Ought Six
Membership Revoked
There is a thread on the main forum about people living out of storage spaces. So I thought it might be worthwhile to explore just how one might do that. I have not done this myself, but I know people that have.
The first thing is to find a place that will allow you to stay, or at least turn a blind eye to your living in your space. Simple observation of storage places should identify such businesses. If you see several people going into thier space and closing the door after themselves, you have found what you are looking for.
Once you have found a place, then comes the basics. You have shelter. Presumably you can tap into the light fixture and even get power. Hardware stores and home centers sell light-socket-to-plug converters.
So you will need water, food, sanitation, heat, illumination, garbage disposal, comfort and entertainment.
Water
Sporting goods stores sell five- to seven-gallon blue plastic water jugs with dispenser taps in the fill cap. You can also just buy one- or two-gallon bottled water, but those tend to add up in cost over time, and they generate more trash. I have a tabletop ceramic water cooler with a tap that will fit two- or three-gallon plastic jugs.
Food
This is one of the tougher issues. You want to keep costs down, so you want to prepare your own food. A hot plate, microwave and toaster oven are all quite useful. Microwaves draw far less, but the wiring may not be able to handle the 1000+ watt power draw of a toaster oven or hot plate. Be careful! You may go the propane/white gas route, but such stoves tend to be noisy. Then again, if you have no access to electricity, you may be forced to use propane or white gas stove, or a table-top butane burner. If you go with propane, invest in a 20-pound propane bottle and an adapter hose that allow you to use it with appliance designed for the small 1-pound propane canisters.
For food storage, a small frige is perfect. They have modest power requirements. If you have no access to electricity, there are 12v coolers that run off of car batteries. That is fine if you have a large enough unit to pull your vehicle into, but you must make sure you recharge your car battery every day by driving it. If you have no electricity or vehicle, you may have to make do with an ice chest, but that is huge PITA.
Another big problem is food odors. Even if the owners of the storage facility are willing to look the other way, if you create a nusance with food odors you may exceed thier tolerance level. One solution may be to find a room air cleaner unit at a thrift shop or garage sale. The filters are expensive, but the cost may be worth it. Activated charcoal or carbon filters are best for this kind of thing. You could also save some money and rig something up with a fan, a box, some screen, some cheesecloth and some activated charcoal from a garden supply place.
Clean up is another problem. Think disposable; cups, plates, plasticware, paper towels. Cleaning your cooking utensils is a tougher probem. You can use a plastic dish tub and heat water on your stove to do dishes. An easier way is to mix some water and Simple Green, then leave pots to soak for a few hours or overnight. This gets rid of baked-on food, but takes a lot of rinsing water. Minimize dishes by learning to cook one-pot dinners whenever possible. A large plastic cutting board is a good prep surface, and easy to clean. Those disposable 409 wipes are good for spills and greasy prep surfaces. Maintaining cleanliness is paramount, as you do not want to draw pests into your living space. You can use para mothballs wrapped in a swatch of paper towel and tied with a twist-tie to keep pests away.
Sanitation
There are a few things you can do here. You can join the YMCA, and use thier showers and bathrooms. You can join the cheapest health club you can find and do the same. You may have a storage area near a park or public building where you can use thier public bathrooms. Even with this, though, you still need to make your own arraingements within your living space. What if you get sick, and get dihorrea? What if you spill something on yourself?
There are two things that are invaluable. One is a portable toliet. You can use camping models, but if you do not have one, all you need is a five-gallon storage bucket with a lid, some cat litter, some heavy-duty garbage bags and a big box of baking soda. You line the bucket with two garbage bags, put a couple inches of cat litter in the bottom, and sprinkle on some baking soda. If you need to deficate, sprinkle on more baking soda and then cat litter when you are done. Twist up the mouth of the trash bags and tuck them down into the bucket, then put the lid on tightly. When half-full or so, take out the trashbags and dispose of them. To urinate, all you need is a bottle. Use something disposable, like a 1 quart/liter water bottle. The other thing you need for sanitation is unscented baby butt wipers. These are great for cleaning yourself up when dirty, sweaty or smelly.
