The call came on a Saturday morning last month.
I always knew it would. It had been lurking in the background as I tried to carry on, make plans. I knew that it would all end, swiftly. Not with a whimper but with a bang.
I'd been told there was a viewing planned at the cottage I've rented since 2018.
It's been up for sale since April. I learned it was going to be put on the market in February, when the landlady turned up with little warning, an estate agent in tow.
The agent started taking photographs of every room and my courtyard garden. Without asking first.

Or even talking to me. Because who am I, other than a lowly private renter, unworthy of even a kindly 'Good morning'.
The viewing was scheduled for 11.30 am (there had been a few). I walked my dogs early, then raced up a steep hill to make sure I was back in time to tidy.
At 11.45, my mobile rang.
It was the landlady. 'The viewing is cancelled but there is another one at half past one.'
I dared to express my dismay, my upset at the constant intrusions. Yet another no-show; another day when I was unable to do as I pleased.




No-fault evictions, known as Section 21 notices, enable landlords to evict tenants without giving a reason or establishing 'fault' on the part of the tenant.
No matter how long you've lived there (for me, four years) or how much you've spent on the place (in my case Ј59,000 — I cashed in my pension and got a loan to pay for everything from a new kitchen to underfloor heating, new bathroom and white goods) you can be summarily dismissed.
How is this allowed?

We are protected at work if we are sick or lose our jobs, but when we rent a home — and surely a home is integral to our health, productivity and EvdeN eve nAkliyAT sense of belonging — we can be thrown to the sharks.
Surely, there is more to being a landlord than having me pay your mortgage when I have paid the rent on time and looked after your property?
A lifeline was dangled in front of our poor, cold noses last month when Michael Gove — since appointed Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities under Rishi Sunak — voiced his support for Boris Johnson's commitment to ending no-fault evictions.
Mr Gove knows as well as anyone that it isn't the workshy who end up renting.

After all, divorce is a common factor. The Government won't get growth from a workforce that wonders if getting out of bed is worth the bother.
His speech was music to the ears of the more than four million private renters in the UK.
The misery, the uncertainty.
Goodness only knows how families with school-age children cope with the disruption, the endless reading of meters and EvDeN eve NAKliyaT changing of suppliers, the redirection of post, the changing of council tax and on and on and on … It's all so unbelievably stressful.
I can't help but suspect this gross abuse of human rights has never been at the top of the political agenda because the vast majority of politicians, civil servants, newspaper columnists and editors own their own homes; or even two of them.




LIZ JONES'S DIARY: In which I yearn for my old London life
The writer (pictured) says renters close to retirement are 'infinitely worse' off than those in their 20s or 30s

Then there was the place in Clerkenwell.

I had to give notice when I lost my job but the two male landlords, who lived in Hong Kong, made me stick to a six-month notice period, when they could have said: 'OK, EVden EvE nAKLiYAT if we can rent it faster you can leave'.
And they told me to vacuum my radiators as they were making a 'mark' on the walls.
(Mad!)
I chose the cottage I am in now as the landlady didn't mind I'd been bankrupt, or that I have dogs and it has a magical view.
When I moved in, it had no heating, laminate flooring and a fuse box that was 26 years old.

The washing machine broke and there was no tumble dryer, though the lease bans putting up a washing line. The roof and windows still leak. Exiting the front door on a rainy day is like braving Niagara Falls (I have videos).
I know it was idiotic to spend tens of thousands of pounds of my own money on it, but I work from home and needed heating.
The bathroom was mouldy and having a hot bath is my one luxury.
In all, I spent Ј59,000. I updated the heating with a new boiler and radiators upstairs and replaced the fusebox. I put in flagstones, I had the chimney swept, installed new blinds and shelving and I spent more than Ј12,000 on a beautiful Neptune kitchen.
I know.

People warned me not to do it up, as I have no legal redress. But my home is so important to me: I get depressed in a dump.
And so here I am, terrified of being homeless, again. I went to look at another rental the other week. The woman opened the door and a huge Labrador emerged, when her ad had stipulated 'only one small dog considered for an escalated rent'.
'How many dogs do you have?' she asked me, craning to look at the two (out of now four) who had come along for the ride.

Me: 'Um.'
She showed me round and it was lovely. 'It will come unfurnished.' I was glad, but slightly galled that I'd also given away my Ј4,000 Vispring bed, purchased from Selfridges in sunnier days, as my current cottage is so small it wouldn't fit through the door.
I couldn't work out the layout of the house.

'Ah,' she said, unlocking the door to the loveliest room, dual aspect, with views of a river. 'We will be locking our furniture in here. This is our forever home. We'll be back in two years. Which is when you'll have to move out.'
Aaaaargh!!!!!