I need a shower!

I’ve spent a lot of my life in a spartan, featureless, magnolia void, so visually impoverished that I underwent long spells of sensory deprivation. The reason is simple – I am (and was) a tenant, and tenants (unless they are wealthy) have little control over their surroundings and little say about the furniture or decoration provided.

Our homes are functional to the point of being institutionally grim, or packed with the owner’s cast-offs.

There is little motivation for landlords to spend money to create a pleasant environment. They rarely consult tenants – they don’t have to – and we must their lack of taste or wild flights of decorating fancy.

Two friends moved into a flat in a hurry, only to find the landlord had transformed the neutral space they had earlier viewed into Barbie’s palace of pink. The walls, fittings, furniture, crockery – everything – was shocking. Redecorating was forbidden.