My council tax has been raised by an extra £12 every month after last year's increase.

This is causing me, and probably others, extreme hardship.

I am 72, have various ailments and live in rented property. My dwelling is rated Band C.

A married couple who were living in their own house before emigrating, were given a Band B rating. They were not OAPs.

Anyone who has a sum of money left to them for a certain purpose, such as buying a property, and who now lives on very low interest plus a state pension, is victimised.

One cannot really apply for housing or other state benefits or use money set aside for an expressed purpose.

Hence, unless a property price crash comes or interest rates rise again, women such as me are living on a shoestring.

Though some of us have worked all our lives till a disability occurred, we are paying for services and courses which layabouts from everywhere get free.

That is if we can afford to partake of such services.

Yet this council will not offer any pest control service to desperate pensioners paying ever-increasing rent and council tax.

Surely the poll tax was much fairer in every way.

-name and address supplied, Worthing