Heat
Again, if you are using the light fixture for power, an electric space heater draws a large amount of power. I do not recommend this. You can get portable indoor propane heaters that are pretty quiet. Mr. Heater makes a nice radiant-type unit. DO NOT USE AN OUTDOOR PROPANE HEATER IN AN ENCLOSED SPACE! This will kill you by carbon monoxide poisoning. Alternatively, you might sleep well bundled up in your car and forego heat. You could even set up a cheap dome camping tent in the back of your space to hold in your body heat. Just make sure you lay down several layers of cardboard and/or high-density foam to prevent heat loss through the cold concrete floor.
Illumination
This is not as simple as it appears. If you have electricity, then you might think you can just set up a lamp. The problem is that the doors to the storage places are not very light-tight. It is better to set up in the back of the space with a small desk lamp or reading lamp. The same goes with battery-operated lights. An LED headlamp would be great for reading, if you can find a comfortable one. I would avoid propane or white gas camping lanterns, as they are too bright, too noisy and have carbon monoxide safety issues. You also may want to hang improvised blackout curtains, but that is a PITA and may be spotted when you have the door open.
Garbage disposal
This can be a problem. You must keep a tightly-covered trash recepticle in your living space. You do not want to live with odors, or have them give you away or draw pests.
If you are dumping a lot of food garbage in the storage facility dumpster, you are likely to draw the ire of the management. If you are using your emergency toliet it is an even bigger issue. It will also draw pests; rats, roaches, flies, etc. into the area. It is best if you can find another place to dump your trash.
Businesses take a dim view of other people dumping thier trash in thier dumpsters, and many are locking up thier dumpsters these days. You can get rid of small plastic shopping bags of trash by stuffing them into the trash cans in the center island of the gas station every time you fill up. You can cruise the local neighborhoods and find out what day the trash is collected, then sneak a bag of trash in next to the other trash out by the curb. Be careful, as the residents may take exception to this and call the cops. If you are really desperate, you can just leave a bag of trash in a shopping cart in the supermarket parking lot, and they will dispose of it. That is not very nice, but sometimes desperate times demand you do things you would not normally do.
Comfort
You can find rather comfortable folding chairs at most stores for well under $10 these days. My sister has a small folding bed that she got from the old StØr chain that is very comfortable and folds up quite small. An old couch is very easy to find by just cruising through any residential neighborhood on a weekend. Folding chairs can be found at most thrift shops. A folding table is very important as well.
Entertainment
This is fairly obvious. Libraries and used book stores are your friends. Radios and CD players are good. If you are not in a fringe reception area, you can set up your TV with rabbit ears.
Mail and phone
I have a voicemail/pager service that costs me around $15/month, and a large private mailbox that I can access 24/7 that costs about $12/month. I can make phone calls with inexpensive phone cards from payphones to check my voicemail. This gives me a phone # and street address. Both the library and many coffee shops offer free internet access. If you have a laptop and a wireless card, you can get free wi-fi net access in a growing number of places, or just find a residential park where some goober nearby did not secure his wireless network, and log onto through thier connection.
If you have a broadband connection (including wi-fi), you can now even get low-cost internet telephone service. You can use the built-in mike & speakers on a laptop to make phone calls, and you get voicemail, caller ID, and other common telephone services. You can get a free webmail address through Hotmail, Lycos or Yahoo!, and can access it from any net-connected PC. Dice.com, Yahoo! HotJobs and other job board will host a personal protfolio webpage for you for free. Many public career centers will also provide you with net services for job search activities (check with your local unemployment office about this).
This gives you all the services you need to conduct a job search and remain in contact with everyone.
