Owning a Decrepit Shack in The Middle of Nowhere Is The New American Millennial Dream

[taxi]

Here's a story we've heard time and time again, and it always gets worse.

My Next Apartment Was Worse ...
My Next Apartment Was Even Worse ...
My Next Apartment Was Even, Even Worse ...
My Next Apartment Was Even, Even, Even Worse

This is a quick read, a simply stated account that we shouldn't find humor in. Years ago any among us may have know someone with a story to tell like this, and that person would have been an outlier. Now it's a way of life. And it's not a problem anymore.

https://theapeiron.co.uk/owning-a-decripit-shack-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-is-the-new-american-millennial-dream-d1212f4aa1ca

[Demovictory9]

1. My apts actually got better over the years..still hated rental iife

Hated the shared ceiling floor issues but at least i stopped.having landlords who snuck in my place while i was at work

[taxi]

2. Ha! I'll bet the landlords denied that, despite your proof positive.

There seems to be an increasing urban population, and many live in the scenario presented by the author. Like yourself, she made a plan and took steps. Without knowing the ratio of people owning now as compared to the past I can't comment if this is a worsening condition or not, but I do see growth plans for this area and those ambitous plans are not for more apartments.

[UpInArms]

3. I still remember one of my worst rental houses

Was infested with cockroaches ... they welled out of the walls ... when I finally moved out, I bombed the house and put bombs on my moving truck, so that I would not take any with me ...

I went back in to clean the house and swept up thousands of dead cockroaches ... I put them in a giant Manila envelope and mailed them to my landlord

[taxi]

6. OMG. And to think soon bugs will be a food source.

Mexico has already contracted with Thailand to import processed insects as food, with a gateway plan to expand into the US.

Consumers in Latin America are already familiar with eating insects as food or snacks, while the Mexican market could serve as a gateway to North American markets for Thai cricket farmers,” said Pisal.

He added that farmers interested in obtaining certificates of export standards should contact the Bureau of Livestock Standards and Certification at the Livestock Development Office in their province, or the National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards.

https://www.asiaone.com/asia/thailands-edible-insects-make-leap-global-market

[UpInArms]

14. Uggggh

That just sounds disgusting

[taxi]

15. It is probably a certainty that we've all had worse.

The Thai export is in the form of a powder. Once approved on whatever level we won't know the difference. It will be one of the many and any parts of the mix in processed food. Processed cheeses, drinks, burgers, anything you can think of. I like to think of it this way - one day my first wife and I went to her parents for lunch. The tongue sandwich was delicious. A few weeks later I bought tongue at the deli, but damn, I couldn't eat it knowing what it was. Maybe I wasn't hungry enough.

[Demovictory9]

16. Mexican restaurant near me has grasshoppers on menu. Never eat there

Because fear one might accidently get in my food

[taxi]

17. LOL - damn Covid and outdoor dining!

[JanMichael]

25. I remember working a Jordan Marsh in 80's. Had Godiva there. Rep said their bug % was wild.

All sorts of insects end up in a box of chocolates.

[taxi]

27. An exterminator said roaches have three different tastes

that is, they taste what they're eating in each of their three sets of chompers. Now we learn they have taste for both fashion and fine chocolate. Who knew?

[Archae]

4. I had a few bad apartments...

Mostly due to bad apartment sharers.

One got stoned on PCP and beat me up.

Another took off while I was out and made off with a couple appliances.
(Second floor!)

I've been here at my current apartment for 29 years now, good landlord, (did have one bad one, he was just lazy,) I can have my two cats, and a good neighborhood.

Did have a couple screwy neighbors, last one was a drunk. He's moved to Milwaukee.

[taxi]

7. Wow, you're a fixture there.

It's nice to have neighbors that don't worry you. I'm sorry that those few a**holes found their way into the mix.

[vercetti2021]

5. My only apartment was decent

But ended up back at my folks home after the pandemic began. Millennial dream also means ending up back where you started now

[taxi]

8. That's the reality now, and we need to recognize it.

Do you see anyway forward, like, what do you see as ways forward (or backwards) for the area you're in?

[vercetti2021]

11. Not really anymore

I'm here for the foreseeable future

[taxi]

12. Can I ask if you're in an urban or rural setting, and

do you think things will change much there? Things are changing too quick here. The plans are to stick more than 300,000 people into new housing surrounding me.

[vercetti2021]

13. Small city

Surrounded by rural. No idea

[Fla Dem]

9. I lived in 3 apartments. The 1st a basement apartment in an apartment building.

There were 6 apartment buildings with 6 apartments to a building. Lived there a couple of years by myself. Was well kept up and comfortable.

2nd was in a huge newer apartment complex outside of Boston. Lived there with a roommate for a couple of years. Was a good place, but rent got to be too high.

Then the last apartment was a townhouse in a new development. They were supposed to be sold as townhouses, but there was a drop in house sales so the developers rented out the units as apartments.

