Dozens bidding for each available rental property

Donna Coupland said she was left traumatised when she received an eviction notice

Rental homes are in such short supply in East Yorkshire that dozens of people are bidding for every home that becomes available.

Across England, a private renter on a median income can expect to spend more than a third of their income on an average-priced home, according to government figures, and that is pricing a lot of people out of the market.

Donna Coupland, who rented a home in Driffield for 10 years, is looking for somewhere to live after her landlord decided to sell – and it had left her so traumatised she was unable to work.

Lettings agent Jon Myers said: "The demand and supply is in such imbalance that we've got far too many people trying to rent and just not enough houses available."

Self-employed Ellii Leeming and her daughter have been staying with family for seven years

Ms Coupland, 56, said: "We've left it too late in life to get a mortgage.

"What can I do? Nowhere will take us because we've got three dogs."

Mr Myers, of Quick & Clarke in Beverley, said he understood the anxiety that came with no-fault evictions.

"That's their world torn apart, and then they've got to go into the merry-go-round of trying to find [a property] and trying to be the best prospective tenant that they can be. So it's a dreadful situation," he said.

Ellii Leeming, who has been staying with family in Hornsea for seven years, said the hopelessness of being able to find a home for her and her daughter felt like it must have done in Victorian times.

"My mum's only putting me up because she doesn't want to see me homeless... I feel like a let-down to my daughter for not being able to have my own place," she said.

"The only way that I'd be able to afford it is if a rich man came along and helped us with a home. That's how bad it is."

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