The Flat....

The Flat

One of many bedsits sits halfway down York Road and is on the top floor. It's a loft conversion, done so that the owner could rent out as much space out to people on benefits as possible. It's guaranteed money he gets from the DWP each week.

The landlord owns half the street of houses on the road, once all 3 bedroom houses, now all 4 room bedsits with a shared bathroom. He himself lives far away in a luxurious mansion, ignoring constant pleas to fix lamps, damp and leaking taps. Flipping homes for benefits is a good earner, you can get a mortgage for a block and pay it off within a year, all on the taxpayers card. However his tenants don't live as well as he does.

There is always a stink when entering this one bedsit I know, either someone exhaling stale smoke, or something being cooked up in a spoon. It's a constant 24 hour trap den that you don't want to spend too much time in.

The smell is a mixture of cigarette smoke and bicarb, with coke cans crumbled in half lying on almost every top that's visible, ash spilt about everywhere, and blood stains on the walls and carpet.

There is no TV, or any cooking appliances apart from a solitary microwave that had been stolen from a local shop, not that there is anything in any of the cupboards to heat up and eat. Not that anyone in the room feels like eating anyway, it will probably soon go that the TV and fridge did, down to the local porn shop down by the arcade for a quick earn.

The room is sparse, a solitary sofa bed lies against the back wall and a poster of the Sex Pistols is the only decoration I can see on the wall full of cobwebs. Everything else has been hockyed. A table sits in front of the sofa with multiple knifes, lighters and scattered filters.

An ashtray is constantly burning up fags up for ash, and lumps of spontex and acetone lie next to crusty white empty spoons across the rotten brown table. A fag box filled with tissues sits under one of the table legs to keep it in balance. The whole flat feels like it's on a slant and the house is probably subsiding, not that the occupant cares.

This is not a place for living in but then the person here doesn't have long to live anyway.

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