I had lived all my life in the family hab-unit. It was cramped, but it was home. But, when I reached 18, home was officially too small for me. According to the Department of Housing regulations, 11 cubic metres was the allocated volume for an adult and 5 cubic metres for a child. As our hab-unit was 30 cubic metres, our family was breaking the regulations. The inspector was generous - she gave me two weeks to find somewhere that I could live, before my parents would be fined. But she couldn't be more generous than that.

Finding a new place to live wasn't easy As I had always lived with my parents, I didn't have the references that private landlords were looking for. I tried the government housing net, but the waiting lists were too long. I would have been dead before I accumulated enough points to merit enough space for even a funeral urn. In the end, I became one of the many podsurfers roaming the city, moving from one hab-unit to another, trying to avoid the attentions of the bureaucracy.

Eventually I got lucky. It was a friend-of-a-friend deal. Somebody had heard rumours that there might be space in a shared hab. If I was quick, I might just be in with a chance ... .

I called the number I had been given. Yes, there was space available to rent. Yes, people had expressed interest, but if I put a deposit down now, the pod was as good as mine. I got a cross-town express and, two hours later, I met my future landlord.

"You will have to share the cooking and hygiene facilities," he told me, "but you will get a private space. And it is the statutory minimum volume."

I asked how much. The landlord quoted a ridiculously low rent - well within my budget. "Right," I said. "I'll sign."

Signing up to a contract, site unseen. That was my mistake.

I turned up the next morning with my belongings. "I'm the new tenant," I told the person who answered the door.

They showed me to my pod - it had a set of sliding metal doors across the entrance. I started to get a bad feeling about the deal. When I opened the doors, I worked out why. My pod was a shaft that stretched into the fabric of the building above me.

"Isn't this -," I began.

"The old lift shaft," my guide confirmed. "What did you expect for that price?"