Help finding a thread…

[SuperLemonCrush]

I’d like to show a young person in my family the very well written “fable” that appeared as a thread a few years ago. It was about a woman who has a lovely hard-won apartment to live in, but is gradually forced out of it when she allows people who don’t fit in elsewhere to “take shelter” with her. Does that ring any bells? Searched but can’t find….

Nope, but commenting to bump!

Thanks! If I am remembering correctly it was gently told - the woman kindly let someone who was being called names in the street share her apartment for safety…then some of their friends needed a place to stay too so they came in. Then other people knocked on the door and were welcomed in by the new residents, without asking the woman if she minded….I think she ended up being squeezed into a tiny corner. Gosh I have almost rewritten it!

…..and she’d worked so hard to get the apartment in the first place, that was a strong point. Some responding posters took it very literally and were furious on her behalf 😁

I think I remember this thread, was the man initially invited in called 'Steve'?

Sounds interesting, would love to read this too

Thanks so much, Rozzers, it was indeed “My Neighbour Steve” from 2017! I will try and link thread 👏

My Neighbour Steve

hope others enjoy too!

….and thanks to whoever wrote it!
My young person would have been 10 when I first read the piece and is now asking me to watch “Jammidodger” videos on You Tube. This will form part of my rebuttal!

I remember this! It was brilliant both then and now.

That was really interesting! And well written.

I wonder if it was posted now would more people on AIBU would "get it"?

Or even if in 2017 I would have?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ...................

Jings, 2017. I was still letting Steve into my flat in 2017, couldn't see anything wrong with that, and I would probably not have understood the analogy. I don't think I'd even heard of the Gender Recognition Act back then, let alone what the proposed reforms were or why it mattered. It's such an excellent story, I'm also curious to know what kind of reception it might get on AIBU these days.

Brilliant.

9 years ago I think (cant ever remember what I was doing) I was sort of aware, but I think in the "it will never happen". Partly because by then I had narrowed down my circle of interests, friends, etc., because of the TWAW issue.

But can imagine, having had some experience of the housing sector, would have found it plausible as a neighbour dispute event. So wonder if I would have read it at face value, and embarked on long comments about failures of housing management, let alone committees!

I think the GRA consultation was the next year, and that certainly made me think more deeply about not just the law itself but the social mission creep that had happened. ie not realising as in the story, how far institutions had been captured.

Yes, I think it was particularly telling how many different “Steves” popped up in the course of the thread discussion - even when the posters thought they were illustrating another point of view, the skill of the fiction showed that most of the points lead back to the same source.

This is also similar to a short story by Kate Atkinson

Sounds interesting - what’s the title?

I lied! ( reading too many books + dodgy memory)
it’s called Lebensraum by Christopher Fowler

I know my memory goes off at tangents but both the Steve thread and Fowler's Lebensraum remind me of Ballard's High Rise (for reasons currently opaque to me and I'd probably need to skim the novel again to recall).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Rise_(novel)