Author Topic: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?  (Read 16975 times)

EverCurious

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #50 on: May 20, 2017, 02:53:49 PM »
I'd have to say the worst I can think of is when I was in high school and still lived with my mother. We went from apartment to apartment, but this one we were in at the time had a broken AC, was right in front of a really deep pothole. The apartment itself had black colored mold that maintenance refused to fix, saying it was just dead mold and not to bother with it. It was also infested with large flying cockroaches and fleas. Bleh!

WhiteTrashCash

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #51 on: May 20, 2017, 03:00:04 PM »
I lived in a rented room I found on Craigslist in what honestly could be described as a ghetto, sharing an apartment with two strangers, one of whom was almost certainly a drug dealer. I had to lock my food in a chest in my room to keep the mice away from it. Every morning, when I left for work, I had to shoo away the crackheads who were sleeping in our driveway.

Years later, I live in a house I own in peaceful suburbs where I wave to my neighbors as I mow my lawn. Life is funny.

Poundwise

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #52 on: May 21, 2017, 06:08:38 AM »
I'd have to say the worst I can think of is when I was in high school and still lived with my mother. We went from apartment to apartment, but this one we were in at the time had a broken AC, was right in front of a really deep pothole. The apartment itself had black colored mold that maintenance refused to fix, saying it was just dead mold and not to bother with it. It was also infested with large flying cockroaches and fleas. Bleh!

That is awful! >shudder<

I lived in a rented room I found on Craigslist in what honestly could be described as a ghetto, sharing an apartment with two strangers, one of whom was almost certainly a drug dealer. I had to lock my food in a chest in my room to keep the mice away from it. Every morning, when I left for work, I had to shoo away the crackheads who were sleeping in our driveway.

Years later, I live in a house I own in peaceful suburbs where I wave to my neighbors as I mow my lawn. Life is funny.

It sure is. If I imagine my children doing half the risky things I did as a young adult, I think my hair would fall out in clumps. Fortunately young adults have a sort of Dunning Kroger effect going on, where they are too dumb and inexperienced to be frightened of the dumb risky things they are doing.
« Last Edit: May 21, 2017, 06:11:26 AM by Poundwise »

Lepetitange3

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #53 on: May 21, 2017, 07:13:31 AM »
Definitely the tent in Afghanistan.  The posters in closets and sheds had a downright luxurious experience in comparison. 

I was going to also offer up ship berthing that was under a helo deck as well for the really deafening daily experience and the heat, but the nuke has me beat there.  Especially if they were hot-racking.

GuitarStv

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #54 on: May 21, 2017, 07:42:08 AM »
Let me preface this with the disclaimer that our living condition problems were due to our own inherent grossness/OTT cheapness as students.

I lived with four other computer engineers off campus my final two years of university in the cheapest rented townhouse that we could find in town.  I don't think it met code to rent to the number of people living in it.  It was a two bedroom one bathroom house, one guy slept in the basement, each of the two rooms were taken up by a guy, and one guy slept in the dining room.  Three of us were good friends and stayed that way during the two years, but we went through four replacement roomies for the fourth guy because I guess we were hard to live with.

- We didn't own a vacuum and lived in that place for two years as the carpets slowly turned from pink to black/brown.

- The bathroom was never cleaned during the time that I lived there (and wasn't too clean when we moved in).  There was a big black mold patch on the ceiling about a foot and a half across that had grown to two and a half ft across by the time we moved out.  The toilet resembled a dark shag carpet by that point as well.

- Nobody wanted to take out the garbage, so we got really big garbage cans and took it out twice a month.  This led to an ant problem . . . but the ants were pretty accommodating and just went straight from the window across the floor to the garbage cans so we kinda learned to ignore each other.

- The roof leaked in a couple places, so we had a few dedicated pots in places on the floor for rainy nights.  We got used to them, so they weren't much of a tripping hazard by the second year.

- Dishes operated on rules of transference.  If you found a dish clean, you were supposed to clean it when you were done.  If you found a dish dirty, you could leave it in the sink dirty.  (This ended up meaning that all dishes in the house stayed dirty in the sink at all times.)

