17.33pm:   6 Clifton Grove, E8, Dalston

I cycled up Queensbridge Road into Hackney, then right into Graham Road. Actually, I think this is Dalston. I’ve cycled this way a few times before on my way to ASS, the Advisory Service for Squatters, on St Paul’s Road. This is the furthest north I journeyed on my search for new accommodation. I cycled up Queensbridge Road into Hackney, then right into Graham Road. Actually, I think this is Dalston. I’ve cycled this way a few times before on my way to ASS, the Advisory Service for Squatters, on St Paul’s Road. This is the furthest north I journeyed on my search for new accommodation.  This is a beautiful building. A converted hospital.

Loud music’scoming from the neighbour’s open window, filling the square. Soul music. Otherwise very quiet. Need to piss again. Not drinking enough. Almost finished.

On Tuesday the 20th of April at 7pm I went to meet Fiona. Hers was the third house I saw.

After searching for the house for a bit I finally found it. Fiona opened the door and led me in to a wide, high ceilinged space which was being used as a sort of junk storage space, perfect to park bicycles. Through this, an open-plan space, with high-ceilinged living-room connected to the kitchen. A man and a woman sat on the edges of the couch and armchair ready to greet me. I was introduced to Eleanor and Evan. There would be four of us in total. A kitchen bench-top over-looked the living room. A wide-screen television took centre stage here too.          

I was invited to sit down for an initial conversation. This was the only house where I met all the housemates. Curiously, we talked for about half an hour before they even showed me the room.

I learned that they never ate together, they were too busy. Fiona worked as a legal secretary, Eleanor was a physiotherapist and Evan made art objects from recycled bottles. They told me they watched television sometimes together in the living room, but mostly they just went to their bedrooms to watch TV and go to sleep.

I was even less impressed by the space. Upstairs was a sort of mezzanine, a bathroom, and my potential bedroom. Here, it was very low-ceilinged (as though someone had been drunk when they’d decided where to put the floors), and it was a small, cramped room with a little window that overlooked a field of dirt at the back of the house. Through the kitchen was a tiny back yard. They had done nothing to make it pleasant. Nothing was growing there and there were no chairs to sit on in warm weather.

The three of them were friendly and I felt that we were engaging successfully in a conversation. I felt their thirst for human contact. They were like plants that hadn’t been watered in a long time, or little animals that had been left in a dark room too long. I felt their friendship, their friendliness, which I reciprocated, sadly, knowing all the time that I would never live here. I felt that they wanted me to transform their lives, bring some colour into their home, that they would follow me. But I was just pretending, and I couldn’t wait to leave and get back out into the dirty, dark streets of Hackney.

This place really depressed me. I thought, this is how people live together in London in shared houses: they work long hours and come home to sleep. The only activity they can tolerate is to lose themselves in front of the TV together, or alone. They do nothing to make their home a pleasant place. They have no social life, no community, no rituals. Alienation-Central, and I wanted none of it. What was I going to do?

It’s funny how, coming back here now, I find the building beautiful.