Fractional lives, permanent anxiety
Being evicted wasn't on my 2025 bingo card especially as I work promoting London as the place to be, but there's a first time for everything.
At the end of 2024, during my usual bedtime procrastination, I stumbled across one of those Instagram tarot accounts that prompt you to pick an image or symbol to reveal a prediction. If you haven’t seen them pop up in your feed, it means we have different thresholds of anxiety about what the future holds. Personally, I’ll hold onto anything that offers me a glimpse of how much I need to fear what’s about to happen because I’d rather plan my cortisol spikes ahead, you see.
That’s how on the cusp of leaving 2024 behind for good, I found myself in bed, phone in hand, clicking on post from one of these accounts which read “Something that may happen to you in 2025.” Out of the three symbols I could choose from, I went for the prediction hidden under a pink disco ball because I thought it would be the bearer of bright and sparkly omens. “In 2025, you may face a significant moment of disruption or upheaval, something that could challenge the stability or comfort you’ve built. This could happen around March/April,” it said.
Oh.
Am I going to be kicked out of my house?
I had no grounds to be worried about that being remotely a possibility and yet my stomach contracted in the same way it’s done in the past when I’ve been right about something I wanted to be wrong. It’s called a gut feeling for a reason: You just know something is off without further evidence. How long you want to live in denial after that is up to you.
When last week a letter appeard in the mailbox, in the handwritting of my landlady, I felt that same pang in the stomach than when I read that tarot prediction only a couple of months earlier and once more I just knew.
It was an eviction notice.
One of my biggest fears in life -which has conditioned many of the decisions I’ve taken or avoided- had just materialised despite all my efforts to prevent that situation from happening. My other two biggest fears are death and men who are emotional cripples. Those two I’ve also tried to prevent from happening but there’s only so much you can do.
I’ll spare you the nitty-gritty of the past week because the only editorial line I’ve ever followed for this newsletter is “fun not rants.”
I don’t hide that at the moment it’s kind of difficult not to be resentful or host a very visceral and deep-rooted hatred towards anyone who is a landlord, homeowner or simply British. I’m trying my best to keep my emotions in check because 1) I happen to work with many people who tick all those boxes and right now I can’t risk lashing out on any of them and find myself not only without a roof over my head but also without a job, and 2) I also know that as unfair as I find my situation to be, it’s no one’s fault that my landlady is, by her own admission, someone who couldn’t be trusted as a soldier as she’d jump the gun too fast.
Because the most ridiculous thing of this situation is that now she is regretting her decision and has profusely apologised -even suggesting if I want to stay after I asked her for references for a new flat- while at the same time asking me when I’m moving out exactly as even with an eviction notice you have the right to stay put in your flat after the notice deadline.
I’m actually quite impressed with myself for how I’m handling things as clearly I’m dealing with someone that must have been in charge of tortures in a past life, as my flatmate said to me recently while we both tried to make sense of such erratic behaviour. We both want out fast.
However, there’s been lots of crying out of frustration over the past week, both in private and in public. There’s no point in pretending I’m doing fine when I’m barely holding it together. A wise woman -who is a very dear friend- taught me that one can be both vulnerable and strong and there is no need to mask either quality to reinforce the other. In fact, she showed me how it’s important to let your vulnerability be seen in equal measure to your strength. This has been a big personal learning curve as I tend towards hyper-independence and self-reliance so I’m grateful I listened to that friend years ago and followed her advice so I can give people who want to help the opportunity to do so.
What’s also been a learning curve it’s the process of renting a flat through an estate agent, something I last did 15 years ago and wasn’t looking forward to repeating. Although all things considered, it’s fair to say a private landlord hasn’t been much better.
Gone are the days when one searched for a room on Gumtree, responded to an ad with a blurry picture, showed up to an appointment with a stranger with the first month of rent in cash and sealed the deal.
