Dr Omar A Guerrero says technology could scrutinise policy proposals and formulate holistic solutions. Plus letters from a pensioner who was evicted after asking his landlord to fix damp problems, Daniel Carter and Martyn Williams

Nick Bano makes a compelling argument that discussions about increasing the housing supply are misguided if their aim is to fix the UK housing crisis ( The end of landlords: the surprisingly simple solution to the UK housing crisis, 19 March ). His data and succinct description of the historical context are consistent with qualitative and quantitative evidence provided by various UK housing scholars.

As part of my work as a computational economist, I try to understand the connections between housing wealth inequality and the set of incentives that are shaped by institutions such as the market and the government, ie “the rules of the game”. For this purpose, I develop artificial intelligence models consisting of a computational representation of every household and property in the economy (with their most relevant characteristics and behaviours), and the rules of the game that incentivise them to engage in interactions such as purchasing and renting real estate.

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A preview of the Milan Furniture Fair, the latest exhibition at Vitra Design Museum and the relaunch of London’s best 60s boutique

This month’s design news is pretty nostalgic. Jonny Trunk’s wonderful history of hi-fi catalogues reminds us of the world before downloads and the relaunch of boutique Granny Takes a Trip brings back 60s psychedelia. And, as the new exhibition at Vitra Museum shows, looking to the past for answers to modern problems may well be the best solution.

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Vintage, sculptural or colourful, lights to brighten your interiors

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Changes and clever touches mean there are surprises a plenty behind the front door of this Edwardian home

From the outside, Marisa Hordern’s Edwardian terrace in London’s north Kensington looks just like any other on the street. A tiled path leads up to a grey front door with two clipped olive trees standing outside the red brick facade. “I like seeing people’s reactions when they come in,” says Hordern, the founder and creative director of Missoma , a jewellery label that started life around her kitchen table 16 years ago. “Inside, it really is quite different from what you might expect…”

Hordern moved from a nearby maisonette five years ago. At the time, she was single and approaching her 40th birthday. “I decided it was time to lay down some proper roots and buy a house,” says Hordern. “The street is full of young families, and I remember my neighbours asking: ‘Where’s your husband? Where’s your partner? Where are your kids?’ I did feel a little bit like the odd one out, but this was just something I wanted to do for myself. Sometimes you just need to stop waiting for things to happen and do it yourself. I’m a big believer in that.”

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Swiss brand Laurastar collaborated with fashion designer Germanier on gadget said to half ironing time

What do you buy for someone who has everything? The answer, one suspects, is not an ironing board.

But for the big spender who, let’s face it, almost certainly never folds their own laundry, there is a new bougie appliance: a £3,999 ironing board.

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Here’s what happened when two climate reporters tried to ditch natural gas

• This story is co-published with Grist

My wife and I live in a green, two-story colonial at the end of a cul-de-sac in Burlington, Vermont. Each spring, the front of our home is lined with lilacs, crocuses, and peonies. The backyard is thick with towering black locust trees. We occasionally spot a fox from our office windows, or toddlers from the neighborhood daycare trundling through the woods.

It’s an alarmingly idyllic home, with one exception: it runs on natural gas. The boiler, which heats our house and our water, burns it. So do the stove and the dryer and even the fireplace in the living room.

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Some collectors want the tackiest items imaginable, but for others they are heartfelt reminders of the past

For Caroline Walker, 65, holiday fridge magnets aren’t merely practical souvenirs holding up the shopping list but “meaningful little reminders” that bring her back to a time or place in her life. The first in her collection was a little magnet from Dnipro, Ukraine. It was a gift from the leader of a group of Ukrainian students to whom she taught English. “I look at it now and I wonder where they all are, if they’re OK, how many of them died, how many of the boys are fighting,” she says.

Walker is among dozens of people who contacted the Guardian to share their emotional response to holiday fridge magnets in light of a new study conducted by Liverpool University that suggests these objects may also provide an important means of accessing happy – and not so happy – memories of past trips.

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Mass-scale housebuilding isn’t necessary – there is already enough housing stock. But we need to learn the wisdom of the last century when it comes to landlordism

Speaking against his own government’s renters reform bill last autumn , the Tory grandee Sir Edward Leigh told MPs: “I was able to buy my first house – although it was a bit of a struggle – for £25,000. The opportunities for young people are so difficult now”. Younger people are “overwhelmingly reliant on the rental sector”, Leigh conceded, but the problem as he saw it was one of supply: “We have to build many more houses, and we have to free up the rented sector.”

What never seems to occur to Leigh, his parliamentary colleagues, or indeed his entire generation, is to look seriously at what has changed between their time and ours. The forthcoming general election is once again likely to be dominated by claims about a housing shortage and a dire need to build more homes. Housebuilding is an article of faith across the political spectrum.

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A winning bid is legally binding, so it is crucial to do your homework and keep a cool head

Properties are sold at auction all over the UK by a variety of people and bodies, including receivers, local councils and investors.

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