Author Topic: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?  (Read 16963 times)

Rimu05

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What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« on: March 15, 2017, 10:11:08 AM »
In keeping with my recent thread on how to cook when you live with a slob, I am curious about this one.

I once for a month lived with a hoarder and by that, I mean she literally could should be on the show hoarders. As in, I see some of those hoarders and think, they have nothing on her. The room I was supposed to live in was full of stuff so I had to stay on the couch for that month. A couch that had rat droppings and you could hear them scratching around at night.

Even the bathroom was completely cluttered. Like the only free space was the little path made to go to rooms. We had to clear the couch for 30 mins so I could sleep in it.

I believe this is a mental condition here as she was amazingly sweet but she would often buy things. I tried to mention trying to declutter and she managed to clear some stuff but then went and bought more.

When my sister and I first entered the house it was like our soul left our bodies. We had to control ourselves to really not show any negative expressions.

Melisande

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2017, 11:04:01 AM »
I once shared an on-campus apartment with a slightly unusual woman who became increasingly deluded and unstable (she was a talented artist however -- how i got to know her). She was a slob, but accused me of being the messy one. Her: "Yeah, your room looks neat, but it's not clean. It's disgusting!!!" (Really it wasn't.) Me: "Are you implying that you pick up all this stuff strewn everywhere, clean all your surfaces and then put it back again, because I don't think so." One day, she was so pissed off about something that she purposely got every single dish we owned dirty, then threw them on my bed. She would rip the phone out of the wall and unplug it while I was using it (because my dirty hand were on her phone.) She threatened with a knife.

It is a testament to my naivety that it was not me but she who wound up going to the campus housing department and complaining -- trying to get me kicked out. We had a hearing and the board sided with me (not surprising, since she appeared totally irrational and unhinged when she presented her case) and refused to let her stay in the apartment. To make things fair, I had to get another apartment too, but that was totally fine with me. After we were split up, she stalked me for about a year or so. Really strange.

Just Joe

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2017, 12:00:06 PM »
My worst was just living with three guys in a rental house. None of us were very tidy. It would get better and worse and better. Usually bad and then someone would make a declaration and we'd all pitch in to make it better. Weeks later, back where we started at.

One roomie was a braggart but not dangerous. I had a potentially dangerous roomie once at a different location and left soon.  That situation was expensive and inconvenient.

Edit: I should add that the house did not have heat or a/c. The water could be irregular in the hot months so we had to work with a well and pump. Do not drink that water. House was very drafty but fortunately winter seldom went below 40F. We used kerosene space heaters. Other problem was a high theft rate. Had to keep everything locked up b/c if you went away for 30 mins there was a good chance it would not be there when you came back.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2017, 03:43:39 PM by Tasty Pinecones »

Norioch

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2017, 12:38:58 PM »
Studio apartment in Texas with insufficient lighting, AC that alternated between failing entirely and leaking like a faucet, a persistent weird smell, and huge cockroaches. I didn't own a bed and slept in the floor.

ProfessionalPirate

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2017, 01:38:10 PM »
I think I have the weirdest roommate story: a life-size jesus lying in a glass coffin. I was living in a barn with bats for a year whilst doing volunteer work in South America. Big J came to stay with me when they were re-roofing the church. He used to freak me out at night sometimes, but then I'm an atheist.

driftwood

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #5 on: March 15, 2017, 02:00:18 PM »
Spent about a week in a prison cell in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq on my first deployment.  Couldn't help but wonder what had gone on in there durin Saddam's reign. No roomate though, and the cell door was never locked, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  The prison made for better mortar protection than a tent would have. 

P.S. My unit didn't show up there until after the events during the Abu Ghraib torture/photo scandal had taken place, but we were there when the photos came out.

ketchup

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #6 on: March 15, 2017, 02:04:07 PM »
For a while I had a non-roommate "friend"-of-roommate that would just show up at our house, eat our food, sit on our couch, watch our Netflix account, and be generally unpleasant and complain about things.  And use our shower at inconvenient times and mess up our bathroom.  It was a big house with a very open floorplan, which worked against us, because I and my actual roommates felt trapped in our bedrooms.  It was stupid.  And she'd just drop off her dog before work 99% of the time without asking.  Said dog shed an unbelievable amount of hair, was badly/not trained, and ruined two couches in a row (she of course did not clean up or replace the couches for us).

