You guys are making me feel lucky… decent dorm roommates and the ‘scariest’ place was a I guess technically 1 bedroom flat but the living room and dining rooms were huge. His parents owned the place so the rent was cheap.
However it wasn’t the best neighborhood, only took 3 days living there to have to say ‘no I live here I am not looking for a “date”’ when getting back from doing laundry and having dinner at the parental units place.
ETA : yes look for shared/room mate listings. The way my job search is going I may end up having to move just me and find a shared space while the wife and kid stay in Seattle. Seriously I just put in a resume for a job in Pleasonton so if that works out I can say hi to all you bay area peeps.
OMG you made me remember! My second apartment, while actually a decent one bedroom and only just barely out of our price range for two 20 year olds working retail…
Was unfortunately located directly north of a hooker stroll. I worked at a record store that closed at midnight. And every night I walked home through a flock of hookers and johns and deflected offers for “dates” (politely cuz shit got scary if you were rude).
Eventually the working girls knew me and would yell at the johns for me. “You leave her alone shes a nice girl!” and the johns would apologize and leave me alone!
Side note: we dont have street walkers anymore do we? Not like in the 90s. I guess they’re all on Craigslist now?
The neighborhood I previously lived in had two to three on the street (right in front of our rented condo building), although I’m not sure if they were actively soliciting or just walking from motel to motel (there were about five within a mile walking distance on PCH). They were always nice and said hi to our dog!
It’s a mix. Stepped outside my door one morning and gave a cheery greeting to a neighbor walking by. Somewhat long awkward moment (door’s close to sidewalk so we were four feet apart, inside personal space for strangers) as I realized she was making morning rounds and she realized I wasn’t a john inviting her in.
Used to have to chase them away from the kids computers in the library as they would jump on all the time to renew their CL listings. (No card needed to sign on at the time)
Making me feel lucky as well. For the most part I’ve had a stable living situation for most of my life. I’ve done the shared living, tight quarters college stuff, but nothing too outrageous.
However, there was this one time in my early 20s, when I was living in Cincinnati with the Atlanta-Detroit drug superhighway passing through my literal front yard. I just got home from a week-long trip, was relaxing on my couch in front of the computer, and a SWAT team shows up outside my window, guns drawn. They were actually there because the place next door to me was getting robbed. Targeted drug-related robbery. Also many times I lived there I just about shit a brick because I expected someone next door to start shooting.
Instead of paying for hotel rooms join a health club so you can shower there, a one month membership in a health club is cheaper than one night in a shitty motel most of the time. Once the issue of showering is out of the way you can snoop around for a place to sleep.
If you don’t have a car then you’ve got fewer options. A guy here in Boston realized the only way he was going to get his college loans paid off was to stop paying rent, so he found a hidden place in a local park, set up a tent every night, and successfully lived that way for most of a year (spring to autumn.) From my own urban exploring I’ve noticed that any piece of no-man’s land in the city (abandoned buildings, overgrown vacant lots) ends up being a crash pad for the homeless and/or drug addicts, so you have to find a spot they won’t frequent. I have entertained the idea of sleeping in a tree using a camping hammock, but climbing a tree and trying to set up a tent in the dark is probably not wise. Ask a friend about using their backyard in exchange for yard work.
I have heard of people renting storage lockers and staying in them for a few months before management gets wise and kicks them out, but it would depend on the set-up/security. You can sometimes find office and industrial space where there’s one room available they have trouble renting to a business-- no amenities, and not zoned for residential so they wont let you live there, but if you can get in and out during the night they won’t know. Peeing in juice bottles and pooping in a 5-gallon bucket (with a top) is gross, but one way to get around not having a bathroom.
It’s all about saving money. Find a food bank or consider freeganism. I have survived for a week on road trips only eating from the ‘value menu’ at Wendy’s, typically baked potatoes for lunch and dinner (they used to $1 but the price has gone up.) A hot dog and a soda at IKEA is only $1.75, I’ve also gone in search of places where they are giving out free samples at the mall, walked back and forth eating from them all multiple times. In my most dire times I ate nothing but generic mac-n-cheese, ramen, and hot dogs, with maybe some frozen vegetables to spice all three up (and get vitamins.) Consider a camp stove too.
This is excellent advice. My son might not have a place to live by the end of this week, he’s using sleeping in his office and showering at the gym as a fallback. As a parent I should be all worried, but looking back at my own 20s I think he has things well under control.
The worst place I lived was in college; I spent most of my time in the studio, so wasn’t terribly picky, and when I saw a flyer for “$300/month, fully furnished, all utilities incl.”, I said sure. What I got was an unfinished, non-insulated attic in an ancient house that looked like it was going to fall apart (“fully furnished” meant that there was a sofa downstairs.) I was sharing a kitchen and bathroom with monthly renters on the 2nd floor, so there was always some new loony moving in or out, including a 40-something woman who did sage rituals and shat on the floor. She was replaced by a violent drug dealer who liked to set things on fire and draw pictures of me on the kitchen chalkboard getting murdered. Things came to a head when myself and the 1st floor tenants banded together to sneak a building inspector in, who promptly condemned the building as unfit for habitation; the first floor carpet was completely covered in mold and the walls were falling in.
I recently helped a friend move his stuff from an indoor storage locker to his new place, and several of the lockers in his row alone were being used as small apartments. He said that the ‘tenants’ each paid the security guard a bribe every month not to report them and had been there for half a year or so at least.
I’ve known musicians to crash in their practice spaces for short periods (“short periods” because it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep when someone in an adjacent space wants to practice drums at 2am.)
Berklee School of Music joke: What do you call a drummer without a girlfriend?
The worst accomodation I had was a flat share in tooting. I was allergic to the carpets and one of my flatmates punched a hole in the bathroom wall in frustration so you could see people sitting on the toilet when cooking in the kitchen.
But several things made the place tough to live in. One of my flatmates was a guns and roses fan with a drumkit and who did shift work. Another (and a very close friend) was a schizophrenic who earned extra money as a male prostitutes. You have no idea how depressing it is coming home and finding the living room floor covered in vaseline. He was lazy and rather than come downstairs to the toilet he would steal kitchen pots and use them as chamber pots.
I once caught a stray dog which had gotten in, going through the old KFC boxes which littered the living room looking for food.
Finally the drummer, had a lot of friends who were smack addicts. They would come round and shoot up where-ever they liked. If you complained they would threaten you.
I eventually decided to get my own place .
The worst place I ever slept the night was a park in Athens. Disgusting night, with loads of mosquito bites. The second worst was the beach in Sharm-el Sheik before it was developed. We were lucky, nothing happened to us, but I remember meeting some scandinavian girls who complained that someone had ejaculated on them while they were sleeping, and then stolen their money.
The worst place I lived was the last place I lived in Carlisle. The place where I got transphobic abuse from the local fascists for a year. I seriously considered becoming homeless rather than stay there (technically I did, but I mean sleeping on the streets rather than sleeping on friends floors).My NHS counsellor freaked when I told her, the appointment overran it’s time slot as she tried to persuade me to not do it.
The fact I consider the ant infestation in the kitchen a minor problem (there was a nest underneath it when I moved in) should tell you how bad it was.
Posting this led me to look up my old crappy student housing to see whatever became of it. Thanks to Google I discovered that the landlord was sent to prison twice for building/health code violations since I lived there – apparently he kept housing people in it after it was condemned – and after the place caught fire somewhere around 2012, it was demolished by the city in 2013.
And thanks to Google Street View’s ‘time machine’ feature, I found a photo of it from when kids were still living there. Charming place.
