What was your worst living situation?

[ckissick]

Me, I moved to San Diego in 1984 as a grad student at SD State. SD is a great place, but... I could only manage to get a lousy 2-bedroom apartment overlooking the intersection of two wide, busy boulevards. I had a roommate who was the most arrogant jerk I ever met. And to top it off, SoCal Edison was on strike, and we couldn't get electricity for 6 weeks. Meanwhile, I got word that my best friend was killed in a plane crash.

Good times, not. I lasted one semester then dropped out and returned to grad school in London 2 years later.

[HardDrive]

I lived with a guy for a short while who was an alcoholic that had fallen off the wagon. His life story was very sad. Sexually abused as a kid, wife left him, mom was dying. His mom would call and leave these long, heart wrenching message on the answering machine. I felt awful for the guy. But he also alarmed me. He would get blind drunk, and play loud music at all hours. He also had 2 loaded handguns sitting on the dresser in his room. I left after only 2 months.

I still feel bad for that guy today

[craigster59]

Left home at 17 y.o., was working maintenance at Sycamore Cove and campground on the beach. Since I was a Calif Parks employee I could stay in the campground for free. So I 'camped" for about 1 1/2 months, this was in summer of 1977. Wasn't too bad, had some guys from Canada who had come down on a whim to try and become stuntmen in Hollywood. We'd smoke weed, drink beer play guitars and Frisbee.

The State bought up about 6-8 beach houses from County Line (Neptune's Net) down towards Leo Carrillo. They let some employees live in them until they were tearing them down in a year to make another State Beach. My supervisor got one that had the garage converted to a VERY small apartment, but it was right on the beach free of charge. I lived there for about 4 months and then joined the Army.

Now that I think about it, it wasn't so bad. I didn't have a care in the World (until I hit Boot Camp).

[GWN7]

I was married.

[sammyg2]

Going to school, working part time @ $2.40 hr, sleeping in my pick up on occasion, eating when I could.

So I dropped out and went to work as a miillwright making $14.29 hr.
Took me 20 years to finally get that degree.

I still consider dropping out of college the biggest mistake of my life.

[GH85Carrera]

It was 1978 when I moved 880 miles away from home to a city where I did not know anyone except my grandparents. I rented a furnished garage apartment that was 90 bucks a month. I did not have access to the garage so my car sat outside. The apartment was 12 steps from the front door to the furthest corner.

I used up every penny of savings I had with moving costs and setting up utilities. I had to use a credit card to buy some groceries and make payments on that for months to have something to eat. I ate a LOT of rice with nothing but soy sauce on it. It costs about 2 cents a meal. On Friday nights I would splurge and put a can of soup on the rice. I knew I could go hang out at my grandparents house on Sunday and she would ask if I could stay for supper. Boy was that a silly question. Real home cooking.

Only the bedroom was air conditioned at all and it was just enough to keep it below 80. The rest of the place was a oven in the summer, it was basically an attic. In the winter my water pipes froze down in the garage I could not get to. I had to shovel snow and melt that to flush the toilet.

Everyone at work was married and really did not want to hang out with a single guy. I was real happy to be a PCA member. I went to every single event the club put on to have something to do. I met some friends I still keep in tough with on a regular basis.

I was in that place for right at one year before I had the money to upgrade to a nicer place.

[BeyGon]

Living in a tent in Vietnam eating crappy food and getting paid a dime an hour.

[Tilikum Turbo]

Living out of my car for the first year of college...and having the vision in my mind that one day, I would become an real engineer and drive a Porsche on the Pacific Coast Hwy.

"hard word and persistence will get you ANYTHING in the world you want"
~line from 'Boxing Helena'

[onlycafe]

1970. driving a cab in new york city.
living near the corner of avenue c and east 11th street in new york's east village, also known as alphabetland. basement space. door was four steps down and opened right off the street, no vestibule, no buzzer etc.
no ceiling either, just exposed pipes. texas sized bugs too. lived there for eight months. a real horror show.

one of the worst experiences was the night i heard what i thought were fireworks and when i opened the front door i saw two bodies on the street a few yards from my door and a couple of guys still shooting at another guy until they dropped him too. apparently a dispute over some unwanted attention to the shooters' sister. albanians vs. puerto ricans.

another was when some cars were torched right in front of my door.

i haven't been back down there in over forty years. i'm told that it is a pretty nice neighborhood today.

