Reading the “Signs that you are settling down” thread reminded me of my first, cruddy apartment. We lived in the student ghetto part of town, everbody in the building was a student so it was like a 24/7 party that just moved from apartment to apartment. We lived right down the street from a Salvation Army thrift shop and people would frequently leave furniture out in front at night. If we saw something there better than what we had, we’d just take our old stuff over and exchange it for the new old stuff. I lived with two guys, so the decor was mostly stolen road signs, cardboard display units from the video store, and alcohol containers off all shapes and sizes. When it was time to move, it took me literally two days to clean all the stains out of the carpet.
I just got my first apartment this past fall. Its in the 'hood, parties 24/7, college kids everywhere. I like watching the drunks walk home at night and the kids across the street smoke up. I like the fact that my sister’s car got broken into last night. I like the fact that my shower doesn’t come with hot water (warm will suffice). The heating blows, the ac is non exisitent, its a bitch walking up the 4 floors to my room, you can smell the pot that the people below me smoke everynight, we’ve had to call the cops 3 times in the past month, the nearest laundromat is 20 minutes away, I have to walk 20 minutes to school everyday.
But I like my apartment most because I don’t have to make my bed anymore! YAY!
“I’m not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.”-- Calvin and Hobbes
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Cowgod, at least you don’t roaches! It seemed like how hard I tried to keep the place clean (which it never was since I lived with two guys and their neverending stream of friends) they’d just keep coming back bigger and stronger. Finally, we gave up keeping any food in the apartment, just beer. Didn’t get rid of the roaches, but they were a lot friendlier boozed up.
I left home at 16. Shared a 3-bedroom apartment with 4 other guys. Smoked pot 'til I drooled every day. I got a machine shop job that paid more than my dad made.
This was in 1969. Paisley, acid, Hendrix, burn your bra, flowers, beads, bell bottoms, stop the war, Jefferson Airplane, R. Crumb, The Graduate, Peter Max, off a pig, The Doors, black lights, love the one you’re with, long hair, Laugh-In, Let It Be, Owsley, peace.
I’d give my left nut to be able to feel the sense of freedom and promise-for-tomorrow that I felt then.
1961 - furnished “efficiency” apt - north side of Chicago (Howard & Paulina for those of you in that city). I was 18 - I knew everything there was to know. My dad took cringed when he saw the neighborhood. I cringe now, too when I think of it. But I was independent!
My first place, after a many month episode of living out of a backpack and hitching around, was a 3 bdr wood frame house (not really a shotgun, but same quality) that cost my two roommates and me $100 a month. My net paycheck @ the time was $47/week, so I easily covered my $33 rent. The house had been moved from somwhere else and had its back broken in the process - there was a distinct change in incline at the door between the (probably meant to be the dining room) trip room and the kitchen. Keeping the 'fridge door closed was a problem.
Roomie #s 1 & 2 had distinct dislikes for each other and, unfortunately, my room was between them. They were both in the habit of lettin’ a round fly now and then and when we left my bedroom had several bullet holes in the walls. And we were all in a band together! You can imagine how successful that effort was.
Apparently the previous occupant had been a dealer; we had a really half-assed raid one day. The cops, I think, knew we weren’t there targets, but had a warrant and so used it to go on a fishing trip. But they were so unaggressive about it that it was (knowing we were clean) amusing.
I don’t remember consuming anything (on the nutritional front, anyway) during my stay there besides Coca-Cola and cinammon rolls.
The residence came to an end when Roomie #1 decided that a statement had to be made and went after Roomie #2’s waterbed with a penknife. We did not get our deposit back, and I’m not real proud of that.
My first apartment was a grad dorm I sneaked into as an undergrad on the UC (Cinti; hi, CowGod!) campus. It was the height of Soviet architectural dreariness.
Now don’t blast me here, folks; just observation. Most of the folks in this rickety highrise were foreign students and their families. I mention “foreign” because they weren’t used to fine midwestern features like tornados.
Weird, fond memory: graduation day (I passed)sitting on the flimsy balcony in cutoffs, and drink in hand, watching the parade. And then watching the funnel clouds finger down. And then listening to the chaos in the halls and stairwells. I decided I was safer taking my chances w/ the tornado.
My first real apartment: grad school in Muncie, Indiana. An small, cute, warm, cosy little nook I found by pure luck. I hung up posters, had a bathroom to myself and felt like a queen.
Sheesh, this is a LOT more than anyone ever needed to know.
My first apartment (1987) was in a nice-looking neighborhood, but the apartments were poorly built. We could hear our upstairs neighbors… uh… mating rather loudly. And our side neighbors threw things at each other or each other. Knocked the pictures off the wall when they did the latter.
