Places I’ve Lived: A Mugging, Parking Lot Brawls, and Fleas
We have all lived in some places. Where have you lived, Stefanie Christensen?
Downtown Charleston, S.C., $400/mo.
This was a two-story row house with six bedrooms where I lived with all of my friends during our senior year of college. It felt very idyllic, which is ironic because I got mugged a block from our home. Pictured here is the open-all-night seafood restaurant at the end of our street.
Arlington, Va., $1,000/mo.
This was my very first solo apartment and I managed to pay way too much for it out of leftovers from my college savings account (NB: don’t do this). I lived here for six months while earning $8/hour at a fellowship which involved, basically, getting ancient public TV-types their lunches. From the outside, my building looked like a mental institution in Soviet Russia in that it was grey and foreboding. But: It did have garbage chutes.
Upper East Side, New York, N.Y. $1,360/mo.
I moved into a shoebox of a second floor studio. The huge perk of this place was a bamboo-lined private patio area created by the roof of the smoothie place on the first floor. It overlooked the backyard of someone who either got evicted or decided to throw all of their belongings outside. One time my best friend visited from D.C. and we invited over a bartender who was married to a mobster and sat out there until the sun came up. Another time I had a dinner party on the patio and washed dishes in the bathtub because the sink was too small. The cat spent a lot of time eating sticks.
Virginia-Highland, Atlanta, Ga. $800/mo.
I had a dining room! The downsides to this otherwise very charming apartment were that it was A) on a major six-lane road and B) next to a Mexican restaurant that turned into a bar from midnight to 4 a.m.. Lots of fights happened in the parking lot that separated me from the restaurant, and I called the cops a few times when people would start yelling about knives. Once I got food poisoning from the tapas place in my neighborhood. Related: I don’t really like Atlanta.
Eastern Market, Washington, D.C. $1,100/mo.
Back to DC. This apartment had one tiny bedroom and was in the basement of an ancient four-story building whose pipes exploded into my bathroom and kitchen no less than 3 times in the year I was there. The furnace was in the basement too, and once at 3am the carbon monoxide detector went off because the furnace was so dirty it could no longer filter anything. My fellow basement-dweller across the hall called 911 and the firemen came and we sat out on the street together until they told us we were safe. It was February. When I told the landlord, she laughed. Somehow, my cat and I got fleas in this apartment, which caused me to lose my deposit. This was a personal low.
Auburn, Ala. $600/mo.
I have two bedrooms! I use one of them for books and the cat box! I have my own washer and dryer! I can walk to campus! The trade-off is that I live immediately adjacent to heavily-traveled train tracks, but it does not even matter. This is my small-town soulmate of an apartment and the day I re-signed the lease for a second year I was as happy as a clam. I wish the same for everyone who has ever been given fleas by their home.
Stefanie Christensen is a graduate student in Auburn University’s College of Agriculture. She and her cat Hairy S. Truman have been vermin-free for over a year now, thankyouverymuch.
Not to be pedantic (okay, it’s a bit pedantic), but if you lived next to El Azteca, you did not live in Virginia-Highland.
@undinespragg I was going to say the same!
@soogee Agreed! I also was going to say something something about, do people really not do their research before moving to places? Especially places like Atlanta? How would she not know she would be living next to El Azteca, which posed issues for her in terms of noise/perceived safety/etc? I think my hackles get raised whenever anyone’s dismissive of Atlanta for reasons that aren’t Atlanta-specific, they’re just general aimless complaints from a person who didn’t look up the area/apartment before they moved.
@sockhop I know a couple who moved into our big city directly above a 24-hour Currency Exchange in an odd (not even dangerous, just asocial and strange) part of town, never ate at good restaurants or even shopped for food at great local stores, and told everyone who’d listen that they hate the city. Don’t you have to know or see one thing before you make that call?
@undinespragg Yes! Living next to El Bar might make me hate any place, it is true; but Poncey-Highland is so variable from block to block that visiting places before signing a lease would be even more crucial than usual! And it’s usually PRETTY CRUCIAL, in my book.