[ledhedsymbols]

Sitting on a steel shingle in the Persian Gulf standing watch on the fantail with two Browning M2 .50 cal crews and an M-14 on my shoulder. Now Australia three months later on the other hand...

[widgeon13]

Originally Posted by BeyGon

Living in a tent in Vietnam eating crappy food and getting paid a dime an hour.

Hard to surpass those conditions! Thanks very much.

[Monza_dh]

lived in a van down by the river..

[on2wheels52]

Me and a buddy in a 8x40 trailer in Lowell OR, early '70's.
The water heater held maybe a gallon, so it was set at about 211 degrees. You barely cracked the hot tap to take a shower.
Fun times though.
Jim

[matt f]

Originally Posted by ledhedsymbols

Sitting on a steel shingle in the Persian Gulf standing watch on the fantail with two Browning M2 .50 cal crews and an M-14 on my shoulder. Now Australia three months later on the other hand...

Thanks ledhed.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by BeyGon

Living in a tent in Vietnam eating crappy food and getting paid a dime an hour.

Dude, I ain't even gonna post. God bless you.

Originally Posted by sammyg2

So I dropped out and went to work as a miillwright making $14.29 hr.

FWIW, could you expand on the millwright term? I remember working for Terex Division of GM (Originally Euclid - earth moving machinery) as a machinist back in the 70's. One tow motor operator *****ed because he had to move some cabinets with his tow motor and wanted "Millwright pay" as this was a union shop and the term millwright (job class) related to the folks that installed mills, drill presses, lather, HBM's etc.

However, I have also heard the term millwright associated with a person who operated a mill.

Not important but if you have a second...........

[flatbutt]

Nothing that compares to war but....living with my now ex just before she became my ex was not fun.

[TCracingCA]

The living quarters on board ship is one of the smelliest places on earth (50 pairs of old socks or more, and everyones underwear hanging off of the bunks, and general BO. I got smart real fast, and bought a hammock and found a pipe locker adjacent to our electronics shop that no one cared about or went into and hung my hammock and slept on board the Destroyer in private.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Living in my in-laws house. They weren't there (moved to retirement place and we're trying unsuccessfully to sell it). It was the most humiliating, spirit-crushing and demoralizing experience I've been through in a long time. I know they were supposedly just trying to help out but it made me feel utterly worthless and destroyed what little self-respect I had left after being laid off and having to move across the country for a job I wasn't especially enthusiastic about. It was just the cherry in top of my turd sandwich at a very un-fun time of my life.

First chance I could I grabbed a side gig and demanded enough fee to serve as my down payment on the house I have now. I bought it (even with a few problems - I didn't care) mostly to give me a sense of self-respect back. It helped immensely. There was a lot of marital collateral damage from that but it worked out eventually (some still is being worked out - I don't speak to my in-laws to this day for some of the demoralizing and insulting crap that got said to me during the time we lived in their old house).

Telling them "keep your house and shove it" was one of the most satisfying things I've ever been able to do. They'd tried to control me and my family with the leverage if us living there and while the side gig really put a lot of strain on me (some weekends would start at 3am on Saturday and go nonstop producing drawings until late evening Sunday with no major breaks). I hated living in that house. As I walked away for the last time I chucked the key at the front door and that was that. Sucky sucky sucky experience. Never again.

Advice: don't ever live in someone else's place even if they're trying to "do you a favor and help you out". It's not worth the loss of self-esteem. I'd rather have lived out of my car or a crappy rental studio for a while in retrospect - at least it'd have been on my terms...

[72doug2,2S]

It were 30 year ago. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

[LeeH]

Barracks for Navy boot camp. 100 guys all in one giant room, one giant shower that had warm water sometimes, door-free potty stalls.