Hard times makes houses into homes

I swear I can hear the family houses in the next road breathing a collective sigh of relief. The looming recession is the best thing that has happened to them for a decade.

During the recent boom times, bonus boys moved in on these handsome, four-bedroom Edwardian houses in Richmond, ripped the heart out of them, installed "lifestyle" interiors, then sold them on for a fat profit to other bonus boys. The next owner in turn would gut the building, hire an "on trend" interior designer, then sell at an even greater profit. Some of these tortured houses haven't been lived in for years, they've simply undergone a series of conversions. There is a skip in the road in front of them 365 days on the trot. They aren't homes, they are financial assets.

The gardens haven't been spared, either. Front and back have been completely paved over with non-porous materials - something you won't be able to do without planning permission from this month on, thank goodness - then a couple of stainless steel planters with disconsolate olive trees have been plonked on either side of the front door to impress yet more profiteers.

One house, owned by a City type from New Zealand, had an extension built over half of its already tiny garden. He's long since gone back home.

The desecration of that garden has been finalised by the latest owners, who have sorted out untidy nature once and for all by decking over the lot. (They have now bought a home in the country - exquisite irony.)

Buy-to-lets do the area no favours, either. Nothing spoils neighbourhood cohesion more than too many of those nice little earners. They are seldom tenanted for more than a couple of years at a time, and no sooner have you got to know Consuela from Venezuela and Laurence from France than their company relocates them and they won't be back anytime soon. so bring on the recession. Houses are reverting from assets to homes; they have skips outside them because owners are staying put and doing that loft conversion instead of making a fast buck and moving on.

Maybe in time people will even plant up proper front gardens. Because browning olive trees in metal containers aren't going to do anything for bio-diversity. Not a thing. And anyone who thinks events are a bit rough at the moment should try imagining a world without bees.