An artist who was made homeless after being evicted by his private landlord in London has started effectively commuting from Argentina where the rent

Artist evicted by London landlord cuts rent by commuting from Argentina

submited by

Style Pass

2024-04-20 15:30:06

An artist who was made homeless after being evicted by his private landlord in London has started effectively commuting from Argentina where the rent is so much cheaper that it covers the cost of air fare.

Andy Leek, 38, whose Notes to Strangers works are pasted on to walls and junction boxes across more than 20 British and European cities, has moved to Buenos Aires where the rents are several times cheaper and he travels back to the UK roughly every two months for work. The flight costs less than a monthly train season ticket between Bristol and London.

His move is an extreme, and carbon intensive, example of what happens when people are priced out of the UK’s rent hotspots, and comes as the average UK private rent increased by a record 9.2% in the last year (11.2% in London), according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, released on Wednesday.

It is the highest annual increase since 2015, when the data series began and equivalent to an “eye-watering” £2,500 rise in the average annual rent bill in London, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.