As dodgy as it sounds, that’s how I found my first place to stay in London. No questions asked, no problems either moving in our out when you wanted, and for less than £400, bills included, I landed a room in zone 3. Besides, I had the opportunity to immerse myself in Hungarian culture as most of my flatmates were from the Magyar country. Maybe as a result of the landlord being Hungarian himself and running a sub-sub let in a couple of council houses in close proximity to each other.
At that first flat I also met two very funny Spanish flatmates in forced exile as a result of the economic crisis of 2008-2009. One was an engineer and the other a chef and they both had wounded up at Pret A Manger, which pre-Brexit was the London version of Ellis Island. Anyone who came into this country in search of a job and had the skills but lacked the English knew that they only needed to drop by the Victoria office of Pret and they’d walk out with an offer.
In fact, before I came to London to work, my first trip to this city was to visit two friends of a former boyfriend who despite having great jobs in Spain, had decided to take a break to come to London and learn English. Because they needed a job to pay the rent and the English classes, they worked at Pret. In line with other stories I’ve heard over the years, as a result of speaking with regular clients and their English improving over time, one of them found a job in a bank as analyst (he had a degree in physics) and the other ended up working in a research lab in Cambridge (she was a chemist by training).
Pret and Gumtree were the de facto support system of international talent that came to London in search of new opportunities where their skillset could make a difference even though their English couldn’t express it. If it hadn’t been for the freedom of movement, the easiness to access a low-skill job and a room to live in, many of the people I know who are still in London working as notaries, translators, directors of companies, or lawyers wouldn’t have been able to make a significant contribution to this city, where they have settled and created jobs.
A lot has changed and happened (Brexit, a pandemic) since I first arrived in this city where anything seemed possible and where many of us discovered that we were valued and appreciated in ways that back home were unthinkable and who made us want to build our lives here in recognition of what London was offering to us: The possibility to dream of a better future, one where we could lead full lives and leave behind the anxiety of the precarious job market back home that made it impossible to plan a future ahead.
We were not the first nor the last to have felt that way as immigrants often make significant contributions to their adoptive countries. It was in fact the Windrush generation who helped rebuild the UK after WWII by bringing a wide range of skills in construction, public transport, factories and manufacturing or in the nascent NHS, where many women worked as nurses.
While I’m no longer in that sub-sub let of my early London days with seven other people and one bathroom, being evicted has been a slap on the face as I’m currently in the middle of a gruelling, demoralising and soul-sucking reference process managed by an AI bot, not even a real person, where I feel every aspect of my life is being scrutinised and put into question only because I would like to have a roof over my head after having been unexpectedly kicked out of the place I’ve lived in for the past 7 years.
I’ve discovered that in the post-Brexit world I need to prove I have the right to rent as I don’t have a British Passport, that I make enough money to afford rent (which one would think is the case if I’m enquiring about a specific property), and that I have a proper job. It’s almost as if I was being made suddenly unwelcome for no reason at all by the same system that received me with open arms when I first came to live here. At least I haven’t been asked to provide the blood of a virgin because that ship has long sailed.
If it all goes well and I’m still alive by the end of this process, I may be able to secure a new flat. If not, I’ll have to start over and I presume a new AI bot, from another estate agency, will make me regret my status as a single woman and will no doubt push me to open a Hinge account in a panic and start looking for home owners who are between 60 and 90. That’s the age bracket where I stand a chance if I play my cards right.
This whole eviction experience has made me nostalgic for a time when things were perhaps imperfect in many ways but a lot less stressful.
I’ve known the London where finding a place to live was fairly easy and cheap and one only needed to pay the first month of rent to prove they have funds. While it wasn’t unusual to come across ads where rent could be negotiable in exchange of certain favours, the reality is that most people managed to find a relatively decent place to live where they also made good friends (who didn’t expect anything in return). There were also horror stories but I’m surprised they used to be the exception and not the rule given the size of this city.
Which takes us to how the tables have turned.
Given my line of work supporting international companies expand into London, my unexpected eviction and the process of looking for a new flat have provided a new perspective on the conversations and events that have taken place over the past week, which have proven to be as prophetic as that Instagram prediction back in 2024 and have prompted me to reflect on the future we’re collectively building not only for London but for future generations anywhere in the world as automatisation and, and more worryingly, depersonalisation, are increasingly on the rise.
