George Orwell is a journalist who wants to discover more about life in the working-class communities of industrial Great Britain. He stays in a lodging house in North England, and he wakes up every morning in a filthy bed to the sound of heavy footsteps. He shares his cramped room with three men; the landlords, Mr. Brooker and Mrs. Brooker, have renovated the house to cram as many beds into as many bedrooms as possible while also running a tripe store out of a downstairs room. Mrs. Brooker is sick with an unknown illness and cannot move from the couch in the kitchen. She shouts at passers-by and gives orders to everyone. The lodgers and the family gather each day to eat a meal in the filthy kitchen.

All the lodgers know that they are living in squalid conditions, and they swap stories about the dirtiest homes in which they have lived. Orwell’s fellow lodgers are among the poorest people in society. Some are unemployed or subsiding on disability compensation. Others are travelling tradespeople or are passing through the area in search of work. Salesmen, miners, and factory workers also take the rooms because they cannot afford to stay somewhere better.