Liquid drips through the walls. Black mould creeps around the windows towards my bed. I hear strangers’ voices outside my door and screaming from downstairs. The electric shower is stuck at scalding temperatures and the fuse box trips. Rodents sneak out of the floorboards. A strange man lets himself into my home unasked.

These are not fragments of a ghost story but experiences I faced while renting my first flat in London, and that strange man was my landlord. We are enduring a housing crisis across the UK which means too many of us feel trapped in horror homes, unable to get out because we cannot afford to move.

It’s a fundamental fear which has been explored for centuries. In Gothic literature and horror films, the haunted house trope appears time and again.  The Shining ,  The Ha

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