-----------
So here are some techniques to allow you to survive being homeless, yet still have a home. Please post your ideas & techniques on living covertly in a storage space, and keeping safe, comfortable and sane.
The first thing is to find a place that will allow you to stay, or at least turn a blind eye to your living in your space. Simple observation of storage places should identify such businesses. If you see several people going into thier space and closing the door after themselves, you have found what you are looking for.
Once you have found a place, then comes the basics. You have shelter. Presumably you can tap into the light fixture and even get power. Hardware stores and home centers sell light-socket-to-plug converters.
So you will need water, food, sanitation, heat, illumination, garbage disposal, comfort and entertainment.
Water
Sporting goods stores sell five- to seven-gallon blue plastic water jugs with dispenser taps in the fill cap. You can also just buy one- or two-gallon bottled water, but those tend to add up in cost over time, and they generate more trash. I have a tabletop ceramic water cooler with a tap that will fit two- or three-gallon plastic jugs.
Food
This is one of the tougher issues. You want to keep costs down, so you want to prepare your own food. A hot plate, microwave and toaster oven are all quite useful. Microwaves draw far less, but the wiring may not be able to handle the 1000+ watt power draw of a toaster oven or hot plate. Be careful! You may go the propane/white gas route, but such stoves tend to be noisy. Then again, if you have no access to electricity, you may be forced to use propane or white gas stove, or a table-top butane burner. If you go with propane, invest in a 20-pound propane bottle and an adapter hose that allow you to use it with appliance designed for the small 1-pound propane canisters.
For food storage, a small frige is perfect. They have modest power requirements. If you have no access to electricity, there are 12v coolers that run off of car batteries. That is fine if you have a large enough unit to pull your vehicle into, but you must make sure you recharge your car battery every day by driving it. If you have no electricity or vehicle, you may have to make do with an ice chest, but that is huge PITA.
Another big problem is food odors. Even if the owners of the storage facility are willing to look the other way, if you create a nusance with food odors you may exceed thier tolerance level. One solution may be to find a room air cleaner unit at a thrift shop or garage sale. The filters are expensive, but the cost may be worth it. Activated charcoal or carbon filters are best for this kind of thing. You could also save some money and rig something up with a fan, a box, some screen, some cheesecloth and some activated charcoal from a garden supply place.
Clean up is another problem. Think disposable; cups, plates, plasticware, paper towels. Cleaning your cooking utensils is a tougher probem. You can use a plastic dish tub and heat water on your stove to do dishes. An easier way is to mix some water and Simple Green, then leave pots to soak for a few hours or overnight. This gets rid of baked-on food, but takes a lot of rinsing water. Minimize dishes by learning to cook one-pot dinners whenever possible. A large plastic cutting board is a good prep surface, and easy to clean. Those disposable 409 wipes are good for spills and greasy prep surfaces. Maintaining cleanliness is paramount, as you do not want to draw pests into your living space. You can use para mothballs wrapped in a swatch of paper towel and tied with a twist-tie to keep pests away.
Sanitation
There are a few things you can do here. You can join the YMCA, and use thier showers and bathrooms. You can join the cheapest health club you can find and do the same. You may have a storage area near a park or public building where you can use thier public bathrooms. Even with this, though, you still need to make your own arraingements within your living space. What if you get sick, and get dihorrea? What if you spill something on yourself?
There are two things that are invaluable. One is a portable toliet. You can use camping models, but if you do not have one, all you need is a five-gallon storage bucket with a lid, some cat litter, some heavy-duty garbage bags and a big box of baking soda. You line the bucket with two garbage bags, put a couple inches of cat litter in the bottom, and sprinkle on some baking soda. If you need to deficate, sprinkle on more baking soda and then cat litter when you are done. Twist up the mouth of the trash bags and tuck them down into the bucket, then put the lid on tightly. When half-full or so, take out the trashbags and dispose of them. To urinate, all you need is a bottle. Use something disposable, like a 1 quart/liter water bottle. The other thing you need for sanitation is unscented baby butt wipers. These are great for cleaning yourself up when dirty, sweaty or smelly.
