Extortion

Plashing Vole lives in a rented burrow. It's above the waterline (and, unfortunately, a pizza joint). It costs rather a lot of money. I've just agreed to continue paying a lot of money to the rentier class for another year.

It turns out that I have to pay the agents for the privilege of paying more money. A new contract involves photocopying a contract of several pages and posting it - perhaps £2 in total. The charge: £68. If preparing and posting it took (at a generous guess) 5 minutes, that's an hourly rate of £816 - better than most lawyers.

Moving into private halls?

Talking of decamping to expensive accommodation, the Guardian's Money section had an interesting column on the hugely increasing cost of halls of residence.

I only lived in halls for the last term of my third year - after three years of coping with nutters (most of whom are still my friends) in cold and filthy conditions, I needed somewhere quiet and dry to revise for my Finals. It was weird, OK, but basic, and it cost a rather pricy (for then) £28 per week.

Now some of you are moving into flats in town which look like the set of Friends, at huge expense. I hope it works out, but the amount of money required scares the hell out of me - around £5000+, piling on to your already enormous debts.

Where's the money going? As Collinson elucidates, Liberty Living is a financial vehicle which raised rents in its halls by 6.8% this year - inflation this year is MINUS 0.5% and rents are generally falling in the private sector. The couple who own the company recently bought a Swiss house for £26 million pounds. So they can afford it when your payment is a week or two late…