- None of us had money for furniture, so we scoured the streets for furniture being thrown out to outfit our house.  That's how we scored a decent coffee table and two couches that smelled only a little bit.  We picked up a small table for the kitchen that wasn't too wobbly.  My computer desk (an 80 lb behemoth) was found a couple kilometers from our house and then carted back by all four of us . . . and I'm typing this message at this desk today.  All of the lights/lamps were found on the street and worked fine (some were particularly ugly though).  None of us were crazy enough to pick up beds from the street though, (I slept on the carpet in my room).

- There was no A/C, so we left the windows open all the time in the summer . . . we had big temperature and humidity swings from day to night, so after nights where the humidity got very high you would find dew all over walls, stair railing, and stuff in the house.  This eventually kinda got moldy.  We found a kiddie pool being thrown out on garbage day at one point and would all sit around in it getting drunk to kill the day on particularly hot weekends.

- The windows were single pane glass, and on a windy night you could feel the breeze through them so we covered them with plastic stuff in the winter which helped a little.

- The kitchen had parquet flooring that had I guess gotten wet and all warped before we moved it . . . so most of the flooring was painful to walk on in bare feet.  There were big gaps between the piece of parquet and large segments of it were coming up, so we just wore shoes in the kitchen.


Surprisingly, we all have fond memories of living there (not that we would ever go back to it).  Between the miserable living conditions and the 60 - 70 hours of school work a week we had a lot of fun too.

markbike528CBX

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #55 on: May 21, 2017, 12:42:30 PM »
reply to follow.   Can we give addresses?

My worst place is now a much nicer parking lot than it was a house.  Details to follow.

expatartist

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #56 on: May 21, 2017, 08:23:47 PM »
After graduation, I volunteered in Liverpool for:
* A youth art organization. We were housed in a rickety shared terrace house, paid 18 pounds/week for room and board. Serious mold issues that gave me asthma for the first and last time ever (even Beijing pollution wasn't so bad)
* A renegade art gallery whose director invited me to sleep on the floor of his dodgy 'hotel' room (with shared bathroom) in the infamous part of Liverpool, Toxteth. There was never TP and I had no extra $ so newspaper it was. After an incident with absinthe I stayed on a friend's house, a few feet away from his incontinent dog.

Haha I stayed there in 2013 for a few nights. Not too bad. No bedbugs in the room & it has a working elevator now

Chungking Mansions is fantastic! Used to stay there during short trips to the SAR. My BF lived there for a while when the electrics were out for days on end...people had to climb 16 floors with luggage. Can't imagine.

Torran

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #57 on: May 22, 2017, 04:03:37 AM »
Materially the 'worst' conditions:

Teaching in a refugee centre in India for 4 months, many, many years ago.

A hut shared between 2 of us, which was like a little garden-shed size hut. Two beds made of wooden slates in a L shape.
No running water
A camping stove to cook on
Obviously no phone line, no internet, no heating.
A lightbulb so we could stay up after sunset reading :)

There was a place where we could access spring water a bit further down the hill. We washed our clothes, dished and hair at that spot.

There was nothing to do at night except talk or read, so we did that. Went to bed at about 7pm, woke up at 7am.

Could not have been happier though!

BlueHouse

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #58 on: May 22, 2017, 10:42:06 AM »
I'm not sure this counts, because the apartment itself was fine (fantastic for a first apartment because it was all newly gutted so all the materials used were brand new).

The location however, was not the best.  A very high-crime city in the late 1980s, on a block with a crack house on each corner (truly).  I thought I was badass and drove my older brothers past the projects on our way to campus once.  They then tried to convince my mother that she had to cut off all support to me unless I moved.   I felt pretty safe most of the time because my apartment was just about 1.5 blocks from campus, and directly across the street from an Irish pub (lots of cops and firemen). Plus, I was young and invincible. 