My first apartment was in a basement and consisted of three rooms: a 10 ft. square bedroom that was almost filled by the bed, a 10 ft. square living room and a 10 ft. square kitchen, all in a row with the door opening on the living room. The kitchen had this adorable little stove about half the size of a regular one, on which I did my first cooking (mostly grilled cheese-and-salami sandwiches). I would then take my dinner into the living room, stretch out on the plaid love-seat with my legs hanging off the end, and watch TV on a 13" black and white set while I ate. For this princely splendor I paid $125 a month, utilities paid.
I’m jealous. I never lived on my own. I moved from my parents’ home to my first (small) home as a newlywed. Still one of my big regrets that I never got to experience dorm life.
Lisa, if it’s any consolation to you, I had an absolutely horrid time when I lived in the dorm (it was only one semester, thank God!) I just happened to room with my future husband’s psycho ex-girlfriend. No, we didn’t meet through her, but she sure made me feel bad about it. She would also do cute little things like leave her used douche bags in the shower. Ewww!
I’ve also wondered what it would be like to really live on one’s own. Aside from that one semester in the dorm, I’ve always lived with either my parents or my husband. I gotta admit that sometimes I’m really jealous of my single friends who live in real apartments (not the lousy student kind) all by themselves. I tell ya, when things get really hectic around our house, it starts looking like a really good way to live!
After going through dorm life and renting a house with some college friends, I finally got my own apartment in 1987. I had broken up with my long-time girlfriend, so I was kind of in a hurry to find a place to live. A friend at work got me to move into his apartment complex on the SW side of Houston by agreeing to split the finders fee with me (I was constantly hard-up for cash).
It was one of those places that, back in 1980’s Houston, seemed to appear overnight. The rooms were cookie cutter designed, with flat white walls, brown carpet, and zero personality. The best things about it? (1) Cheap ($200/month) and (2) it had a pool.
I’ve lived in apartments four times, and I never got feel that they were home. Home has to be a house, and a detached one at that (row homes blow). Apartments feel like I’m borrowing a place to live, and I’m going to be asked to return it without warning.
Well, I lived alone at home before I had an apartment.
Let me explain.
I lived with my grandfather after my grandmother died. My mother and sisters live in the house next door and I moved when I was 15 or so. I lived with him until he died when I was 22. I stayed in the house for 9 months until we got everything settled between my grandfathers kids(my aunts and uncle) I moved back with my mother until she bought a new house in the country that fall. I lived in the house for 2 years until she was finally able to sell it. So I was 24 when I moved into a 2bedroom apt in a complex about 20 miles north in a rural suburb. Nice place, OK neighbors, except for the moron upstairs who came home drunk and set his bed on fire by falling asleep with a cigarette, then 6 days later managed to do it again, this time burning up his whole apartment!
My first apartment was in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. It was a 2 bedroom that I shared w/ another girl and a guy. The girl was fine, although we didn’t ever get to know each other very well. The guy was a musician and had far too many unemployed-no-talent musician friends.
When I first moved in, there were parties every weekend that ended up w/ everyone crashing on the floor. Then it turned into every night, and the parties were getting louder and ending later. After about 2 months, I realized that we had an extra 4 roommates, since the official male roommate would never make his friends leave, and they had gotten evicted from their own place.
These people never bought food or cigarettes; they just mooched ours. A couple of them had jobs, but the other 2 were just constantly at our place.The parties every night became drunken brawls, and it seemed that the new “roomies” liked finding people to get into fights with. One night, around 3 am, I got up and asked them to keep it down because I had to work in the morning. One of the freaks of nature got in my face and was about to hit me, when another one of them stepped in and condescended to me that since the apartment wasn’t in my name, but the (male)roommate’s, I had no say in the matter and I should just try to deal with it.
I left that night and arrived the next day with a couple of MY very large guy friends and moved all my stuff out in about an hour.
I was, I think, 22 when I got my first apartment. It was a two bedroom job right on the Maumee river with deep water berths. Hey, I had to have somewhere to dock the boat. Sue me.
Dopeler effect:
The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
I understand completely - I did the same thing. I totalled my car my first day of work, so had car payments, and my parents had to move to Memphis. To save money, I stayed in the house by myself until I could pay off my car loan. (Took a year.)
A year ago, I moved out and got an apartment that I share with a friend from work. Two bedroom, two bath, walk-in closets…it’s great. Maintenance SUCKS, but I love the location. (And believe me, I know about maintenance sucking…hot water heater caught on fire one night. NEVER heard from emergency maintenance after 5 calls. sigh)
“The point of a journey is not to arrive.”
-Neil Peart, Rush
My first apartment was a three bedroom on the third floor that I shared with a friend. We couldn’t afford utilities so we used oil lamps. Everything was electric except (thankfully) hot water. We ate breakfast at a diner accross the street, dinner at work (discounted), and prayed our parents would have pity on us… they didn’t. I was alot thinner then Reflecting back, I find those some of my fondest memories.