That lasted a little too long (few weeks) before it devolved into a shouting match and then she left and that shit ended.  Dumb dumb dumb.

I think I have the weirdest roommate story: a life-size jesus lying in a glass coffin. I was living in a barn with bats for a year whilst doing volunteer work in South America. Big J came to stay with me when they were re-roofing the church. He used to freak me out at night sometimes, but then I'm an atheist.
Yeah, that would probably freak me out.

Chris22

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #7 on: March 15, 2017, 02:18:58 PM »
My worst was just living with three guys in a rental house. None of us were very tidy. It would get better and worse and better. Usually bad and then someone would make a declaration and we'd all pitch in to make it better. Weeks later, back where we started at.

This.  Senior year of college, scuzzy off-campus apartment, 4 of us dudes.  Once we saw a roach in the living room, plopped an upside down glass over it, and left it there for a month or two. 

I'd give quite a bit to go back and live like that with those guys for a month.

Hotstreak

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2017, 02:34:18 PM »
My worst was just living with three guys in a rental house. None of us were very tidy. It would get better and worse and better. Usually bad and then someone would make a declaration and we'd all pitch in to make it better. Weeks later, back where we started at.

This.  Senior year of college, scuzzy off-campus apartment, 4 of us dudes.  Once we saw a roach in the living room, plopped an upside down glass over it, and left it there for a month or two. 

I'd give quite a bit to go back and live like that with those guys for a month.

When I read Tasty Pinecones' post it made me think of the good old college days.  We would clean every other Friday or whenever we had people coming over.  With the three of us, and focusing on only the common areas, it didn't take long.  I think a lot of guys were in the same situation... but the women's apartments somehow were clean no matter when I stopped by.  Weird.

Chris22

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #9 on: March 15, 2017, 02:39:10 PM »
My worst was just living with three guys in a rental house. None of us were very tidy. It would get better and worse and better. Usually bad and then someone would make a declaration and we'd all pitch in to make it better. Weeks later, back where we started at.

This.  Senior year of college, scuzzy off-campus apartment, 4 of us dudes.  Once we saw a roach in the living room, plopped an upside down glass over it, and left it there for a month or two. 

I'd give quite a bit to go back and live like that with those guys for a month.

When I read Tasty Pinecones' post it made me think of the good old college days.  We would clean every other Friday or whenever we had people coming over.  With the three of us, and focusing on only the common areas, it didn't take long.  I think a lot of guys were in the same situation... but the women's apartments somehow were clean no matter when I stopped by.  Weird.

I was involved in a campus group that auctioned off the seniors every year (you could make them drive you around, throw a party at their place, do odd jobs, etc) to raise money, and I remember my roommates and I pooled a fair amount of money together ($50-75 ea) and bought a friend of ours and the deal was we made her clean our kitchen and living room in preparation for a party.  We did let her get good and drunk in the process and the party at the end was worth it for all involved :D

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #10 on: March 15, 2017, 03:10:10 PM »
Spent about a week in a prison cell in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq on my first deployment.  Couldn't help but wonder what had gone on in there durin Saddam's reign. No roomate though, and the cell door was never locked, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  The prison made for better mortar protection than a tent would have. 

P.S. My unit didn't show up there until after the events during the Abu Ghraib torture/photo scandal had taken place, but we were there when the photos came out.
I know someone in this exact situation. I  now wonder if you knew them. Were you army?

My worst living situation to date was either the navy ship, or the 12 x 12 room with 5 other ladies (triple bunk beds - we each had one dresser drawer and 1/3 of a closet). Not sure actually which was worse.

Saskatchewstachian

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #11 on: March 15, 2017, 03:19:27 PM »
My worst was just living with three guys in a rental house. None of us were very tidy. It would get better and worse and better. Usually bad and then someone would make a declaration and we'd all pitch in to make it better. Weeks later, back where we started at.

One roomie was a braggart but not dangerous. I had a potentially dangerous roomie once at a different location and left soon.  That situation was expensive and inconvenient.

Sounds like first year of engineering to me! 3 guys in the house and it would just slowly get more and more messy until we were too embarrassed about it and would finally clean. Pizza boxes, empty beer cans, dirty plates not put away, etc. Luckily that only lasted for the first semester.

marble_faun

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2017, 07:37:37 PM »
My story is pretty tame compared to some others, but here goes...

For a while my now-husband and I lived in the unfinished attic of an old house that had been broken up into apartments.

