Reading Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s piece on renting as a parent I wanted to reach out and tell her that it’s OK to be angry (We all want better for our children than we had – but Britain’s housing crisis is crushing that dream, 21 July). Be furious. We were in a similar situation – two kids in a small two-bed flat, with no garden and an alcoholic downstairs neighbour with regular rages. We begged a substantial amount out of the Bank of Mum and Dad to get us on the ladder outside London. After years of searching we found a house with a garden and a good school.
Five years on and the house we bought has made more than my yearly full-time salary every year. We could never buy it now. And yes, I’m still angry about it. Without the leg up we’d been ashamed to ask for, there would have been no way to escape the rental trap on a median-plus good salary.
To see those who have benefited from the little Ponzi scheme that is the UK property market waffle on about avocado on toast or how they worked hard, while ignoring how the system is rigged against those without big deposits, makes me livid.
Karen Murphy
Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex
