Shelter.

Don't know about you, but I believe that a decent, safe home should be a right.  I live in an allegedly developed nation, which once,  rightly or wrongly, ruled over most of the globe, invented a free-at-point-of-use health service, supplies free education for every child, allows its subjects religious freedom, and that the oppressed flock to, knowing their human rights will be protected. So how then is it, that the Slumlord has risen again to inflict misery on those who don't earn enough to spend £125,000 on a tiny 1.5 bedroomed flat?

The housing crisis is constantly in the news, and I for one know just how devastating substandard and overcrowded accommodation can be. It cost us our health, our safety, and it almost cost Elizabeth her life; a study by the housing charity, Shelter, found that children living in poor housing are up to ten times more likely to contract meningitis. To read that was like a slap in the face. And what's worse, is the knowledge that however bad our housing was, there were people in this country living in far worse conditions. 

I'm not going to talk about developing nations and the children forced to live on rubbish tips - that is another subject, and one that is to do with their governments who believe that a nuclear weapons programme is more important than looking after its citizens; or a church that teaches contraception is more of a sin than abandoning superfluous children to the streets, to be picked off by criminal flesh traders and corrupt police officers. 

No. This is about a developed nation that seems to be quite happily heading back to the days when people lived 10 to a room, infested with disease and vermin. And will sit back and let the slumlords charge through the nose for it. 

When I met my husband, the flat was big enough for myself and my two eldest children; Husband and I married, planned to buy after our wedding was out of the way, and live happily ever after. Well, Elizabeth was born 9 months after our wedding day, and in that time, housing costs went through the roof. Pun intended. The flat that had cost our landlord £27,000 was now worth 50k, 85k, 99k, 100k . (Finally sold for somewhere between £99,000 and £127,000 so I believe) How I don't know. It was still the same rotten windows, the same ancient boiler that wasn't checked for over six years, the same six foot square kitchen. However the market is driven, the fact boils down to this. We, like so many others, were now trapped.

As the years passed, and the prices climbed, so the mould appeared, thickened, climbed from the skirting to the coving. Too scared to rock the boat by insisting on gas safety checks, (after all, any roof is better than no roof), we placed carbon monoxide detectors everywhere, scrubbed off the mould and got on with it. Elizabeth fell ill, and got better. She and I developed asthma and allergies, we all lived with dodgy tummies. Every night, I fought sleep, terrified that this would be the night the boiler killed us as we slept. 

We put up with it and worked around everything as best as we could. After all, we had nowhere else to go. We put our names on the council list and just got on with it. Then, after a crisis, came a surprise baby, my son, who quite frankly saved my life. Now, although I support the rights of women, there are certain rights that I could never choose; My son had a right to life that I would protect, and bugger the sniffs of self-righteous indignation that met the news of this pregnancy. It would be a squeeze, but we were squeezed anyway. There comes a point where one more doesn't make much of a difference.

About this time, I had a vague notion that the council just might have been...fobbing us off. After seven years on the list, they had placed us in Band C, which is the "Might get rehoused before you retire" band. Had a neighbour not turned out to be evil personified, I probably wouldn't have pushed it. But I was now at the point of suicidal thoughts and anti-depressants. The neighbour was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. I remember saying to Husband that I thought it possible that we should have been in Band B, if not A. 

Then it was Christmas Day, 2009. We had never been able to spend Christmas in our flat, as we didn't have an oven. Husband and I were at this point sleeping on a foam fold out sofabed in the living room. As I watched my children open their presents I thought to myself how THIS would be the last Christmas we spent in that hole.

Noel Edmonds. No, not in a Terry Wogan way. Noel believes in something called Cosmic Ordering. After snarkling up my sleeve at it, I decided to give it a try. Nothing ventured nothing gained, right? So as her next door cackled through the walls, I managed to keep a straight face as I asked the universe for a decent, safe home, yadda yadda yadda. Then I forgot about it and never asked again, as ordered by, well, Cosmic Ordering. And carried on being the old woman who lived in a shoe, propped up by Sertraline and the occasional breakdown, bidding on council houses that we would never be considered for.

The following May, a local councillor was doing the rounds, knocking on doors, canvassing for votes and pressing the flesh. When he knocked at ours, I was tired and worn out, about to growl "No thanks" at him. But then he spoke to me. He asked me if there was anything he could do for me. I told him that Yes, please come in and see how we live. He came in. He saw. And he was horrified.

He asked to borrow our PC, from which he fired off an e-mail to a different department. From that moment, things moved at warp speed, and I can honestly say that this man, a rare man who actually cares about his constituents, helped save my life, saved our family. My mind was so overwhelmed by our home, the NeighbourThing, that my depressed mind had been telling me that if I killed myself, my children would have more room. But this wonderful man achieved more in five days than I had done in five years.

A housing inspector was sent round, who classified us as statutorily overcrowded. As the goalposts for that have never been changed since the decade they were conceived, that is a rare classification. He told us that the council would be breaking the law by making us live there. And on 19th May, we were moved from Band C to Band A, and would be housed within six weeks. We signed for this wonderful home less than a month after that. My children enrolled at my old primary school. Space to breathe, think, feel. Space for an oven as well. And no neighbours necessitating calls to the police and a panic attack. 

From day one, I have thanked Goodness, the universe, my lucky stars for this wonderful privilege.

So that is the story of our experience of poor housing. And it also brings me to the bells. As you may have guessed, this home was our half a miracle, and one that I will always give thanks for. But it was on hearing those bells that it all hit home. Everything I had asked the universe for, or thought of in passing through the years, we had received. From the area, to the school, to the garden, to the bells. The bells of my childhood. This once notoriously bad-news road was now our home, and I can now sleep. I don't need to spend all night watching over my family any more. 

An anchor, roots, these are precious things. We as a nation are sleepwalking backward to the kind of place Jack the Ripper might have roamed. If you don't believe me, have a look at the Shelter website. I know how poor housing nearly killed my daughter. It nearly killed me. But we were lucky, we got out. For many, their nightmare really is just beginning. 
Shall we stop it now?