I’m 29. In that time I’ve lived in the following, by chronogical order.
The bunk section of a tractor trailer cab.
A garage with a dirt floor.
A trailer with no running water, electricity, or gas.
My aunt’s house.
A small trailer in a run down trailer park.
Another aunt’s house.
A house in a kudzu covered field.
A government funded apartment.
A roach infested trailer.
A house with a leaking hot water heater and a fridge with no freon.
Another roach infested trailer. It burned down shortly after we moved out.
Yet another roach infested trailer, which had no working heat in 2 of the bedrooms, during one of Ga’s worst snow storms. Not long after we moved out, it burned down.
A house with a carbon monoxide reading so high the fire chief wouldn’t stay inside long enough to get a reading.
Yet another aunt’s house.
A camper with no electricity and no running water.
A government funded apartment in another town.
A decent apartment in a bad neighborhood.
A house with sewage in the backyard, walls so rotted the drywall was paper thin, and a collapsed bathroom floor.
A house where the worst thing wrong with it is the drywall is so old that it has become brittle.
The longest I’ve lived in any one place was the house with the sewage in the back yard. The second longest was the house with the carbon monoxide poisoning. We’ve been at our current location a year and a half, and we’re looking to move again. Need someplace cheaper.
Mom’s house. Dad’s first house. Dad’s second house. Freshman-year dorm. Sophmore-year dorm. First apartment, on Wells. Second apartment, on somethingorother, was only there for two months before going abroad. Third dorm, in Japan. Third apartment, on Wisconsin. Fourth apartment, on 22nd. Fifth apartment, on 23rd. Sixth and current apartment.
So that’s 12. And I’m 27. Nine of those addresses have been since late 2001.
9 with my parents. (My father was in the military, so we moved around quite a bit.)
2 between the ages of 17 and 24 (Uni years)
4 over the last 25 years
4 with my parents. They still live in the fourth.
12 during the next 13 years, living with two wives.
1 with wife and kids for 15 years.
2 since divorce. the current one for 10 years.
I’d list everything that’s happened to me to earn that name, but then I’d have to publish it as 6 novels. The housing part of the list isn’t even in the top 1000 bad things that’s happened to me.
Na, my life isn’t that interesting. Don’t get me wrong either, I wasn’t complaining about my life. Aside from a distinct lack of money, I like my life, and there’s few that can’t make that claim.
I counted it up once, but I lost track. I think it’s just about my age … almost 45. Semi-Air-Force-Brat. But by age 7 we settled in Maine and lived at three different places 'til I was a teen. After that, I had this habit of either getting bored with where I was living, or I’d end up making more money so I moved pretty much every year from ages 21 to about 35. Then I got married and moved across country … got divorced and couch surfed … and moved back across country again.
I’ve been back in Maine since 2002 and since then I’m on my 6th place. But at least I’ve been trading up.
Oh god. When I filled out my security clearance form at 18 it was 14. Since then 5 during my 3 yr military svc, 3 in Ottawa, 6 in Calgary and finally 8 in the Toronto area
21 I think, maybe more, and I’m 25. Filling out those background check forms that want to know all of your addresses for the past 7 to 10 years is fun. I think the last time I tried, I ran out of room and had only gotten through the past year or two.
5 childhood homes. 3 in college and grad school (including one that lasted only a couple months till the steam heat went on the it became uninhabitable on account of the noise. All these in Philadelphia. One in NY. Two in Champaign-Urbana, IL (one in each town), two in Montreal. And three on sabbaticals (two in Zurich and one in Fribourg, also in Switzerland. I have occupied my current house for 38 years, less two for the last two sabbaticals. That makes 16 in 73 years.
Not counting two or three different addresses on each of 2 college campuses, and moving up one floor from a one bedroom to a 2 bedroom apartment I arrived at twenty. I’m 42.