All three were wonderful apartments.

[taxi]

10. We lived in a few older apartments when first in Naples

They were in quickly built duplexes and cost a fortune to keep comfortably cool enough due to poor construction, lack of insulation, outdated appliances and water heaters, and little ventilation. The well water was horrible and probably unsafe. The first house we rented had fewer issues, but was still an energy sink. It's been a long time since last driving the green stamp to Cambridge but I don't miss the snow.

[Yavin4]

18. My roomate was a hoarder.

He owned the apartment, and he stacked the entire living and dining rooms from the floors to the ceiling with old newspapers and magazines. Got so bad that there was no place to sit. We also had roaches aplenty and mice.

He would blast the TV in the living room. Then, while leaving that one on, he would go into his room and blast the TV in his room.

[taxi]

19. I woke up one day and realized that I had become one.

There wasn't anything anyone could say to me that registered. It must have been difficult for you to put up with. Did he even understand anything you said for what it meant, or was it always just words?

[Yavin4]

20. No. He didn't care.

He had a compulsive personality disorder. I eventually moved out.

[taxi]

26. Yeah, there really wasn't anything you could do

It took me a while to get back to normal. I don't know how people around me put up with it.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

21. Another piece of this story - the small, plain fixer uppers(that need work but are not too far

gone) that used to be considered starter homes for young people are now being bought up by investors for - you guessed it -rental housing and/or by flippers making cheap cheesey repairs and selling at rip off prices. Yeah you can still buy them but your competing against these investor types who can pay cash on the spot.. Just another factor thats driving up prices and making it difficult for working folks to break out of the renter class.

[taxi]

22. This is true

And reality television are designed to show how easy the turnovers and flips are. Eager buyers heed the call, experience in a related field like construction, real estate, or running a business not needed. All you need is this book.

So how did people of civilizations older than ours have to pay rent? Did the early settlers here have to find a KOA campground or was that a system they introduced here once they found out things didn't work that way yet? We don't seem to be on a path to the better if that's the case.

[LearnedHand]

23. Wow. What a great website!

Thanks for posting an article from it so I could discover this gem!

[taxi]

24. A pleasure! ty

[Mr.Bill]

28. I lived in the same apartment alone for nine years.

1975 to 1984, in Belmont, California which is on the peninsula about 30 miles south of San Francisco. The rent at first was $187 a month, which sounds cheap but I was making $2.25 an hour. In nine years I had five different owners and six managers, one of which was me. During that time as Silicon Valley took off I watched the rent climb to $650. I took the management job to reduce my rent. The rising rent costs were difficult, but in hindsight it forced me to expand my occupational skills and make more money. I found that finding a better job was easier than moving, and the rent was going up everywhere anyway.

I shared a few nice houses with room mates, then finally hopped off the Silicon Valley treadmill and moved 150 miles north to a small town where my parents had retired. I me my wife and I'm still here 30 years later. We are now retired and living in a Senior mobile home park after owning a few houses over the years.

Silicon Valley - You live there so you can work there so you can make enough money to live there so you can work there so you can make enough money to live there...

[taxi]

29. I was in that area once, Sand Hill road doing some work

Your $187 wouldn't be lunch money for a week there. The park is a much better place. Are you in an area that the weather and fire dangers are considered low?

[Mr.Bill]

30. Not really, but I'm in the downtown of a small town.

Much safer than where my last house was. We've been evacuated twice. The Valley fire in 2015 was about five miles away. The mobile home park where I live now borders the county Fairgrounds. When a huge fire happens and help comes from all over the state, their parking lot becomes a marshalling yard for the fire trucks. This parking lot is literally less than 100 feet from my front door. There were maybe 2-300 fire trucks there.

I used to work in Palo Alto in the late 80s. Never had any hope of being a homeowner there, especially with only my income. My last house here was 1,600 sq ft and it was on a golf course. It was new when I moved in in 2005 It sold for 260K five years ago. That wouldn't buy a vacant lot in Palo Alto.

[taxi]

31. Do you see signs that apartments are more or less available for rent?

In places you lived down south there aren't any apartments. And for large cities we can hear or read of their fates. Here locally we are going full Florida-man with growth plans. This distorts my perception of what's going on in other places. Do people near you have these things happening?

[Mr.Bill]

32. There's some available, but the market here is somewhat tight

because the county has lost thousands of houses in the last five or six years of fires. Many if not most of them will ever be rebuilt. Many were built decades ago with no building codes and illegal septic systems.

Also people from distant fires such as Paradise have moved here. Currently under construction is a government subsidized apartment complex meant to be for agricultural workers. They are already filled as soon as they are built. Next to my mobile home park there are similar apartments subsidized for seniors with rent as a percentage of income. There is a five year waiting list to get in there. You can rent a decent house in this county for under 2K, though.

[taxi]

33. That's interesting

It sounds like in your area the stories of the op would sound like one of the extremes and not the norm. You picked well.