One of the walls was made out of brick, and brick dust got all over everything constantly. You would wake up and be covered in red powder.

The roof leaked in a few places, including directly onto our bed, and we could see the hole had been patched before with yellowed old newspapers.

At one point a tree fell in a storm and smashed one of the little garret windows, which let cold and rain in for quite a while until the landlord got it fixed.

There was no bannister around the ladder area that led downstairs -- a kind of gaping hole that took up about 1/3 of the available floor surface. So we always had to be careful not to trip and fall down a storey in the night.

But the worst was that one of our roommates downstairs had an aggressive dog that growled at me and tried to bite my ankles when I walked by it. I am a dog person and have been around dogs my whole life, and never before had I experienced anything like that. The roommate suggested that I start kicking the dog to demonstrate my "dominance." I refused to kick the dog and so just had to deal with my movement in the downstairs common areas being limited.

That place was dirt-cheap. But it was such a relief to leave.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2017, 06:43:45 AM by marble_faun »

misshathaway

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #13 on: March 16, 2017, 06:37:54 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.

hoping2retire35

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #14 on: March 16, 2017, 07:36:34 AM »
Currently I live with four other roommates. One is pretty good and reasonable and good to look at ;) The others; complete jerks. constant yelling and fighting. Leaves their half eaten food out. insists on watching tv non-stop. wakes me at all hours of the night. Never cleaning up after their selves, the other roommate and myself do basically all the chores, it is great if they even put the dishes in the sink. None of these people have jobs, completely supported by us. Come'on just try to pull your own weight!

j/k

BlueHouse

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #15 on: March 18, 2017, 08:20:29 AM »
Not me, but my brother's college apartment that he shared with 3 other guys. 

They left dirty dishes in the sink so long that when one finally emptied the sink, they found what they thought was a bowl of Spaghetti-O's, only to find out they were maggots.

Bathroom shower -- uncleaned for so long that things started to grow in the grout.  The guys thought it was hysterical and soon started to protect the wildlife.  The final time I visited, there was a three-foot sapling growing out of the grout on one of the walls -- made it so you couldn't close the shower curtain all the way, but all the guys were adamant -- "don't hurt the tree"!!

Another kitchen sink story -- they found that they had a lizard living in their sink at one point and didn't want to disturb it. 

To this day, I am made fun of because of one weekend when I went to visit and I left the morning after I arrived.  I slept fully clothed on the couch and I just couldn't bear brushing my teeth in their sink or showering in their bath, so I left and drove 12 hours home. 

marble_faun

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2017, 05:34:09 PM »
They left dirty dishes in the sink so long that when one finally emptied the sink, they found what they thought was a bowl of Spaghetti-O's, only to find out they were maggots.

AHHHHHH!!!  Okay, that's "nightmares for life" material right there.

Travis

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #17 on: March 18, 2017, 06:07:26 PM »
Spent about a week in a prison cell in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq on my first deployment.  Couldn't help but wonder what had gone on in there durin Saddam's reign. No roomate though, and the cell door was never locked, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  The prison made for better mortar protection than a tent would have. 

P.S. My unit didn't show up there until after the events during the Abu Ghraib torture/photo scandal had taken place, but we were there when the photos came out.
I know someone in this exact situation. I  now wonder if you knew them. Were you army?

My worst living situation to date was either the navy ship, or the 12 x 12 room with 5 other ladies (triple bunk beds - we each had one dresser drawer and 1/3 of a closet). Not sure actually which was worse.

Second tour in Iraq I lived in what was essentially a re-purposed storage closet.  It consisted of four plywood walls, a dirty stone floor, and took up no more than 50 square feet. Since I had a real mattress this time around I can't really complain too much, I know some guys who went through much worse than that.

paddedhat

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #18 on: March 19, 2017, 09:47:20 AM »
Not me, but my brother's college apartment that he shared with 3 other guys. 

My son is a recent grad with an engineering degree. He spent a year with three "dudes" in a rental house, a few blocks from campus. His mom and I went to visit. I headed in first, did a quick reconnaissance of the situation, and immediately headed out to the car to inform my DW that she would not be going inside.  There is no way that she would of allowed a child of her's to remain in such squalor.  If the situation had occurred a few years earlier, and the kid was living in similar horrendous conditions, under the guardianship of his two parents, we would of both left our home in handcuffs, charged with negligence,  while the local news trucks videoed the scene. It's been a few years but it's still too gross to think about.