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Usually people in my situation are a bit more savvy and take these life-altering events to gather material for a self-help book or a memoir that becomes an instant best-seller in which they tell you how they turned around a dreadful situation into the best thing that happened to them, wrapped in a title along the lines of, “How being evicted improved my life and made me fitter,” “Eviction: The path to success,” or “Evicted and happy in ten simple steps.” Personally, I would push it a bit and go for “It’s easy to be evicted if you know how.”
However, I am sorry to disappoint you but I’m not that type.
Being evicted sucks and it’s one of the cruelest things that can happen to anyone ever, especially when there is no reason for the eviction other than the foolishness of an incompetent landlord, or landlady in my case, legally supported by an unfair system that treats tenants, even the exceptional ones, as the scum of society instead of human beings who have the same rights to a safe and clean living space as homeowners. Not to speak of lodgers, who have it even worse as some can’t even enjoy the same freedoms for a place they are paying to live in.
Writer and activitist for better homes Alva Gotby explains the current predicament and lack of protection for renters in the UK in her latest book Feeling at Home. Transforming the Politics of Housing:
The Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST) regime, of which Section 21 is a key aspect, was designed to be maximally profitable for landlords and minimally secure for renters. This insecurity and profitability are two sides of the same coin. An AST is a fixed-term contract which can be as short as six months, after which the tenancy automatically becomes a periodic tenancy - meaning the landlord can use the Section 21 process to end it at any time. This effectively undermines many of the legal rights that renters do have - if we insist that those rights are respected, the landlord might tell us to leave. The law is not only a system of legal acts, courts and judges. Perhaps, more importantly, it is the creation of forms of subjectivity that encourage people to act or not to act in specific ways. Private renters, living with the spectre of Section 21, are less likely to demand their legal right to live in a home fit for human habitation, free from serious hazards or obvious structural damage. Instead, we come to accept what is offered to us, which is mostly homes in a sorry state. Some 21 per cent of homes in the private rented sector in England do not live up toe the Decent Home Standard, which requires that homes are free from serious risks to health and safety.
To put into context Goitby’s words, under the current law, Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 allows landlords to evict tenants under an Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST), which is the standard contract in England on 2 months’ notice. Section 21 is also known as a “no-fault eviction”, as landlords do not need to give a reason for the eviction.
It’s not surprising that the latest English Housing Survey found that “owner occupiers had higher scores for life satisfaction, thinking life is worthwhile, happiness, and lower scores for anxiety, than other tenures”. But happiness and low levels of anxiety shouldn’t be the privilege of a few, regardless of the way they choose -or can afford- to live.
Different UK Governments have promised, and failed to, abolish Section 21, which has seen 110,000 no-fault evictions take place across England since 2019. If you think eviction could never happen to you, like I did until a week ago, a visit to Generation Rent’s website -an organisation which campaigns for every home in the private rented sector to be safe, secure and affordable- will show you a wide range of testimonies from people who have been served a Section 21 and found themselves looking for a new house unexpectedly.
It seems that 2025 may be the year where the Renters’ Rights Bill, which is currently on its way to the House of Lords, will put an end to Section 21 as well as provide marginally more rights to renters, including rent control, something Paris has already implemented and which Londoners are keen to support.
While I should rejoice about this much awaited reform, it is also the reason I find myself in this situation in first place as the upcoming implementation of the Bill has caused a spike in no-faults evictions.
“More and more people are selling in a panic -and therefore serving evictions- ahead of the new Bill coming into legislation,” the estate agent confessed to me when I visited him on Saturday to bring over some documents. “And because people can’t afford to buy at the same rate that houses are becoming available, what’s happening is that corporations are buying up the stock and becoming landlords.”