One time, I returned to the city after a Labor day beach weekend to see ambulances removing a body from one of the crack houses (overdose).  The next day, I had numerous people tell me "I heard someone died on your block and was hoping you were okay", etc.  Because that Monday was a holiday, I wasn't at work and the UPS man who serviced both my home and office location was sure it was me because he couldn't find me at either location.  My schoolmates were like me -- convinced nothing could happen to the young, happy-go-lucky college kids who choose to live in dangerous environments. 

markbike528CBX

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #59 on: May 22, 2017, 11:30:35 AM »
When a professor who was
1) in the Soviet Army in WWII
2) prisoner of war in Germany (as a Soviet, probably rougher than how US personnel were treated)
says, in a thick accent "This place is a dump", you know that the house will NOT be in "Good Housekeeping" magazine.

I had 4 parents at the time (parental remarriage), and each one asked "are you really living here"?  But you expect that from parents, but when the professor made his declaration, that scared me.   I have never told my housemates the professor's statement, but may be I will at the college reunion coming up.

My stepmother would not let my sisters enter the house.

It took the three of us housemates, plus help from others, 3 days to get the kitchen to where 3 undergraduate male chemists felt safe using it.    During cleaning the oven blew up (or at least sparked a lot).

We did nothing but improve the place, when we moved out it was condemned, and it is now a much nicer looking parking lot.

YK-Phil

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #60 on: May 22, 2017, 11:55:24 AM »
I've lived in the Arctic most of my adult life. Living conditions are still dire even now, but when I moved up here over 30 years ago, life up here was pretty much third-worldly in many respects. During my first two years there, I lived in a 200-people community, in my girlfriend's parents' 3-bedroom "house". Two elderly parents, four adult sisters, their five children, two boyfriends, two small cousins, one teen brother, my girlfriend, and me, all sharing 5 mattresses on the floor and taking turns to sleep at various times of the day. Practically every day, one or two friends or relatives would come in the evening to "couch-surf". The house had literally no insulation, windows were leaky and didn't close properly (remember, we are in the Arctic), there was no running water, only a 100-gallon water tank that was refilled once every 10 days or so, no indoor plumbing whatsoever, no shower, no toilet, a sink (with no tap) draining outside through a hole in the wall. Only one "honey-bucket" for 18-20 people to do our business. My only chore in the house was to empty the honey bucket every morning and take the bag out for weekly pickup. Not very pleasant especially early in the morning, or at any time for that matter...Some people still live in similar condition in Aboriginal communities and reserves throughout our great country which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. I personally don't see much to celebrate.

Just Joe

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #61 on: May 23, 2017, 08:37:58 AM »
I've lived in the Arctic most of my adult life. Living conditions are still dire even now, but when I moved up here over 30 years ago, life up here was pretty much third-worldly in many respects. During my first two years there, I lived in a 200-people community, in my girlfriend's parents' 3-bedroom "house". Two elderly parents, four adult sisters, their five children, two boyfriends, two small cousins, one teen brother, my girlfriend, and me, all sharing 5 mattresses on the floor and taking turns to sleep at various times of the day. Practically every day, one or two friends or relatives would come in the evening to "couch-surf". The house had literally no insulation, windows were leaky and didn't close properly (remember, we are in the Arctic), there was no running water, only a 100-gallon water tank that was refilled once every 10 days or so, no indoor plumbing whatsoever, no shower, no toilet, a sink (with no tap) draining outside through a hole in the wall. Only one "honey-bucket" for 18-20 people to do our business. My only chore in the house was to empty the honey bucket every morning and take the bag out for weekly pickup. Not very pleasant especially early in the morning, or at any time for that matter...Some people still live in similar condition in Aboriginal communities and reserves throughout our great country which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. I personally don't see much to celebrate.

THAT would motivate me to change the trajectory of my life. I think you have won the thread.

I knew a few guys in the military who thought military life was a step up from what they lived before. They were grateful for the opportunities we had while others from suburban lifestyles were not. ;)

Chris22

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #62 on: May 23, 2017, 09:31:56 AM »
This pretty much shows berthing..



