Paris & Southampton: Paying for housing " in kind", not to mention having a murder in the house

When I lived in a shared house (i.e. a house of bed-sits) in the Polygon in Southampton in 1986, I had just finished my Degree, and was in my first proper (professional) job. I remember paying £30.00 per week in rent, and sharing with a right lively motley crew of characters:

Bill - a nervous, 40+, reformed (tee-total etc) Geordie ex "merchant sailor" - which I assume at times was code for a variety of various times spent away

Liz - A vivacious young woman, teacher I think, from Portsmouth (or was it Gosling, or something), and non-resident, but frequent guest,

Goz - A skinny local lad, about whom I cannot remember much - he was only around for Liz, and only really interested in one thing - Liz.

Fitzroy - A flamboyant, chatty, rapping Jamaican lawyer from Willesden, London (who happened to go to law-school in Guilford with "Mo" my old friend, and ex president of Newcastle Polytechnic's Asian society - (it is a small world).

Sharon - a local 16 year-old run-away. Bubbly, blonde, erm an easy going kind of girl if you know what I mean.

Heather La-Valle - A blonde, attractive, petite, American 20-something, traveling around the world, currently with

Grant (I think) - an Aussie: These two were selling toys to feed their alcohol habits, and supposedly saving to travel to their next destination.

"Tracy" - I'm afraid her real name slips my mind. She was not around much.

The house was, fun, loud, and always filled with incident.

I remember someone having throwing a little party one night, and it seemed like half of Southampton was there - and none of the residents knew any of the "guests". I remember things started getting really crazy - like a very large black man, well-heeled in a pimpish kind of way asked another tough guy "DO YOU WANT SOME?!", with one fist clenching the guys collar, whist pushing him down hard to the floor, and raising his other large fist in the air ready to pound bone onto the already soaked, dirty carpet.

This was right outside my room doorway. I was scared - not only for myself, but for others in the house. I had to get to bed, as I had a flight to Holland the next day, for work. I locked the door, got some kip, and When I left the next day nearly all the "guests" had left.

What a night - I also had an eventful day/morning. but I'm getting sidetracked. I'll save my squash story for another time too, not to mention the Fraud Squad 6 a.m. raid. Boy I've had my moments of excitement in younger days!

What I meant to write about was this girl, Tracy. Often on a Friday night the landlord would come to collect the rent - and of course she would be short of cash. He would be upstairs talking to her for 20-30 minutes, and then leave seemingly happy enough. Payment in kind!

Liz was an attractive, slim young woman. but not someone we got to know all that well. Just as well....

At the time in Southampton there was a famous murder, and investigation. A local cabbie, last seen less than half a mile from the house had been found murdered. Sure enough it turned out "Tracy's" boyfriend was arrested, and charged. We'd had a murderer in the house!

The news that housing in Paris is getting so tough that landlords are now openly advertising apartments for "contre services" i.e. Property-for-sex ( http://snipurl.com/2mltj ) reminded me of Tracy, and the house near the old Southampton football ground, The Dell (now replaced with St Mary's). Decades later we cycle through good-times and bad once more, but people at the bottom of the ladder face the same struggle, and choices - victims of market dictat.