He did have some great stories however. Two of the guys were legitimate students, who both happened to be short, obnoxious, Irish alcoholics with hair trigger tempers, and a talent for stirring up a good shit storm. In the end he made it through. Sadly, the Irish lads didn't. The university and the local police force grew tired of their antics, and they were encouraged to find their futures elsewhere.

Just Joe

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #19 on: March 27, 2017, 11:04:57 AM »
I hated cleaning up for company back then - took forever b/c there was so little being done in between. Every clean up with the roomies was a major operation.

Davnasty

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #20 on: April 03, 2017, 02:53:58 PM »
Mine may be a little unusual. No roommates, no mess and some aspects of it were enjoyable but I lived in a 1930's log hunting cabin retrofitted to be livable year round. I lived there for a year after graduating college to take some graduate level classes and work part time. Since my roommates were all gone this was the cheapest one person place I could find.

When I moved in the first steps were to clean out the cobwebs and leaves, patch the masonry where I could see light coming through, clean the mold out of the refrigerator and run the shower until the water went from brown to clear.

During my stay I had a number of run-ins with critters. Some of the more interesting encounters were the stretch of 9 days where I set one mouse trap and caught one mouse every night like clockwork and the 6 foot blacksnake (who probably caught more mice than I ever did) I spotted climbing into the roof one day. I later found out he had access to more than just the roof when I stumbled upon an unknown substance on the floor. Some quick googling told me what snake poop looks like and I think that was the last time I slept inside.

Oh ya, and the landlord casually mentioned one time that the previous tenant may or may not have been on the run from the law and growing medicinal plants in the back room. Sometimes I still wonder if they ever got another renter in that place.


bobechs

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #21 on: April 03, 2017, 03:13:52 PM »
As mentioned above, going to sea is never any kind of picnic.

Not because of indolent squalor; indolence, even in the form of just sitting still for 1/2 hour is forbidden.  Everything, even the uncleanable, is fair game for cleaning, usually with no supplies or equipment, on an impromptu basis ordered by anyone senior even a single degree to the inhabitants.

I heard sea duty once referred to as spending three months living in a dumpster with twelve of your closest enemies.  'Bout right.

gooki

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #22 on: April 04, 2017, 02:06:41 AM »
Lived in a tin shed for 9 months. No insulation, no heating, condensation would freeze on the inside of the window during a cold night. Rent was cheap though.

BlueHouse

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #23 on: April 04, 2017, 11:48:29 AM »
While I was in college, the dorms had to be emptied each summer.  So each summer, I scrounged around looking for a decent place to exist for a few months in what was then considered to be one of the worst (maybe even the worst) city in the U.S. 

One summer, I bunked in a fraternity house on a bunk bed with fleas.  ouch.

The next summer, I rented a room (a whole room to myself, with a door that locked!) in an adult/veteran fraternity house.  That was the life! Except for one thing.  The house was the top two floors of an old victorian house.  The bottom floor was a Spanish bar.  Nice people, but that was the year "La Bamba" came out.  I woke up to and went to sleep to "La Bamba" every day for 2.5 months.  I never wanted to hear that song again! 

Poundwise

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #24 on: April 05, 2017, 10:52:38 AM »
This is a great thread!

It probably doesn't count, but I did spend two nights in a cheap hotel in Hong Kong in the 90s... It was a vast multistory building with hundreds of rooms, no working elevators, no fire escapes, and frightening emergency hoses that you could see were so cracked that they would never hold water. The room had enough for a full-size mattress, plus enough room to open the door. Bathroom down the hall. I shared it with a buddy. I had an overdue paper so I had to stay up both nights to work on it, but she didn't mind because every time we turned on the lights, hundreds of bugs (roaches, bedbugs, and goodness knows what else) would scatter. At least I could shoo them away from her since I was awake.

Another time around the same period, I lived with a reggae band.  The leader was my college friend's boyfriend, who was a real-life "Big Lebowski" Dude. It was actually a pretty nice apartment before we moved all our pathetic castoff furniture into it, but as you can imagine it went downhill after that. I was working four part-time jobs and they still owe me rent for several months, although I suppose it all works out because our Dude kept getting us extensions on the rent from the poor landlord.

Just Joe

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #25 on: April 05, 2017, 11:11:00 AM »
Geez - these places make living in a van you own and outfitted yourself to seem positively luxurious by comparison. At least it could be a clean place to live that is lockable.