About 150 of us sharing berthing like that in here for months at a time under the ocean.


I've spent some time on subs in various capacities.  The amenities are sparse, but on the other hand, I never slept better due to the white noise and gentle rocking of the boat...

jlcnuke

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #63 on: May 24, 2017, 06:57:30 AM »


I've spent some time on subs in various capacities.  The amenities are sparse, but on the other hand, I never slept better due to the white noise and gentle rocking of the boat...

I always thought it was the exhaustion that made the sleep so good lol

Peony

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #64 on: May 30, 2017, 04:21:41 PM »
Haha, I just remembered something from when I was living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the late 1980s. I had this younger, recent-college-grad roommate moving in. Her male friend who was helping her move actually started crying during the move, because the building was so funky and depressing. In fairness to him, it was a 4th-floor walkup and there really was a horrible hallway -- like, rats horrible. But the apartment was actually decent (no rats!) and it was dirt cheap. Anyway, I guess to her friend the whole scene was unthinkable as a place to live. She and I both survived and moved on to better things eventually.

Abo345

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #65 on: May 30, 2017, 10:28:46 PM »
As a college student, rented a "bedroom" in a house with 6 other people. I say "bedroom" because it was actually the garage with some cheap industrial carpet on the ground, not properly finished walls, little insulation. You could hear mice scatter across the ceiling and there were always ant infestations in the dirty clothes bin.

This situation also included 5 people sharing a single bathroom. The ceiling of the shower was covered solid in black mold. This didn't seem to bother anyone other than me. One of the roommates didn't believe in flushing for going number 1 because he was an environmentalist, so whenever you walked into the bathroom you weren't sure whose pee was already in the toilet.

golden1

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #66 on: May 31, 2017, 07:05:11 AM »
Honestly, I have been pretty spoiled most of my life.  The only time I can remember living in a bad neighborhood was shortly after my dad got divorced and was broke.  He lived in the inner city of Baltimore in the early 1980's in a bad neighborhood.  I only spent weekends there, and we only lived there about a year before moving to a nicer townhouse in Catonsville.  '

My husband had it way worse.  His folks renovated houses when he was growing up, and often they lived in one small room in the house while they worked on the rest, so they spent years basically living in a construction zone eating sandwiches and off a hot plate for months at a time.  WHen he got older, he started helping with the renovations and has some good stories of people living in squalor.  Most of the houses he helped renovate were foreclosed on and were in really rough shape.  My favorite story is when his dad gave him a chisel and a shovel to go clean the hardened cat poop off the basement floor. 

expatartist

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #67 on: June 01, 2017, 10:54:19 PM »
Haha, I just remembered something from when I was living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the late 1980s. I had this younger, recent-college-grad roommate moving in. Her male friend who was helping her move actually started crying during the move, because the building was so funky and depressing. In fairness to him, it was a 4th-floor walkup and there really was a horrible hallway -- like, rats horrible. But the apartment was actually decent (no rats!) and it was dirt cheap. Anyway, I guess to her friend the whole scene was unthinkable as a place to live. She and I both survived and moved on to better things eventually.

Oh wow. Rats do really get to some people. In tropical cities they're pretty much inevitable in many living situations, so I'm generally not too phased when they're in public areas. My current flat is in an old style Hong Kong building, with lots of natural ventilation (ie top floor, lots of windows, halls and staircases open to 2 breezy rooftops). Our public areas are super open to the environment: everything from typhoons to rats and roaches. Rubbish is collected daily from the staircases at every level, but as subdivided flats our population density is one of the highest in the world.  Luckily I've had no rats in my flat, but have seen a small one in the stairwell a couple of times when guests visited at night....now I prepare potential guests in advance!
« Last Edit: June 03, 2017, 02:02:37 AM by expatartist »

sequoia

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #68 on: June 02, 2017, 04:41:48 AM »
Oh wow. Rats do really get to some people. In tropical cities they're pretty much inevitable in many living situations, so I'm generally not too phased when they're in public areas. My current building is an old style Hong Kong flat, with lots of natural ventilation (ie top floor, lots of windows, halls and staircases open to 2 breezy rooftops). Our public areas are super open to the environment: everything from typhoons to rats and roaches. Rubbish is collected daily from the staircases at every level, but as subdivided flats our population density is one of the highest in the world.  Luckily I've had no rats in my flat, but have seen a small one in the stairwell a couple of times when guests visited at night....now I prepare potential guests in advance!

