Seeing Red

It is confession time. Yesterday, I actually found myself uttering the words 'you posh hipsters', in public, directed at a resident from that part of the street that is all Victorian terrace on the outside and undergoing constant renovation within. 'Uttering' is perhaps too demure a verb to use in this instance. It was more yelling in a crazy woman kind of way at a man who, when I busted him using our bins for his overflow of waitrose leftovers, made the mistake of justifying his behaviour by saying 'I pay my taxes, I can put my garbage wherever I want'. No, sir, no you can't.

In the past when I have found people fly tipping on my doorstep I have employed all the non-violent communication and buddhistly skills I have been trained over the years to deploy. I've taken their hand, introduced myself, quietly and calmly explained the obvious situation - that if they keep putting their garbage in our bins then the bins overflow and we have rats and foxes spreading germs and half eaten babies' nappies all over our front yards - and then I have watched them smile and continue to put their garbage in our bins. Probably, I suspected, because they think it's a scummy estate and they pay their tax and can put their garbage wherever they like, or at least anywhere but in front of their own heavily mortgaged homes.

Enough is enough. It is time for outrage and justice. It is time for some name calling and yelling in the street, in front of everyone. It is time for Luther and Alice to kick some butt!

Now I know that I also shop at Waitress most of the time (actually I get it home delivered - an obvious sign of gentrification when delivery trucks with kale or blueberry paint jobs feel comfortable parking in your neighbourhood). I could possibly earn more than the man I called a posh hipster. I am petite bourgeoisie from my toe nails to my hair follicles. And I know that yelling at the man in the street will probably only increase his desire to place his garbage on our estate (and he did at least separate out his recycling and put it in the bin rather than leave it lying on top or on the ground as so many others do). But I have to also confess that for the few minutes it took to berate him for his selfishness, no matter how lacking in coherence and logical argument,  it did feel pretty good.

Ultimately though this madness is a symptom of the housing crisis that leads to middle class residents buying tiny two bedroom Victorian conversions for a sum, on average, 16 times their London salary according to the National Housing Federation; a space in which they find it impossible to store themselves, their kids, their flat screens and their garbage if they miss collection day, which perhaps leads them to say things like 'I pay my taxes and can do what I want'. It seems the only leverage they have is to piss on down the hierarchy. Private renter activists like DIGS highlight the growing resentment felt by this squeezed Middle that must spend too much on a basic necessity that has become part of an artificial market created by previous governments who now keep it propped up by transnational mobility and investment. Parts of this Middle, with few rights in the face of absent landlords and short term leases, look at the low rents and charges of social housing with an aggrieved eye and seemingly little comprehension that we're all of us, private tenants, leaseholders, freeholders and social housing, living with a precarity of ideological making. Where we put the garbage will be the least of our problems if the politics of London and nationally with regards to housing don't change.