IF what Keith Brooks said in his letter (Pot calling kettle black, Oxford Mail, July 4) is correct, then the council should put its own house in order as well as taking over the management of properties belonging to private landlords.

However, having watched the Depatches programme Landlords from Hell, on Channel 4, all local authorities should clamp down on privately-let properties in which tenants have to live in such terrible conditions.

The whole situation reeks of Rachman, the notorious landlord of the 1960s.

The programme shows people living in sheds at the bottom of the garden of many properties.

Many of these sheds are built with cavity walls, with tiled roofs, and, I may add, there are several in Old Marston. They are, in fact, small bungalows.

How on earth have the local planning authorities allowed this to be so?

Do the owners of such properties pay extra council tax for these (for want of a better word) dwellings?

Going back to the conditions of some of these privately-let properties, it is said that the tax payer is picking up the tab for the rents as many of the tenants are on benefits and, in such cases where the landlords have a mortgage on any such property, it could be said that the tax payer is paying the mortgage.

I hope that the Government passes legislation to put an end to this state of affairs as soon as possible.

MICHAEL CLARKE Old Marston Oxford