After living in SE Asia for a bit, rats or mice do not scare me. They are a lot bigger, more aggressive and a lot more in numbers in tropical area than here.

FireHiker

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #69 on: June 02, 2017, 12:27:48 PM »
My worst-ever living conditions were the 8 months I spent homeless when I was 12 and 13. We either lived in campgrounds, house-sat for people, stayed with other families. Part of the time my family was together, part of the time not. My dad spend some of the time living in his 1980 orange Toyota Corolla when we were split up with different people.

I will say some of the actual physical conditions do not compare to others that have been described here; miraculously I even still like camping. But, it's an experience that will haunt me forever, and plays a huge role in my need for financial stability.

clairebonk

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #70 on: June 10, 2017, 12:44:41 PM »
Most times I've stayed with couchsurfing.org members. I'm not complaining, it's a free place to stay. But I was surprised that so many people weren't interested in having toilet seats on their toilet or having the use of their kitchen sink or counter space (because of so many dirty dishes) or walking barefoot in their living quarters (because of extremely dirty floors). It's not necessarily a country or class thing as I've experienced it east and west of the Atlantic and north and south of the equator.

markbike528CBX

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #71 on: June 10, 2017, 02:11:07 PM »
When a professor who was
1) in the Soviet Army in WWII
2) prisoner of war in Germany (as a Soviet, probably rougher than how US personnel were treated)
says, in a thick accent "This place is a dump", you know that the house will NOT be in "Good Housekeeping" magazine.

I had 4 parents at the time (parental remarriage), and each one asked "are you really living here"?  But you expect that from parents, but when the professor made his declaration, that scared me.   I have never told my housemates the professor's statement, but may be I will at the college reunion coming up.

My stepmother would not let my sisters enter the house.

It took the three of us housemates, plus help from others, 3 days to get the kitchen to where 3 undergraduate male chemists felt safe using it.    During cleaning the oven blew up (or at least sparked a lot).

We did nothing but improve the place, when we moved out it was condemned, and it is now a much nicer looking parking lot.

Sorry about the self quote.  Update.

At the college class reunion recently, I told a housemate ( nicknamed after a furry legend from the US Pacific Northwest) the above story.

He reminded me and elaborated his story about a spider hatch in his room.
       " I woke up, looked at my arm and it was moving/crawling"
       " I tried to sleep by plugging my ear and holding my nose"

I was glad the specifics of the incident were not clear, or I didn't  hear clearly, at the time

Another classmate noted that the episode worked as a horror movie scene.

mm1970

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #72 on: June 11, 2017, 03:34:05 PM »
This pretty much shows berthing..



About 150 of us sharing berthing like that in here for months at a time under the ocean.

I am both happy and sad that women were not allowed on subs when I went into the Navy.

mm1970

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #73 on: June 11, 2017, 03:44:04 PM »
I am way better off than most of you.

HS after parents separated, lived in a drafty, leaky trailer.  It wasn't ... horrible... until my 2 cousins moved in.  And I'd actually blocked that year from my memory, it was so bad.  They didn't even pay rent.  They were in college.

College.  Mostly just a couple of years with various roommates who were even bigger slobs than me. 

Freshman year, one of 2 roommates liked sex.  A lot.  And usually didn't care who else was in the room.  Made it hard to study.  Plus she was a slob.  I loved the room, but not her, and she stayed on the next year, so I moved out.

