Dear Minerva,

I am writing to you as the tenant in your left 'balcony' apartment. As we have been dealing with you through an agent, namely Mr Body, I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce myself to you personally. My name is I. D. Carcinoma but all my friends call me Cancer or 'Big C' for short and I, and my family, moved into this extremely spacious terraced apartment about six months ago.

Initially, we had no problems at all. Things were quiet, so quiet that I and my wife, Negligence were able to procreate at will and, boy, were we at it! In just a month, we had had squillions of cell babies and were well on our way to inhabiting this already capacious flat but just at the beginning of September all changed, which is the reason I am writing to you now.

In September, it soon became obvious that the building owned by you, 1 Left Bra Terrace, was having engineering work. My family and I have been frequently interrupted by drilling work, and numerous needling intrusions into our home. Not only that, but we experienced a burglary too where some of our cells were taken.

To add injury to insult, at the end of September, it was clear that you had initiated covert operations against us. Repeatedly, every three weeks in fact, the hallway of our apartment was filled with noxious, foul smelling and almost, dare I say, poisonous liquids? I am afraid that my family's response to this was immediate dropping almost 30% of our living space in only four of these sessions. What is going on? May I remind you that I am known as the 'BIG C', not 'Little C', or 'Reducing Rapidly C' ! I have also heard from our neighbours living at 1 Right Bra Terrace that you are planning four more of these sessions? At least, that is what I think they were saying in between the 'nee ner nee ner' comments.

As if that weren't over and above what any life sucking tenant would expect, I now understand that you have summoned in the government inspectors next Tuesday to verify the size of our apartment. I must protest in the strongest terms at this final and most irritating intrusion into our privacy. It seems that you have affronted us at every door; even our parents-in-law in the lymph node granny flat have been reduced to rooms a quarter of their size, my cousins have been unable to move out into 'Bone Avenue', 'Liver Lane' or 'Brain Boulevard' and my wife and I have had to stop our marital pursuits as she is now never in the mood - something to do with my shrinking I understand.

Despite initially indicating that our family would be here for the life of the building, I must now write that we are planning on leaving. The fact that you clearly maintain this flat in tiptop condition, that you insist on regularly cleaning, exercising, and working this apartment block as well as the repeated harassment, noise and disruption have all indicated that you do not value our tenancy and we are therefore giving in our notice....

Yours sincerely,


'Shrinking C'


Invasive Ductal Carcinoma and family.....