When Rent went Rotten-Pop up Art project in Rusholme supported by Generation Rent

A pop up community project art project about the nation’s housing crisis and the importance of home has begun this week in Rusholme.

When Renting Went Rotten is the inspiration of Georges Almond, who lives in the property on Langdale Road which is being turned into a gallery for the next week before the project moves to Islington Mill.

The project is supported by Generation Rent, an organisation who campaign with private renters for professionally managed, secure, decent and affordable privately rented accomodation.

The idea behind the exhibition is according to Georges because “we feel bullied and browbeaten. Loads of people do. Loads of people in this country spend loads of their money on houses that make them ill, because the alternative could be homelessness. And we don’t even think it’s wrong. I used to accept it, because everyone else did. Ho hum. Business as usual. Keep calm and carry on. Bollocks! We’ve got rights! Let’s stand up for them, and get more.”

Georges tells the story 

“When we moved in it was a nice warm autumn day and the house looked nice. There wasn’t much mould. We pointed to some little patches. The estate agent said it was ‘condensation’ or ‘pollution’ or some such bollocks. We were naive and excited about the basement, so we signed up straight away. The guy could tell we were on the line so he said the agency fees were ninety pounds each. Now we know that agency fees are totally rubbish and should be banned, because the estate agents get money off the landlord. They are banned in Scotland and loads of other countries. This Britain. We do things wrong here. Sorry, deviated. I am angry about many aspects of this issue.

The landlord promised to make various reparations. He said he’d get us dehumidifiers, fire doors (we don’t have any doors on the kitchen), a new microwave because the old one is all rusty. Did he balls! We got a little plastic pound shop dehumidifier off him before he stopped paying his mortgage and ownership of the property passed to the bank. Oh, but he still told us to carry on paying him rent, because he’s a dodgy so-and-so. I payed him one more month even though we’d had a letter from some random company telling us not to. What can I say? I like to give my money to people rather than abstract concepts.

The bank were no better. They didn’t fix the damp, and it drove two housemates out. We spent three weeks without a cooker because they didn’t want to replace it. They did in the end, and what a song and dance did they make of it. We’re not paying our rent any more. They tell us they’re okay with that, because we’ve agreed to be out by the end of March. They just want to sell the place. We like not paying rent, but we’d rather have somewhere healthy to lay down roots. We thought we had that. They’re still sending us threatening legal letters. We don’t know why, but we’re not too scared because they’re being fairly illegal.”