No bugs.

Camping is fine but no sleeping with bugs. At least an old tent provides that much shelter.

bobechs

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #26 on: April 07, 2017, 10:24:09 AM »
This is a great thread!

It probably doesn't count, but I did spend two nights in a cheap hotel in Hong Kong in the 90s... It was a vast multistory building with hundreds of rooms, no working elevators, no fire escapes, and frightening emergency hoses that you could see were so cracked that they would never hold water. The room had enough for a full-size mattress, plus enough room to open the door. Bathroom down the hall. I shared it with a buddy. I had an overdue paper so I had to stay up both nights to work on it, but she didn't mind because every time we turned on the lights, hundreds of bugs (roaches, bedbugs, and goodness knows what else) would scatter. At least I could shoo them away from her since I was awake.



Ah...Chunking Mansions.  Remember it well.  In the heart of Kowloon for $2 to $12 a night, dormitory style with shared baths and every-other-floor a Paki-style "Mess."

Fairly safe, appearances notwithstanding, indifferently clean, and surprisingly cheap for housing on the most expensive land in the world, outside metro Tokyo....

Poundwise

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #27 on: April 07, 2017, 10:36:33 AM »
OMG bobechs, that was it!! That was the name!  Yes, I think we paid a princely $4 or so for the night. 

Thanks for helping me retrieve a bit of my past. I just looked it up... the room they picture is a lot nicer than the one we stayed in, but I turned up this interesting factoid:

"CUHK anthropologist Prof. Gordon Mathews estimated in 2007 that people from at least 120 different nationalities had passed through Chungking Mansions in one year.[14] Mathews also estimates that up to 20 percent of the mobile phones recently in use in sub-Saharan Africa had passed through Chungking Mansions at some point.[15]" (bolding mine)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungking_Mansions

P.S. Also I notice the outside looks a lot more upscale than I remember but it seems like the exterior was renovated in 2011 to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2017, 10:50:57 AM by Poundwise »

CptCool

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #28 on: April 10, 2017, 09:19:13 AM »
Haha I stayed there in 2013 for a few nights. Not too bad. No bedbugs in the room & it has a working elevator now

Cali Nonya

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #29 on: April 10, 2017, 10:28:35 AM »
I do not have any living conditions stories from college, my places were always basic but clean, and I never lived with any crazies.

Now in my oil-field rigdays, I had some bad living conditions.  Three come to mind.  A really lousy rig location in New Mexico in very small trailers as the "camp" with intermittent power and mostly faulty pluming (for about 2 weeks).  Luckily I had brought a sleeping bag to that job since the bedding was super scary (I don't think ever washed), and I don't remember being able to shower much at all, it was most similar to back-packing conditions (go a way out behind a tree and do the best you can with a bottle of water).  Another 2 weeks in North Dakota in December again with intermittent power (no heat!), there literary were icicles hanging inside the camp trailers (and occasionally frozen plumbing).  That was the coldest and most miserable I have been.  And 18 months on a urban project (nice Best Western hotel), but the rig location was porta-pot only so for long stretches (days on end) when I had to stay at the rig, no running water and porta-pot only.  And sorry, but rig porta-pots can get pretty nasty.  I was happy when that project wrapped up.

paddedhat

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #30 on: April 10, 2017, 08:26:05 PM »
I do not have any living conditions stories from college, my places were always basic but clean, and I never lived with any crazies.

Now in my oil-field rigdays, I had some bad living conditions.  Three come to mind.  A really lousy rig location in New Mexico in very small trailers as the "camp" with intermittent power and mostly faulty pluming (for about 2 weeks).  Luckily I had brought a sleeping bag to that job since the bedding was super scary (I don't think ever washed), and I don't remember being able to shower much at all, it was most similar to back-packing conditions (go a way out behind a tree and do the best you can with a bottle of water).  Another 2 weeks in North Dakota in December again with intermittent power (no heat!), there literary were icicles hanging inside the camp trailers (and occasionally frozen plumbing).  That was the coldest and most miserable I have been.  And 18 months on a urban project (nice Best Western hotel), but the rig location was porta-pot only so for long stretches (days on end) when I had to stay at the rig, no running water and porta-pot only.  And sorry, but rig porta-pots can get pretty nasty. I was happy when that project wrapped up.