Heat
Again, if you are using the light fixture for power, an electric space heater draws a large amount of power. I do not recommend this. You can get portable indoor propane heaters that are pretty quiet. Mr. Heater makes a nice radiant-type unit. DO NOT USE AN OUTDOOR PROPANE HEATER IN AN ENCLOSED SPACE! This will kill you by carbon monoxide poisoning. Alternatively, you might sleep well bundled up in your car and forego heat. You could even set up a cheap dome camping tent in the back of your space to hold in your body heat. Just make sure you lay down several layers of cardboard and/or high-density foam to prevent heat loss through the cold concrete floor.
Illumination
This is not as simple as it appears. If you have electricity, then you might think you can just set up a lamp. The problem is that the doors to the storage places are not very light-tight. It is better to set up in the back of the space with a small desk lamp or reading lamp. The same goes with battery-operated lights. An LED headlamp would be great for reading, if you can find a comfortable one. I would avoid propane or white gas camping lanterns, as they are too bright, too noisy and have carbon monoxide safety issues. You also may want to hang improvised blackout curtains, but that is a PITA and may be spotted when you have the door open.
Garbage disposal
This can be a problem. You must keep a tightly-covered trash recepticle in your living space. You do not want to live with odors, or have them give you away or draw pests.
If you are dumping a lot of food garbage in the storage facility dumpster, you are likely to draw the ire of the management. If you are using your emergency toliet it is an even bigger issue. It will also draw pests; rats, roaches, flies, etc. into the area. It is best if you can find another place to dump your trash.
Businesses take a dim view of other people dumping thier trash in thier dumpsters, and many are locking up thier dumpsters these days. You can get rid of small plastic shopping bags of trash by stuffing them into the trash cans in the center island of the gas station every time you fill up. You can cruise the local neighborhoods and find out what day the trash is collected, then sneak a bag of trash in next to the other trash out by the curb. Be careful, as the residents may take exception to this and call the cops. If you are really desperate, you can just leave a bag of trash in a shopping cart in the supermarket parking lot, and they will dispose of it. That is not very nice, but sometimes desperate times demand you do things you would not normally do.
Comfort
You can find rather comfortable folding chairs at most stores for well under $10 these days. My sister has a small folding bed that she got from the old StØr chain that is very comfortable and folds up quite small. An old couch is very easy to find by just cruising through any residential neighborhood on a weekend. Folding chairs can be found at most thrift shops. A folding table is very important as well.
Entertainment
This is fairly obvious. Libraries and used book stores are your friends. Radios and CD players are good. If you are not in a fringe reception area, you can set up your TV with rabbit ears.
Mail and phone
I have a voicemail/pager service that costs me around $15/month, and a large private mailbox that I can access 24/7 that costs about $12/month. I can make phone calls with inexpensive phone cards from payphones to check my voicemail. This gives me a phone # and street address. Both the library and many coffee shops offer free internet access. If you have a laptop and a wireless card, you can get free wi-fi net access in a growing number of places, or just find a residential park where some goober nearby did not secure his wireless network, and log onto through thier connection.
If you have a broadband connection (including wi-fi), you can now even get low-cost internet telephone service. You can use the built-in mike & speakers on a laptop to make phone calls, and you get voicemail, caller ID, and other common telephone services. You can get a free webmail address through Hotmail, Lycos or Yahoo!, and can access it from any net-connected PC. Dice.com, Yahoo! HotJobs and other job board will host a personal protfolio webpage for you for free. Many public career centers will also provide you with net services for job search activities (check with your local unemployment office about this).This gives you all the services you need to conduct a job search and remain in contact with everyone.
-----------
So here are some techniques to allow you to survive being homeless, yet still have a home. Please post your ideas & techniques on living covertly in a storage space, and keeping safe, comfortable and sane.
