Three quarters of London homes are inadequate, apparently

If you woke up this morning looking forward to another week working to pay the extortionate rent on your dark, damp shoebox, you’ll be unsurprised to hear that 73 percent of London homes don’t meet basic standards of liveability. A new measure called the Living Home Standard, announced today by the housing charity Shelter and polling group Ipsos MORI, assesses properties based on what ordinary people say is essential for any home – and three quarters of London properties flunk it.

The Living Home Standard includes five criteria nominated by the public: space, decency, affordability, stability and neighbourhood. London is by far the worst area in the UK, largely due to a massive 56 percent of properties failing on grounds of affordability. The 33 percent of properties failing the ‘decency’ test (due to things like noise, pests, mould and accessibility), and the 26 percent of properties that fail on the grounds of inadequate space don’t help either.

On the bright side, only 9 percent of London homes failed the LHS criteria for ‘neighbourhood’, which measures things like the safety and convenience of the local area alongside being able to live near friends and family. But it’ll take more than a cuppa at mum’s house to ease those renting-a-shithole blues.

In other crap housing news, London has the worst landlords in Britain.