After two decades of plastic shit house experience, I was working in Texas, dead of summer, and hot as ball sweat off a pit roasting pig. It was a volunteer job on a giant Habitat for Humanity project. Thousands of people, and large numbers of incredibly ripe shitters. I got there very early one morning, and without thinking, jumped into one to deposit some morning coffee. Within moments I was outside, hands and knees on the pavement, dry heaving like I was trying to exorcise a demon. It will probably be the nastiest thing I will ever smell in this lifetime.  As I'm heaving, a female cop walked on over, with her thumbs in her gunbelt  and, (with an excruciatingly straight face and totally professional grade, bone dry delivery) says, "they clean those things by eight every morning, you might want to wait".  I just laughed, got up, and walked away.

bacchi

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #31 on: April 10, 2017, 09:32:30 PM »
I'm staying in a cheap hotel in Costa Rica. The walls of each "room" stop short of the ceiling for air flow. Half asleep, I feel my cat jump on to the end of the bed; I awaken with a start -- I'm on vacation and my cat isn't here -- and look to see a huge rat staring at me. I scream and kick out and the rat flies over the short walls and lands in the neighbors' bed. They scream, too, and it scurries away.

I didn't get much sleep that night.

sequoia

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #32 on: April 24, 2017, 01:01:57 PM »
I had a small private room in college dorm. A friend of a friend (I barely knows him) needed a place to stay for 2 or 3 days - I forget the details why. Being a helpful guy, I let him stayed. That was a huge mistake. He must be hoarder because 3 of us helped him moved a crazy amount of stuffs into a storage from his dorm room, and he still have more stuffs to bring into my room. I should have said no, when I see how much stuffs he was going to bring into my room. He was also as slob, in three days he managed to have his dirty clothes to cover the entire floor, and stink up the room. I never figured out how he would leave for a few hour, and when he returned, and his clothes are all all dirty and smelly. I had to leave the windows open for fresh air.  And to make the matter worse, after shedding all of his dirty clothes, he would walked around naked in the room. He asked if he can stay again for 2-3 days at the end of the following semester. I flat out tell him nope. Apparently he asked a few other people too. I was ok hanging around with him before since he was a friend of a friend, but after that three days of nightmare, he kinda creeped me out, and I just avoided him as much as I can.

Many years later, in different city, I was walking around at local mall with my family, and he saw us. He stopped us, and wanted to talk but I pretended I never know him.

SingleMomDebt

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #33 on: April 24, 2017, 01:46:50 PM »
the three of us in a 1 bedroom roach infested apartment in a very shady neighborhood. *shiver* creeps me out to think of the roaches running across the walls.

aaahhrealmarcus

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #34 on: April 24, 2017, 04:31:12 PM »
Lived in lots of sketchy places... spent a summer in the middle east, another 6 months hiking the Appalachian Trail (basically camping/homeless the entire time,) did some time with AmeriCorps and the Student Conservation Association after college, who would put us up in some pretty cheap "government housing" like an old lady's garage. The worst was probably an "earth lodge" I stayed in, which was basically a whole in the ground with a fire pit and a thatched roof. Did I mention there were fire ants down there? Also, scorpions and tarantulas. I also spent the night under a tree in front of the Smithsonian once, but that was just me being too cheap to pay for a hotel (and all the hostels were full!)

Cpa Cat

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #35 on: April 24, 2017, 05:14:42 PM »
I lived in a pretty scummy apartment in Guelph, Ontario during college. Cruddy appliances, cruddy everything.

I was visiting my husband-to-be in the States and returned home to find out that pipes had burst in an apartment above me and flooded apartments all the way down. During the process, the bathroom ceiling collapsed due to water logging. There was two inches of water on the floor when I walked in.

Everything was wet. All my furniture was ruined. My box spring molded, but my mattress was usable, so laid it on the floor. I couldn't use the toilet or shower because the bathroom ceiling was covering it, but my landlord wasn't coming to help. So I had to clean up the drywall myself just to pee and stuff. Of course the pipe problem caused the water to be turned off for about 48 hours.

Eventually someone came with industrial fans and other equipment. They were in my apartment daily, drilling holes in the walls, cleaning up water, etc.

I had painted my apartment when I moved in because the landlord refused. At one point a maintenance person snidely says to me, "You're lucky this place flooded, or else you'd have to repaint before you moved. This is not an approved color of paint!"

I don't think "lucky" is the word I would have used.

