I read a “worst jobs I ever had” article where one author mentioned she’d worked at a hotel. She noted some residents lived there for weeks if not months. It wasn’t an “extended stay hotel” that serves businessmen for lengthy stays. Do you know anyone who lived a long time at a hotel or motel? Why does it make more sense than renting or staying with relatives?
Some people don’t have relatives in the area they want to live, or don’t like them, or the relatives don’t want them. Compared to renting, although it’s more expensive, you get daily maid service, and have no need to worry about utilities or other maintenance issues.
I once had to recover from being completely broke and homeless, with nothing but a car and a bunch of furniture that I had to put somewhere; I didn’t even have a credit rating. No family to stay with, no friends to stay with, nothing at all.
Got a crap job, put my stuff in storage, and found the cheapest hotel room I could find. Paid cash weekly, nobody asked any questions about why I was there or when I would be leaving.
After a few months of this, I’d managed to save enough to get a proper apartment.
It sucked; there was no fridge, so I bought ice every day for my cooler. There was no kitchen, so I brought in my own (probably against-the-rules) microwave and toaster oven. There was no internet, so I had nothing but what was already on my computer for entertainment and the limited channels on the television.
The bathroom was disgusting, the carpet was disgusting, the neighbors were disgusting. The bed was disgusting; I never once even pulled down the comforter, I just put my own blankets and stuff over the top and slept on that.
But it was a roof over my head and that’s all I needed at the time.
I had a close friend who was sick & tired of his living/work situation, so when he got a job offer to start ASAP in another city he headed out before finding a new apartment. He shacked up in the kind of motel you see them running stings out of on Cops, complete with drug dealing next door neighbors and resident prostitutes. At least the room was clean. I visited him there once for a weekend and it wasn’t bad so long as you steered clear of the natives.
Missed the edit window- my friend stayed there for about 2 months.
I’ve known poor people that stayed at hotels/motels. They can’t budget for shit - have no credit - and basically virtually live day to day. It costs them longer in the long run, but they can not save money for the life of them. Even if they could - no one will rent to them.
You could offer them $1,000,000 if at the end of 30 days they’d save save $10 a day - and they couldn’t do it. It seems unreal to them. Some of them really NEED their phone - and they will waste their minutes like you wouldn’t believe. Delayed gratification just isn’t within their nature. I’m not talking all poor people, but I think it’s more common than you would think.
To give you one example of poor planning - one girl I know pays $2.00 a day for Tylenol PM in a 2 pack. This is acetaminophen and diphenhydramine. The diphenhydramine is 25 milligrams. Acetaminophen is dirt cheap when you buy it bulk on the Internet/Costco - I just bought 1000 diphenhydramine 50 mg pills off amazon for $20.00 and gave her probably a hundred of them.
Even if she has an extra $100 - it would never occur to her to spend say $20 to buy medicine in bulk when she would end up spending that much in 10 days anyway. To her $2.00 is cheaper than $20.00. I think she gets it in theory, but it’s just different.
Some people can’t save money because they’re paid by the day and don’t have access to a safe way to save their money. Some years ago, I spent some time in a homeless shelter and met a fair number of people in that situation. They worked under the table for cash, were paid at the end of each day, and had to use that money to pay whatever expenses they had for that day. When they got desperate enough, or no longer had that job, they wound up at the shelter. To be fair, residents had to attend sessions on how to find a real job, how to budget for the long term (i.e. more than one day at a time), and how to manage a bank account.
Now, of course, it’s a lot easier to get along without a bank account because there are prepaid debit cards that are refillable, as well as gift cards for Amazon and similar merchants, and these make it much easier to save and plan for larger purchases.
To answer the OP, I knew of a girl who lived in a motel long-term. She had hooked up with a real winner who couldn’t marry her (he was already married to someone else) and she couldn’t live in a barracks because she had had a baby with this guy. So they wound up in some motel with two other people and she was the only one working. Five people in a motel room and she’s footing the bill herself. She seemed to have at least a mild intellectual disability because she was incapable of understanding why her situation wasn’t a good one. I do seem to recall that this group couldn’t get traditional off-base housing because they’d been evicted for a variety of reasons.
