What role does Old Misery play in the short story, "The Destructors"?

Old Misery
comes to symbolize the hardship in the aftermath of WWII.  He's portrayed as living in a damaged
house with broken plumbing and electricity.  The house used to be beautiful, refined, and upper
class, but now, because of the war, it stands alone in a bombed out neighborhood.  Old Misery,
like his house, experiences isolation and subsistance living, in the aftermath of the
war.