He told me of a bedsit in a condemned property which has a compulsory purchase order on it, for which £65 a week is being charged.
In one property alone there are 16 different bedsits and from those bedsits the landlord receives some £524 a week in rent and rates.
I am not referring to bedsits, which is another state of affairs altogether.
Buildings of four or five storeys, buildings converted into bedsits and those occupied by vulnerable tenants are most at risk.
The payment of two housing benefits for one bedsit is not unknown in the murky underworld created by housing shortages.
It will force young people out of bedsits and one-bedroom flats into inadequate, unregulated and potentially dangerous multi-occupation dwellings.
Few single people live in bedsits; 93 per cent, of single people have self-contained housing, and nearly half of them receive housing benefit.
There will be turmoil in the housing market as bedsits go up in rent and one-bedroom flats become virtually unlettable.
