Occasionaly when I was growing up, there were nine of us in a five-bedroom one-and-a-half bath house: two parents, five siblings, myself, and, for some winters, one grandmother. She would sometimes come for a “short visit” at Thanksgiving and not go home again until after Easter.
My family lived in a christian commune in Chicago when I was 7-12. There were approximately 350 ppl living there I would estimate.
You must have some fascinating stories. I have some family that has joined a religious order of some sort in PA. I don’t know much about it, but they’ve essentially walked away from their lives and other family. You should start an ask the guy who lived in a commune thread.
13, for two years in the early nineties, in a beat down three bedroom rental house. Any Boulder Dopers here? It was halfway down Moorhead-- well within staggering distance of the Dark Horse. We added a makeshift kitchen, two bedrooms, and another bathroom in the basement. Really, there was no way we could have made it work as long as it did without the heroic amount of drugs and booze we were plowing through.
All in one bedroom would be 8. Myself and seven other girls shared a bedroom in Americorps housing in Long Island. The 4 boys shared another room, and we had a patio, kitchen, and bathroom as well. Eight in one room would seem crazy, but it was a HUGE room and we each had plenty of space.
Another time in Americorps, we were stationed in East Texas, and we lived in a Baptist church. It was six girls in 3 bunk beds. The problem was I was on the top bunk, and the bed had been built way too high. I was squashed against the ceiling and worse, a light fixture. If I rolled over in my sleep my knee would smack against the light fixture and get cut. I took to sleeping on a couch in the church’s rec room.
When I was a teenager in Mississippi, we had mundo-gigantor-tremendoid family holiday get-togethers. When you’re from a traditional Southern family, your ‘next-of-kin’ group can include a couple hundred people. Thanksgiving was always crazy, as it was the usual crew (my uncle, my aunt, myself, and my foster brother) plus about 30 people. I once slept three to a fold-out bed with two of my cousins. My other cousin brought several of his hippie friends one Thanksgiving, and they slept on the porch and in the front yard for want of space.
Ooooh I forgot a good one. This was also Americorps housing, this time in upstate NY. Our original housing fell through, so we camped out in our sponsor’s houses for a couple of weeks at first. Me and two girls slept on a fold-out couch bed in the garage while the others slept in the other sponsor’s house.
Then we moved into a 2-bedroom apartment. Americorps has rules about males and females having seperate rooms, but we girls revolted, because if the boys got one to themselves it would’ve been 3 boys in one room with 5 girls in the other. So it was me, Travis, Alyssa, and Jacque in one room, with Marcos, Rose, Sasha, and Chris in the other. These were TINY rooms and we were sleeping on pallets on the floor. Sasha’s inflatable bed got a leak and deflated so she had to sleep with Chris, which was WAY against Americorps policy but we really didn’t have any other options.
I think that 6 has been the high water mark (excluding time in barracks) twice in my life. When I was young and my brother had just been born we spent several months living with my mothers parents. The second time was almost a decade ago when my inlaws were trying to decide how they would like to spend their retirement. They spent 3 years living with my husband and I and our two kids.
Like many others, during a poor time for my family we shared a house - but ours wasn’t with family. It was a pretty standard 3 bed 2 bath house, with Scuzzette and her daughter in the master bedroom, my parents and their newborn in the larger bedroom, and the other 5 of us kids on two bunkbeds in the smallest bedroom. The best part of that house was the yard - it was on a full acre, with a crumbling goat barn, a huge multi-level deck, and a stream.
The most was probably about 18 people in a three-bedroom women’s refuge when I was a kid. I quite liked it, really, except for the short time when I had to share my bed with a little boy who wet the bed. I felt sorry for him, really, but I did not like getting soaked in his piss every night.
Due to the lack of space in the bedrooms, everyone gathered together in the living room in the evening and played games - the kind of games, mostly, that required no equipment, because we had none other than cards. You’d be surprised how hilarious Scattegories can be when you have that many people who really need something to relieve the tension.
The next was 7 people in a very small three-bedroom flat in Pimlico. Often it would go up to ten or eleven due to guests; we ended up instituting a policy where any guest who stayed longer than four days had to contribute to the bills, partly because we were all poor, and partly because it helped discourage a few freeloaders. Everyone got on very well and every evening was like a party. The few arguments were resolved quickly because they had to be.
We had no TV of our own, but one of my housemates often walked the streets to collected dumped electronics, fix them up and sell them on, testing them out in the living room first. 1994 in London and 8 of us would crowd round a 12" black-and-white TV staring in fascination like we were refugees from the 1950s.
In my 2-bed flat (550 sq feet) I had 3 adults and 2 kids living here for a couple of months, as well as several occasions a couple of months long with three adults and one kid. It was actually just fine. It helped that two of us (me plus one or other guest) were quite tidy.
Thanks, but I try to forget about that time of my life 
It did accomplish one thing; I am pretty much completely against organized religion and definitely on the hard side of agnostic.
There were seven people living in my house for a while when I was a kid. My aunt, uncle, and cousin moved in with us (mom, dad, sister and me) while their house was being built. It was only supposed to be for a couple months, but the construction hit a snag and they ended up staying over a year. I was 10 at the time and thought it was neat to have them with us, but I know now it was tough on all the adults. My biggest concern was that we only had one shower!
I grew up in a house with nine people. Three bedroom/two baths, but with an unheated room upstairs. We all looked forward to being teenagers because that’s when we got the upstairs bedroom. You roasted and froze depending on the time of year, but the privacy was bliss.
That was my nuclear family. We never had any extra relatives living with us.
Oh gosh, I was afraid of that. I’m sure glad you came out of it sane.
I worry about my niece. She is one of the brightest little girls I’ve ever seen. Which is so surprising given that neither of her parents has any sense at all. You are proof that she could still be ok.
Ahahahhhhaaahahahahahahahahahah!
::takes breath:: thanks, I needed that laugh
seriously, its nice to think im still ok from time to time…
40 men, same room. What do I win?
The un-renovated Korean army garrison looks basically like this. This isn’t my garrison and I don’t know those people but more or less the same sort of living space I had. If you could see behind the cameraman, the room would probably stretch on.
70~80 men per battery, one building with two loooong rooms to house them.
Under your storage box is your folding mattress and you take your boots off on the elavated floor. Oddly enough the living conditions was easily not the worst part of the Korean army experience. But I’ve blathered enough about that in other threads…
Well anyway, when I done with my service it took some adjusting to not having people around AT ALL TIMES (sleep, shower, eat, watch tv), but I don’t think I miss it too much.