Is it very common in the USA for people to move between states frequently? It seems more common than in Canada to me.
@redheaded&crazy I don’t know if it’s that common, I’ve lived in one of several cities in Illinois since I was 12 years old (I’m 28 now). I’m not planning on leaving for at least couple years since I have a semi-perfect Chicago apartment with super cheap rent. And still not sure I ever want to leave Chicago at all. So yeah.
@redheaded&crazy I’m sure I know more people than this, but of my personal friends I can count only three or four people who’ve spent most of their life in one state. Most people I know grew up in one or more places (I lived in three states growing up), moved cross-country for college, and then moved away to yet a third location after school.
@redheaded&crazy Based on anecdotal evidence, I think it may have gotten more common post-2008 recession, with people more likely to move for jobs and grad school? No idea if that’s actually true though. Since graduating college in 2005 I’ve lived in 3 states.
@redheaded&crazy I’ve lived in three states so far: grew up in northern VA, moved to Massachusetts for college, and NY for my first job. The demographics of this site probably include a lot more people who have moved around for school/work/etc than average, though.
@redheaded&crazy These are articles from a very specific subset of people living in the US. New York and DC are places where people move to rather than stay in, if that makes sense.
I live in Texas and the vast majority of my friends are from here. Sure, we’ve lived various other places within the state, but for the most part, we’ve lived within the state lines.
@wallsdonotfall I don’t know a lot of people who have moved provinces either. But it is a lot harder and more expensive to move cross country here, I think.
@Megano! And what’s the point! If you move you’ll just end up in Winnipeg. (says a person who’s never been west of Toronto)
@ImASadGiraffe I never want to leave Chicago, either!
@redheaded&crazy When I lived in NYC, I only knew like two people originally from New York State who lived there. I live in Boston now – plenty of people here grew up in the suburbs of Boston/farther out in the state, but still, the majority of people are not from around here, because there are so many big schools.
@jacqueline and once you move to Winnipeg, you can never really escape – everyone comes back to Winnipeg eventually….
@redheaded&crazy @cat ferguson@twitter I’ve only lived in NY!
@RosemaryF I guess this was basically what I was wondering! do these articles represent a specific and not necessarily common demographic of Americans, or is it pretty common.
I think the moving to university, then moving somewhere different after university is a pretty common narrative, but it’s these multi-state moves that got me curious.
Hairy S Truman is a very cute name for a very cute cat.
Oh man, some of these stories make me think America is full of Victorian-style slumlords. Especially that flea one. Fleas can live in the grass though, so it’s not totally crazy that it happened.
@Megano! I got fleas in my first LA apartment, because stray cats figured out how to work open a part of the under-the-building-area and were living under my bedroom, meowing, shedding fleas. Told the landlord and they got the cat moved out and fixed the hole. (And I was able to just flea bomb the apartment with one of those sprayer things, since I didn’t have pets at the time.)
@undinespragg It counts as the Virginia Highlands because Poncey Highlands is a fictional term created by its residents so that they don’t have to say they live in VaHi.
This was HILARIOUS! I’m really glad you survived that Arlington apartment because it really does look exactly like “a mental institution in Soviet Russia.” SHUDDER.
Related: My first (and only, sigh) solo apartment was situated immediately next to heavily-traveled train tracks, behind which was a major highway. I very quickly adapted to the noise, but not to the wall unit air conditioner which spit out black fuzz, or the fact that several kitchen drawers were inaccessible due to the placement of the oven.
Damn you, Eastern Market. Just — just, DAMN YOU and your charming-from-the-outside, rotting-on-the-inside, incredibly expensive homes!
This series is fantastic.
This series is really interesting. I’m surprised by how many people move into a place by themselves so early. I would get way too lonely. I live with my best friends at the moment, because one of them bought a house, but it’s a crap house in a crap area and it’s been a year, so I’m looking at places to move out. I’m looking at houseshare places on gumtree (craigslist) because I would feel way too lonely living by myself (also, as this series attests – super expensive!)