An odd thing happened today.

A man came into my kitchen when I was cooking and pottering about, trying to tidy up. The tenants had left the kitchen in a right state and I had to sort it out again because it was filthy, pots and pans left untidied, washing up not done for days and so on. I had never seen him before in my life.

"The air in this room is very cold, yes, very cold." He closed my window with a shudder before I had a chance to speak. He just strode in here without so much as a by your leave.

"Get out of my house," I said. "What the hell are you doing here? This is my house and you've no right to come in here without permission."

He continued to ignore me. "What a nice kitchen you've got here, Mrs..." he said, walking past me and addressing the tenant, who, as usual, was standing in the doorway looking gormless.

Well and truly outstayed her welcome, that one.

Ruining my house.

She brought her boyfriend to live here without my permission. I wrote letter after letter to her, all ignored. I phoned the court to try and find out how I can get eviction proceedings started as she does not pay the rent - but they completely ignored me, every time. At my wit's end, I changed the locks but she kept coming back - and brought the police round, can you believe.

In fact they hang up whenever I phone.

"Actually it's my kitchen," I said. "Not hers."

"It's lovely isn't it?" she said. Yes, it is, or rather it was before she moved in. The man ignored the food stains on the floor that still had not been cleared up.

The man set his box down on the table. That table was wonky and I told her a billion times not to put heavy things on it, but as usual I was ignored yet again. He took out an extension lead and bent down to plug it in to the wall.

"So how long's this been going on?" he said.

"Oh, six months ago," she said. "Things been moved about. Once I even saw the tap turn on by itself!"

You stupid woman, I thought. Taps didn’t turn on by themselves, the answer is that she broke it, just like she had broken about five plates, the washing machine, and countless other objects since moving here. Being the landlady didn't give me infinite money, did it? Especially since she was five months behind on the rent.

'I can feel there's a lot of energy in this room, Chantelle,' the man said, fiddling with the knobs on his machine. Had he come to fix the boiler or something because it had been broken for weeks?

'Yeah, definitely,' that stupid woman replied. She opened the door of the top cupboard. I glared at her.

'Don't use any of those, for heaven's sake!' I yelled. The silverware and fine porcelain in there belonged to my late Mother and I only used them for entertaining guests on very special occasions. Paying not a blind bit of attention she pulled out a beautiful glass bowl with flowers engraved on the bottom. It was a gift from the vicar at my mother's wedding!

'You're going to break that!' I screamed. Lunging forward, I grabbed the glass bowl out of her hands and hastily put it back in its rightful place.

She stood, mouth open, staring at the bowl; her hands trembled with shock. Her eyes were wild. 'Did you see that?' she gasped at the man.

'I did,' the man said. He was looking at the cupboard with a shocked expression. Disgusted at their utter rudeness and lack of respect, not even acknowledging my presence and trying to use items I had told them not to, I marched over to the sink.

'This is filthy,' I snarled. 'Nobody does any cleaning!' I took the sponge and began to run the tap. They both turned round and stared.

'Well, I don't know why you're staring!' I snapped. 'Don't you know how to do the washing up?'

'Oh my God!' Chantelle shrieked. 'What's going on?'

'These dishes are seeing a bit of elbow grease, that's what is going on, you daft trollop,' I muttered. She had run out of fairy liquid too, I don't know why as she never used any.

'Do you know anything about the previous owners?' the man said gently.

'Well, the last one died six months ago of a heart attack.' He didn't, though. The last I saw of him, he was working in the post office.

'Do you know anything about them?' he said. The machine was emitting a low humming noise which was extremely annoying.

'I don't really, she died just before I moved in. By all accounts she was a nightmare. Bit of a nimby who complained about everything the neighbours did. You know the type.'

'I don't know what you're talking about, he's not lived in the house for ten years,' I said. Yet again I was completely ignored, like I didn't even exist.

'That makes sense. She was very attached to this house, wasn't she,' the man said. 'Do you know what her name was?'

'I think her name was Virginia,' Chantelle said. How dare she?

'Do you know where she died?' The man looked at the machine with a worried expression on his face. My table was going to break if he kept it there any longer; last time it cost a fortune!

'The readings on this thing are going insane. It was close by, wasn't it?' Mrs Slater nodded; her hands twisted in anxiety. So they should! What had any of this got to do with fixing the boiler as I heard her say to her thick prat of a husband she would do? How dare she tell him I'm dead, did she think it's her house now and she could do as she liked?  Why weren't the letting agents responding to my letters and calls?

'She died right here in this kitchen.'