In the mid-1980s, at the age of 38, Sylvia Smith moved into a room in Appleby House. The house was a shabby, peeling terrace in the East End; the proprietors were the kindly Mr. and Mrs. Appleby; her fellow tenants were all carefully selected single girls. This is the story of her time there, a brief tale full of incident- 'I was washing some hand-knitted jumpers in my kitchen sink', insight- 'In my opinion toilets have to be spotlessly clean', and humour- 'On a lighter note the bath heater began playing up'. Sylvia Smith writes of the familiar difficulties and delights of daily life with great attention to detail and a gift for hilarious deadpan.