I once saw the late Jack Elam having breakfast at a hotel in Studio City and someone told me he lived there.
Coco Chanel stayed at the Hotel Ritz for over 30 years, but I guess that’s probably better accomodations than most Paris apartments.
I lived in a motel for a year, but it doesn’t really count for what you’re looking for. This was at University of Missouri - Rolla in 1980-1981. Enrollment had soared and the new dorm wasn’t finished yet, so the university rented out all the motels along Martin Springs Drive, aka Route 66. I was at the Rolla Rancho Motel. It was knocked down 10-15 years ago.
You have to like the fact that the Notable residents list for the famous Hotel Chelsea has 7 sub categories.
I lived in a hotel for about six weeks in Singapore. Basically, I had nowhere I had to be for a couple of months, so I hung out there. I it was awesome.
In his later life Howard Hughes was a long term resident of a few hotels. He called the Bayshore in Vancouver as he was traveling to demand the top four floors.
“We were told he had called from his plane and wanted the top four floors. The manager told him we were full. Hughes said: 'If I don’t get the rooms, I’m buying the hotel.”’
He got the rooms and stayed six months.
My daughter and I spent about three weeks living in a hotel when we first moved here. After nine months of unemploment back home, I was offered a really good job here but given a week to get out here and start work. So while my wife (at the time) got things together with the house back home, my daughter and I stayed in a hotel here til we found suitable permanent lodging.
It was no big deal. Had a microwave and several restaurants close by. Bus line right outside to get to work and school. Sucked more when we found a house in the 'burbs with less accessibility and no private transportation.
mrAru spent 15 months living in a motel in Portsmouth NH when his sub was in the shipyard. He started out in one of the barracks on base but they moved everybody from his sub offbase to a seriously nice motel. Because he was E6 he got a room by himself, lower ranks were 2 per room. We would split the weekends, I would go there 2 weekends of the month, 2 weekends he would come home to eastern CT.
I got the cutest little frisson when I spotted a tiny historical landmark sign on a building at the shipyard - I did a paper on a particular treaty in my Asian Studies class, and it was marking the room the treaty was signed in. 
John Lennon. Nikola Tesla. Sid and Nancy. (See the Chelsea Hotel comment above.)
Besides rich people, my mom’s friend was the front desk manager at a hotel, and they gave her a room to live in. The hotel sucked and she was not well off, but it worked out for the both of them until they tore the hotel down.
So it seems like either rich people, or poor people, usually.
nod Another reason why poor folks might stay at a hotel instead of renting an apartment - no security deposit required.
It generally costs 2-3 month’s rent to move in to an apartment. That’s a few grand, which is difficult to accumulate all at once - and if you’re poor then probably most of your friends are poor, which means you don’t have anyone to borrow it from. It’s easier to pay $350/week than to come up with $2500 all at once so that you only have to pay $1200/month, even if it means you’re actually paying $1400/month.
It’s expensive to be poor.
Agreed that it is a matter of capital and flexibility. It cost me $2500 in deposits and first month rent to move in to my apartment, plus some for basic furnishings. If you are broke, you may not be able to do it.
You may also expect your situation to change. Weekly rentals allow you to move, downgrade, or otherwise adapt to changing circumstances. It can seem very sensible when your income is unreliable.
A friend did it.
He couldn’t come up with all the money needed to get an apartment so he stayed in a motel for $60 a night. Sometimes he’d sleep in his car for a few days then use the motel to bet cleaned up and get some real sleep.
It was dumb of him, he had other options but he chose not to use them.
A few weeks in a boarding house would have let him save up a security deposit but the house had a dog and he hated animals. He couldn’t see past a few weeks of less than ideal conditions would have made for better conditions in the long run.