A pensioner battling a steep rent hike has told his landlords they’ll have to carry him out in a box if they want him to leave the Archway home where he grew up.

Islington Gazette: Neil Jackson in his sitting room. Picture: Polly HancockNeil Jackson in his sitting room. Picture: Polly Hancock (Image: Archant)

Neil Jackson, 71, received a visit from estate agents Ord Carmell and Kritzler last month telling him the landlord wanted to install a new kitchen and he would need to move out while it was done.

He said he was also told rent would be going up by a fifth – £200 a month, from £1,000.

“I told him ‘you’re 32 years too late’!” Neil told the Gazette. “I’ve got a kitchen already – I built the damn thing when I came back from Australia in 1984 after my dad died.

“My mum had just a sink in a room. And her bathroom was a bath against a bare brick wall.

“My family have lived here since we were bombed out of our place in 1941.

“We knew the old landlords but these ones never come around.”

Neil looked after his mum in the house until she died in 2002. He had planned eventually to go back to Australia, but a stroke in 2010 ruled that out. Now he’s facing a 20 per cent rent hike that would hit him hard.

“I think it’s disgusting the way people are treated these days,” he said. “The landlord doesn’t even want to live here. That shouldn’t be allowed.

“I’ve got an assured tenancy so they can’t kick me out, but they can try and price me out. They’ll have to carry me out in a box, though.

“This is my home – we’ve looked after this place.

“My earliest memory is helping my dad dig a dirty great trench in the middle of the garden to drain the rainwater. We built a pond, fountain, waterfall. I’ve got wildlife here that likes me. I even had a fox that used to come in and wander around the living room.”

When contacted by the Gazette, Ord Carmell and Kritzler said the company did not want to comment on the matter.