Just Joe

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #36 on: May 01, 2017, 09:37:43 PM »
I swear buying a used RV sounds more appealing than some of the places everyone has detailed. I was "homeless" for a week between jobs once. Luckily I had camping gear, some money saved, and a car. Not a bad week.

A friend rented a single wide trailer in a trailer park once. Had to make all sorts of repairs to make it livable despite renting. He said it was cheap enough to be worthwhile and his cost was minimum. He was just being frugal. Pretty rough to look at but he made it better during his time there and the neighbors were surprisingly good/quiet. It fit his needs completely. He was one of my friends who came from little, made good choices all along the way and has had a happy life.

MsPeacock

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #37 on: May 04, 2017, 04:56:44 PM »
Moved out on my own in high school and rented a room in a big house with seven other people. Big sprawling old run down "student ghetto" house. Very poorly maintained and 7/7 housemates were filthy slobs.  Garbage rarely taken out, dishes never washed. It was super gross. On top of that the landlord attempted to do her own repairs, including a furnace repair during which she set her arm on fire in an explosion - badly. Her two young girls were with her. It was traumatic. Electrical was a mess, ceilings were sagging from water damage. My room was an unheated "three seasons" porch (in Michigan).

JDM

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #38 on: May 04, 2017, 05:18:47 PM »
Out of high school I moved across the state and rented a room in an old house with 2 other people around my age.

1 was a stripper that keep trying to get me to join her profession. One day I came home to her screaming. She was practicing her dance moves and her hair got stuck in the fan by her bed. She made me shave her head for her. She wore wigs from then on. We also frequently had foreign ladies show up in the middle of the night after their shift, crying from being mugged or molested.

The other guy was a wanna be rapper (white kid from Canada with no rhythm) that would blare his music at all hours of the night and pound on my door to ask me what I thought.

They both eventually left and I got 2 German roommates. They had never been to America before and they were insane. They went fishing in the nasty river by our house and gutted the fish on our counters, then didn't clean up. One brought home a drunk girl that peed in his bed. They both got arrested multiple times and tried to call me for bail for drunk driving. And they are also banned from Australia.

Good times! Happy to be married and living with just my husband now.

tadcaster2014

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #39 on: May 05, 2017, 08:22:43 AM »
I lived on the floor whilst at university

BlueHouse

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #40 on: May 05, 2017, 10:35:30 AM »
<snip>
That was a huge mistake. He must be hoarder because 3 of us helped him moved a crazy amount of stuffs into a storage from his dorm room, and he still have more stuffs to bring into my room
<snip>
This reminded me of a story that is a little bit off-topic, but related to this.  An old family friend from the neighborhood growing up (friend of oldest brother and he befriended all 5 kids in our family), contacted me 5 or 10 years after our last conversation.  Asked if he could store some things at my place for a month or two while between teaching assignments (he was a physicist).  This guy was weird.  Always.  But he always gave great stories for our family (as in "has anyone seen Smith lately?")  Of course I said he could store his stuff in the garage! 
So he gets there, I leave a key for him, he unpacks, then heads out to his next destination.  I never see him, but when I get home from work that night, I see everything worked out as planned, as the garage is full.   No problem, except after the first month, I get curious.  I mean, why aren't there any boxes?  Why are all of his belongings just in neat little piles, arranged in a very neat grid in the garage?  And what kind of belongings did he bring that he didn't need for a few months?  So I tiptoe through the piles and start looking, but I don't touch anything (because I know him well enough to know...that's not a good idea).  So the first pile I notice is his giant piles (2 piles, both up to my hip) of old telephone books.  White pages from New York.  Same area, just different years.  In the next grid, is a Hefty bag, but it's not tied shut so I can look in without really touching too much.  Maple leaves.  mmm-hmmmm.  Another square was a few piles of newspaper articles that had been ripped out of the paper.  Jagged edges, etc.  3 piles about 1.5 to 2 feet high of single-sheets of newsprint.  I'm pretty sure I knew what those were, because he used to love news headlines that were unintentionally funny.  (things like "Army tank goes missing after being painted camouflage" or "Midget sues store over belittling remarks". 
In the next square are a bunch of very neatly folded empty boxes of cereal, crackers, and other random things.  This one didn't actually surprise me because I know that's his thing. 

Anyway, his stuff stayed about 1 month longer than we initially agreed, but he eventually came and moved it all out again.  In under 8 hours.  While I was at work.  With no boxes.  It's just weird. 