In fact, when I reviewed the provisional agreement for the flat I hope to get, the landlord name was not that of a person but a company. Something I feel extremely conflicted about and which wouldn’t have been my choice at all had I known in advance but right now the priority is securing a home that is clean, safe and I can afford, and unfortunately properties that meet these three bare minimum requirements are extremely hard to come by. To the point TikTok has had a field day comparing London rentals with European prisons.
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I can’t talk about being evicted without talking about what I do for a living because it’d be disingenuous on my part and may come across as self-censorship. If you’re a regular reader of this publication, you know that the personal and professional often collide. On this occasion they crash.
I am a foreigner who supports international companies expand to London so they can create jobs here.
I contribute to make the city more vibrant, more diverse, more exciting by bringing over foreign direct investment across creative technology sectors and I support my clients grow, expand internationally from here and hire local talent to create economic growth for London. I love speaking to people coming from very different walks of life across the globe because every conversation with someone that is exciting about starting a life here reignites my love for this city and for what I do when I feel my affection for it faltering.
London is also beacon of diversity and a multilingual metropolis that has no match in the world. On any given day I can speak English, Italian, Spanish or French without having to go out of my way, something that brings together all the different parts that conform my identity and allows them to co-exist in the same place. It’s one of the reasons why I am so addicted to this city: I don’t have to choose which version of me I am because I can be all of them at once.
It’s the place I’ve found my first proper job, fallen in and out of love, had a burnout, survived Brexit, organised a dinner for 500 people with the King and Queen of Spain, met exceptional friends, cried when they’ve left London, survived a pandemic, changed homes a couple of times, and even been evicted. And despite everything, here I still am, uncertain about the future but hopeful that it’ll bring something worth waiting for.
While I don’t consider myself above anyone else who has been evicted or feel entitled to any special treatment to secure a home because of my job, I would at least like to speak to a person who can put themselves on my shoes and see that I’ve made London my home and I’m still willing to champion it to others even when all the odds are stacked against me.
I doubt the AI bot that is processing my references -nor the corporate landlord eventually- cares in the least about who I am or what I have done for or in this city, whether through work or my dedication to fund cultural industries via all the books I buy, concerts I go to, plays I recommend to others or films I rave about and which have been produced in the UK as a result of incentives the government has implemented and which I make sure I flag to any client in the film sector so they can see the benefits of setting a presence here and hiring local staff.
More worryingly, I doubt they would have any empathy for me should anything happen to me or anyone close that forces me to leave London for a while. As inconsistent and foolish my landlady is, she was at least reasonably accommodating when my flatmate had to face an unexpected family crisis that forced her to spend several months out of London.
If we let relationships of this kind to become sheer transactions and reduce human interaction to the bare minimum, or remove them altogether, in important areas of our lives, be it to save time to process references or avoid the discomfort of dealing with conflict or minor inconveniences, we’re also removing the empathy that comes with understanding and seeing people fully, and not only as a faceless bank statement that can guarantee rent will be collected timely each month, thank you very much.
This is a clear fracture of any social contract we may have expected to still be in place by now: A rise in automation, corporate versus individual ownership, and depersonalisation of interactions all eventually leading to an irreparable erosion of trust.
Another interesting conversation I’ve had this past week revolved around the rise of “fractional jobs,” which is a new term to describe freelancing. The context was how the UK market has become a bit more stagnant and people aren’t leaving permanent jobs.
The conversation touched on how the massive layoffs that have taken place in the tech sector, along with the rise of AI tools that can automate certain functions, have created more instability and people are holding on to their jobs longer. This is another contrast with how London used to be: A dynamic job market where people changed jobs when they had outgrown their position because there was a better opportunity for them.
At my old workplace I met someone who job hopped every two years, three maximum, because in her sector “everyone did and if I don’t it looks as if I don’t want to progress,” she confessed one day as she showed me around the new luxury hotel she had just joined as director of sales with a generous pay rise. Clearly other times.