Soph year, 3 roommates.  Roommate A would cook dinner, not do dishes, and then go live at her boyfriend's.  Roommate B would get mad and yell at me to tell her to do her dishes.  I didn't cook, what did I care?  Roommate C was depressed and started cutting herself.  That was very stressful for me.  Eventually she dropped out.  Roommate D (C's replacement) showed up for a single weekend, moved out without ever showing up for class (she was a mid-year transfer), and forgot her towels.  I still have them.  This was 1989.  Roommate E (D's replacement) must have been reasonably normal.  Don't remember her.

Summer between Soph and Junior, off campus apartment included in my job painting dorms.  Oh the roaches.

Junior year, 1 roommate who had very religious parents.  I wasn't around much but when her parents would visit, she would hide my birth control pills.  Seriously.

Senior year I traded "up" to a sorority house with 15 other women (8 rooms, 2 per room).  The kitchen was a challenge, as it was a normal sized kitchen.  My roommate was cranky.  But it was probably my best year, and it was also the cheapest year.  Rent was 2/3 the price of other housing on campus and house fees were only $100 for the year.


1st year out (in the Navy, but not on a ship), lived in a cold dark basement that wasn't ever warmer than 58F, and it had a cricket.

I was only ever on Navy ships for a few days to a few weeks, so the accommodations were decent - usually the ousted other JO's or even higher to find space for us.

shelivesthedream

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #74 on: June 13, 2017, 02:39:30 AM »
Wow. Just...wow.

I've never lived anywhere that bad, but in reading all this I couldn't help but thinking about vermin and how inconsistent I am about them.

Mice: ew. Get some poison and call an exterminator.
Rats: ARGH PANIC CANNOT SLEEP MUST SPEND ENTIRE NIGHT PERCHED ON A STOOL WITH A SHOVEL WHICH I WOULD BE TOO AFRAID TO USE ANYWAY.
Spiders: ew. Get a broom and some wellies and someone else brave and do some killing.
Ants: ha ha, you are no match for my hardback book!
Cockroaches: MOVE OUT IMMEDIATELY AND BURN ALL MY POSSESSIONS.

TartanTallulah

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #75 on: June 27, 2017, 11:14:30 AM »
My worst living situation was a different sort of bad from the places described so far in this thread. There were no critters or bugs - heaven forfend! It was clean, warm, dry, safe, and everything worked. But ...

When my first marriage broke down, around 12 years ago, my parents urged me to take the kids and move in with them. My mother had allegedly wheedled out of my soon-to-be-ex-husband, by pretending to be on his side, that he intended to kill us all and then himself. His behaviour regarding the divorce made this seem plausible, although I suspect now that it wasn't true. So, in my early forties and with three school-age children, I accepted the offer and moved back in with my parents. My oldest daughter didn't want to leave her school and stayed with her father. She was a strong-willed 14-year-old and then, as now, was the only person who could handle him.

Once I'd moved, I discovered that it was all about control. I was forbidden from having friends to visit ("we don't want strangers in our house"), leaving the house when my ex-husband visited to see the kids, cooking "smelly" food (anything that involved raw ingredients rather than just heating something up - there was no space in the kitchen for me to store my food anyway), going out in the evenings even after the children were asleep in bed ("WE have lives too, you know!") and even going out running for an hour after work. If you think a 40-something woman can't be prevented from going out for a run, you haven't met my mother in spate. I was expected to watch TV with them in the evenings. TV's not my thing, and the only computer in the household was in the same room as the TV and I wasn't allowed to tap-tap-tap ("thump and clatter") on the keyboard because it was annoying. I'd go off to my bedroom to read, and hear them complaining to one another about how unsociable I was. And my world contracted to that 11' x 7' bedroom. There wasn't enough room to put my belongings and I got nagged because it wasn't meeting my mother's standards of tidiness.

