fandomhigh | Living on Your Own, Friday

Tyler waited just a second for any stragglers before launching into his lecture. "So you guys came back," he said, dryly. "Which is good, 'cause this week we start with the first thing you need to do when you end up on your own: Find a place to live."

"Assuming you don't have any money, which you probably won't, you have a couple options. You can be homeless and crash in shelters or sleep on the street. That's really only a choice if you wanna get robbed, beaten, all of that. You can stay with friends until they get sick of you. I'd recommend that, myself, but it depends on you having patient friends with a couch."

"If you want a place that's yours, squatting is a popular choice. Just pick a building nobody's living in or too interested in, maybe a big house on the edge of town, and move your stuff in. Might not be the most comfortable place you ever stayed, lot of times the power's off, but it's yours and probably more space than you could afford. Disadvantage is, it's not exactly legal."

"As far as affordable but legal options go? You probably aren't gonna move right into your own penthouse. Easiest thing is to find a roommate. You can do that through your local alternative paper, on a web site like craigslist, or if you wanna throw around a bunch of money, through a service. Don't rush into it, however you do it -- you have to live with this person until you find a new place. Here is a handout about what to ask a roommate, and there's actually some good advice in it. Ideally you want a friend, not just some person you grunt at in the mornings."

He glanced down at his notes. "That's about it. Today in class, you're going to role-play some roommate scenarios. Let me or Meg know if it doesn't make sense, otherwise, I'll be around."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"... which did we do?"

"Second one's more usual in my world. If someone's actual house gets condemned for not being fit, they're normally moved somewhere else."

"So. We're poor, but not criminals, and we live in a house that was empty when we moved in and is now condemned so we have to find a different place to live because the mayor won't help us since the house wasn't always ours. Then...I guess we have to find a new house. Do we have money yet, or are we going to squat again?"

"We don't have money. But we don't have to get out 'til the bulldozers come. Houses can be condemned for years before they knock them down."

"Yay! That's good that we don't have to move! If I live there I think I like the place and don't really want to leave. But should we maybe look around, like on the weekends or something, in case the bulldozers come and knock the house down while we're out and we come back and it's all gone and we have no place to sleep that night?"

"Yeah, we should keep an eye out. And not go out all at once, so someone can get our stuff out if they come."

"Good idea! This squatting thing is interesting but I am glad we don't have much of it in my world. I don't like the idea of not being able to leave my house because it might get torn down if I am gone. HEY! Should we put a sign up somewhere so that they know that there are people living inside?"

"...no, that's a real bad plan. We don't own the house, so it's kind of illegal to be living there."

"Oh yeah. Okay. So our plan is to stay in this house until the bulldozers come and every weekend we will go look for another place just in case, only neither of us will be gone at the same time in case they come while we're gone and so our stuff doesn't get destroyed and we can't leave a note 'cause it isn't our house. But we're not criminals."

"We're not criminals", he confirmed. "Nobody was using the house, and we're not stealing anything. But they'll arrest us if they catch us anyway."

Living on Your Own, Friday

Re: Roommate Exercise #6 [7/18]

Re: Roommate Exercise #6 [7/18]

Re: Roommate Exercise #6 [7/18]

Re: Roommate Exercise #6 [7/18]

Re: Roommate Exercise #6 [7/18]

Re: Roommate Exercise #6 [7/18]

Re: Roommate Exercise #6 [7/18]

Re: Roommate Exercise #6 [7/18]

Re: Roommate Exercise #6 [7/18]

Re: Roommate Exercise #6 [7/18]