During this conversations on jobs, we also discussed the relative easiness of firing someone in the UK as opposed to other markets, which paradoxically makes it a more attractive place to hire. While this is not new information, in my current circumstances I can’t help to think how that is a good thing, especially as having a permanent job has been fundamental for me to appease the AI bot about my ability to secure a new place to live because I can prove I have a stable employment. Without that, I would be facing a lot more hurdles and the thought of that gives me an instant anxiety attack. I promise you I’ve had my share for the whole 2025 by now.
How can anyone project themselves in the future when they are forced to lead fractional lives, fulfilled by permanent anxiety about not being able to secure permanent employment that allows them to pay rent for a decent place to live, or how they’d face any change in their circumstances, whether an eviction or the loss of a job, when there is so little stability? When did it become so hard to exist?
Gone are the days where a Pret job could cover rent, bills and the English course that would see you through to your next job opportunity, which may as well come in the form of a conversation with a regular client who took the time to get to know you. If you visit a Pret now, any of the ones who have survived the pandemic anyway, it’s a depressing sight after the exodus of international staff. Transactions are completed as quickly, silently, and avoiding eye contact as much as possible.
This used to be a place where you were offered free coffee just because, could have a lovely chat with someone at the till and learn about all the degrees they had and the interviews they were going for while waiting for your order, and walk out with a nice compliment on something you were wearing.
A visit to Pret used to made your day unexpectedly, there was always a chaotic energy that was very welcoming because like Timothée Chalamet everyone was in pursuit of greatness. I very much doubt Pret is still the gateway to a better life, a place where people can afford to dream of a brighter future.
Although I’m not sure how things would turn out for me, I’ve read If This is a Man by Primo Levi and Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl which means I know the key to survive and prevail in the direst of circumstances is to hold on to your humanity and never lose hope, no matter how bad things are. This is my cue to thank Liz, a reader of this publication whom I’ve known for years and who kindly invited me to a French conversation evening which has been one of the few moments I’ve managed not to think about my eviction as I had bigger fish to fry: Agonise over when to use the subjonctif.
I don’t want to say that I consider myself lucky because lucky is someone who finds a winning lottery ticket on the street and can retire after cashing it in, or lands a dream job that allows them to earn shitloads of money doing what they like most while working very little, or manages to marry the last remaining eligible bachelor under 45 with a full set of teeth, decent hair, and own house on Hinge, but I am at least in a position to afford to rent a (very modest) place to live on my own AI bot permitting, which is not always the case for people who find themselves evicted overnight.
As I’m still in the middle of personal turmoil a week after having received my eviction letter, the Mayor of London has announced the London Growth Plan, a 10-year strategy “to help create 150,000 new, high-quality jobs and turbocharge inclusive, sustainable economic growth in our city, and across the country.”
I’ve been leafing through its 110 pages already as it’s part of my role to understand the direction London is going into as I’ll be responsible for supporting that vision. I was glad to see it acknowledges openly the challenges I’m flagging and experiencing in first person about talent and housing and how in order to attract and retain the best people, they need to be able to access affordable and well-connected places to live.
This is a long-term plan that will take time to yield tangible results, but like Pret back in the day, it contains the promise of a better future, not for a few but for many. While only time will tell what gets delivered in the next decade, it’s reassuring to know there have been conversations about how to support people who want to make this city richer with their work and more diverse, or are looking forward to the opportunity to do so.
And let’s remember one more time that immigrants often make great contributions to their adoptive countries. London doesn’t want to miss out on claiming me as a homegrown talent once I achieve the level of global recognition that demands I have my own Wikipedia entry, which I’ll make sure reads, “Spanish-born, London-based author who finally manages to lead a full life with minimum anxiety against all odds.”
In the meantime, and because sudden fame and riches did not appear on that tarot prediction for 2025 that has proved right in the most absurd way, I’ve signed up to be part of Generation Rent’s Renters Panel.
Abroad is reader-supported publication about London, living in between cultures, languages, books, music, films, creativity, and being human in the age of artificial intelligence.
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Sorry you’re having to deal with this headache, Cristina. What a pain.
Ouch, I'm so sorry you are dealing with this. The renting market is absolute madness. This is one of the reasons why we left London - but it's not much different here in Brighton these days.