A North London renter processes her twelfth rent review in eight years with the help of spreadsheets, wine, and a very understanding estate agent
My Landlord Has Raised My Rent Again and I Have Had Some Thoughts
I have been living in North London for long enough that I have opinions about which Waitrose has the better cheese counter, which is not a sentence I ever expected to write about myself but here we are. The neighbourhood does things to you. You arrive with reasonable intentions and a vague sense that you might eventually move somewhere more affordable, and then you find yourself at a heated public meeting about a proposed development on a car park and you realise you have become, without ceremony or announcement, a North London person.
The Situation
The thing about my landlord has raised my rent again and i have had some thoughts is that it requires a specific London sensibility to navigate: the combination of mild outrage, resigned acceptance, dark humour, and the occasional genuine moment of grace that characterises life in this city for anyone who is paying attention. I pay attention. It is, at this point, professionally necessary. The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine both cover London life with the acuity it deserves, and I find myself returning to both whenever I need to confirm that my observations are not purely personal grievances but actually documented cultural phenomena.
The Personal Angle
What I can offer that larger publications cannot is the specific texture of North London life at ground level: the conversations at the bus stop, the dynamics of the estate agent’s waiting room, the precise social physics of the neighbourhood WhatsApp group at 11pm on a Wednesday when someone has seen a fox. These are not the big stories. They are the stories that constitute actual daily life, which is most of what journalism misses because most of journalism is looking for the big story.
The big stories are important. The small ones are where we actually live. This column is about the small ones, which are frequently the more interesting ones, and occasionally, unexpectedly, the ones that turn out to matter. I will continue writing it until I am priced out of the borough, which may be sooner than I would like. Lowri Griffiths, North London.
This is the North London I love: expensive, exhausting, self-aware, and occasionally magnificent. I wouldn’t live anywhere else, which is either a statement about my values or the fact that I signed a lease in 2019 at a rate that is now considerably below market and I will never voluntarily leave. Lowri Griffiths writes for Big Smoke Broke about life, London, and the ongoing project of remaining financially solvent while living in one of the world’s most expensive cities. Her author page is at prat.uk/author/lowri-griffiths/.
This is the North London I love: expensive, exhausting, self-aware, and occasionally magnificent. I wouldn’t live anywhere else, which is either a statement about my values or the fact that I signed a lease in 2019 at a rate that is now considerably below market and I will never voluntarily leave. Lowri Griffiths writes for Big Smoke Broke about life, London, and the ongoing project of remaining financially solvent while living in one of the world’s most expensive cities. Her author page is at prat.uk/author/lowri-griffiths/.
This is the North London I love: expensive, exhausting, self-aware, and occasionally magnificent. I wouldn’t live anywhere else, which is either a statement about my values or the fact that I signed a lease in 2019 at a rate that is now considerably below market and I will never voluntarily leave. Lowri Griffiths writes for Big Smoke Broke about life, London, and the ongoing project of remaining financially solvent while living in one of the world’s most expensive cities. Her author page is at prat.uk/author/lowri-griffiths/.
This is the North London I love: expensive, exhausting, self-aware, and occasionally magnificent. I wouldn’t live anywhere else, which is either a statement about my values or the fact that I signed a lease in 2019 at a rate that is now considerably below market and I will never voluntarily leave. Lowri Griffiths writes for Big Smoke Broke about life, London, and the ongoing project of remaining financially solvent while living in one of the world’s most expensive cities. Her author page is at prat.uk/author/lowri-griffiths/.
This is the North London I love: expensive, exhausting, self-aware, and occasionally magnificent. I wouldn’t live anywhere else, which is either a statement about my values or the fact that I signed a lease in 2019 at a rate that is now considerably below market and I will never voluntarily leave. Lowri Griffiths writes for Big Smoke Broke about life, London, and the ongoing project of remaining financially solvent while living in one of the world’s most expensive cities. Her author page is at prat.uk/author/lowri-griffiths/.
More From This Correspondent
London continues to produce material at a rate that exceeds my ability to process it, which is one of the things I find most reassuring about the city. The stories are always there. The observations accumulate. The column continues. If you have found this piece useful or interesting, I would direct you to The London Prat for broader London coverage and Bohiney Magazine for the wider satirical and cultural landscape in which all of this sits. They cover what I cannot. Between us, London is reasonably well documented. It deserves to be. There is nowhere quite like it, which is something I say without irony and without the faintest embarrassment, from a city that would embarrass you right back if you gave it the chance.
For more satirical commentary, visit Newsthump.