That was about 25 years ago now and I haven't heard from him since then, and neither has anyone in my family.  We have no idea where he is now. 

Just Joe

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #41 on: May 10, 2017, 08:18:25 AM »
In his secret lair of course... ;)

Poundwise

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #42 on: May 12, 2017, 10:37:28 AM »
That was about 25 years ago now and I haven't heard from him since then, and neither has anyone in my family.  We have no idea where he is now.

One of these days you are going to look under your porch, or find a secret trapdoor in your garage ceiling, and find that he has been secretly living in your house all this time.

BlueHouse

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #43 on: May 12, 2017, 10:59:02 AM »
That was about 25 years ago now and I haven't heard from him since then, and neither has anyone in my family.  We have no idea where he is now.

One of these days you are going to look under your porch, or find a secret trapdoor in your garage ceiling, and find that he has been secretly living in your house all this time.
That would absolutely be within the realm of possibility for this person.  Oh boy.  I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight.  Thanks so much for the image of his eyes through my heating vent.  I'm going to go tell my sister and brothers the same thing -- they will all find it completely possible!

rocketpj

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #44 on: May 16, 2017, 05:19:48 PM »
Work Living situation 1: I spent 4 months in a tent in the woods.  I loved it and went back for a total of 10 summers, so it might not qualify.
Work living situation 2: 3.5 months in a cabin on a Polish Factory fishing ship.  It was a good job and I liked a lot about it, but the ship was crawling with roaches.  After the first week I stopped killing them (which just meant cleaning up dead roaches all the time) and established a truce in which we ignored each other, but any roaches that touched me would die.  I managed to get used to it after awhile, but I wouldn't want to revisit it (and I had to fumigate my stuff when I went ashore).

Home living situation: Sharing a run down house with 4 other guys in Banff for a winter.  The place was strewn with old couches, the heater was always on and my room was too hot.  When I lived in the kitchen walls were covered in spraypaint, but I painted over it.  Otherwise a dump, but what a great year that was (aside from any long-term liver damage that may have resulted).

I also lived on a small boat without electricity for 3 years, but I count that as a major high point in my life, so it doesn't qualify as 'worst'.

SnackDog

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #45 on: May 16, 2017, 06:02:16 PM »
I had an unair-conditioned apartment in the gritty Montrose area of Houston the summer of 1988 for under $200/month.  The rest of the building was empty as the landlord was renovating.  Sometimes male prostitutes would hang around under the street lamp out front. I was earning like $3000/mo at a huge company and had outrageous private club lunches courtesy of my bosses.  I had no furniture to speak of. There was some really offensive graffiti on the living room wall.  In the evenings it was too hot in the apt so I would walk 20 minutes to the Alabama Theater bookstore and read.  On weekend nights I would walk 30 minutes (in the heat!) to a disco bar.   There was a black spider in the corner of the living room and I named him 8-ball.  I would send hapless insects toward his web and he would, ya know, do his thing.  Once I fed him a big cockroach.  Just before I moved out he hatched quite a few babies.  Eight ball was a mother!  A good pet, in the end.

jlcnuke

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #46 on: May 17, 2017, 12:20:05 PM »
This pretty much shows berthing..



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




acroy

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #47 on: May 17, 2017, 01:28:41 PM »
12x12 concrete no-AC dorm room in TX with a roomate for 3yrs. Stairs only, no elevator.

We had 2 guys, 4 computers, monster stereos, 2 desks, 2 bikes etc crammed in there. not sure how it all fit. reasonably clean though. only the occasional roach.

The place was built in the 30s IIRC and re-painted inside ever few years. the paint was so thick you could break it off in 1/4" thick sheets.

No AC made for great camaraderie; because all the windows & doors were open all the time, with 20" box fans throughout. You could holler for Phil upstairs for something and he'd hear you. The doors only closed if you were nekkid.. usually.... not always.

Hart Hall. Built by Men, air conditioned by God.

Just Joe

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #48 on: May 18, 2017, 08:32:53 AM »
This pretty much shows berthing..

Bet it smelled good too with a bunch of guys showered or not.

jlcnuke

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Re: What's the worst living condition you've lived in?
« Reply #49 on: May 18, 2017, 10:40:26 AM »
This pretty much shows berthing..

Bet it smelled good too with a bunch of guys showered or not.

The smells were... unique....