K.

Jane