I did resist one thing. After we'd moved in, my mother suggested that I shouldn't work for a few months, but the thought of being without any form of income terrified me. Although I was too much of an outsider to be offered a permanent job, I got lots of piecework and insisted on continuing to work, holding my parents to their promise to get the kids to school and be there when they came home. And I managed to form a long distance relationship with someone who'd been an acquaintance for many years, and every few weeks I'd put the kids in the car and we'd all go and stay with him, and he'd come and visit us and stay in a nearby motel because he wasn't allowed in my mother's house. And Mum's never been an easy person - I'm sure my first marriage to a rather narcissistic man was a classic example of "marrying my mother" - and I walked on eggshells much of the time, but when I mentioned this she got mad and accused me of making her life miserable.

My son was badly bullied at school by another boy. The head teacher insisted that it was six and half-a-dozen. We knew it wasn't; my son is autistic, but has never been a conflict-seeker. The other boy was later jailed for murdering a much younger boy. I still shudder ...

And in the meantime my parents were entertaining themselves by helpfully checking out nearby houses for me to buy.

I made an impulse decision, bought my ex-husband out of the marital home (at a premium), contacted the kids' former school and asked if they could go back the next term, and nine months after running away I ran back. What a relief! Amazingly, my relationship with my parents recovered and they've rewritten history as if everything would have been fine had it not been for the bad boy bullying my son at school. I just smile. I'm good at that.

The experience affected me, though. Five years later, I moved back for a few weeks to support my father while my mother was in hospital. Dad didn't mind us going out on our own provided we were with him at hospital visiting times and at night. Whereas my sister was happy to go out running and to the gym and make her own food choices and take day trips to the city, I felt totally tied to the house and when I went out on my own I was anxious the entire time.

doublethinkmoney

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #76 on: June 27, 2017, 11:30:11 AM »
Off-campus apartment in "the Fens", near Fenway Park in Boston with two other girls. At that time, maybe still, you could not get an apartment that didn't have roaches. One of my roommates had a high tolerance for them. I once saw her put a box of opened cereal flat on the kitchen table so the roaches could run out. Then she poured herself a bowl and ate it.



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FIreSurfer

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #77 on: June 27, 2017, 12:08:43 PM »
YES THE LOWER EAST OF NEW YORK CITY WAS REALLY LIKE THIS ......OR......DON'T LIVE WITH JUNKIE PUNX!!!

...so when I moved back into my (shared 1 bedroom apt between two people - fake wall we built ourselves and curtains for doors) old apartment in the LES

1. Almost sat on a used hypodermic wedged in the couch within an hour of moving back in. Someone had created "art" on the wall by squeezing blood from a needle.

2. Landlord was in prison for attempted murder of a tenant. Management used over 5 shell companies named after Tolkien characters to hide from lawsuits.

3. Roommate liked to take in teenage runaway junkies that look like Kurt Cobain (statuatory rape? I just tried to believe the age they said they were.....)

4. Upstairs neighbor killed girlfriend, wrapped her in a carpet in the corner of his living room until caught. 

5. Building is infested with roaches, gas doesn't work for a year at one point.  Woke up one night to a roach crawling on my girl's face in my bed... back to sleep.

6. Roommate moved deadbeat junkie boyfriend in (now we are 3 in a one bedroom!). They shoot heroin and fight with knives most nights until they nod off.

7. Roommate's drug dealers would sell drugs in our hallways, I would have to plead ignorance to neighbors.

8. Woke one morning to find some girl no one knew asleep on the kitchen floor - her pink lipstick smeared on the linoleum and was there for months.  There were always people asleep on the kitchen floor actually.

9. Couldn't get into my apt. to get dressed for the first day of a new job because it was a crime scene.....

Finally realized how crazy the place was while frantically googling "how to stop a heroin overdose" while yet another underage kid turned blue on the kitchen floor, and realized I didn't need this type of excitement in my life.......

I moved out soon after (to an old church that was heated with coal, but that's another story) and don't worry, with the help of google, we saved the underage kid and he lived to OD again (in someone else's apartment!!)

CindyBS

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #78 on: June 29, 2017, 10:00:52 PM »
The pediatric intensive care unit. 

Watching your medically fragile child suffer in a way no one should ever have to is hell.


Other than that, I have been very fortunate in my living conditions with annoying roommates being the worst.