Urban Living
From Steal This Wiki
Go back to Free Housing Return to original Table of Contents
Contents |
Urban Living
Rooftop
Many buildings have a flat roof and parapet to keep people from falling off. You will either have to attach a ladder to the roof from the fire escape or pick or break the inside lock to the roof access. Even then you need to assure regular access to the roof from outside while keeping random people from noticing your squat. We have seen people try to bicycle lock a ladder nearby to get up on the fire escape, and rope it up once on the roof, but this is a real workout to raise and lower it every day, it is suspicious activity to any witness, and the ladder is easily stolen. Once you have access to the roof you can build a shack to live in or just camp out in your tent or hammock. Take advantage of electricity and water connections running to air conditioners and lights, but be careful these are live deadly electrical wires and there is no way to turn them off to tap in. In addition to a squat your rooftop might have enough space to start a rooftop garden like we discuss in Farm It.
You might also try to access attic space to survive in winter but again be sure to use extra stealth when entering or exiting the building, some attics are also safely accessible from the roof through vents. If camping in an attic you must lay down wood to keep from stepping through the ceiling, you must also try to keep your activity to places over a hallway where people will not be too suspicious of your occasional sounds.
This is a difficult to keep secret squat and often requires lots of work and resources, consider a different idea unless you have a friend in the building who can help you out.
Bridge
We all have seen campers under bridges. Bridges offer protection from sun and rain and, if located in a nonresidential area, there are often longer times between camp breakups by cops compared to more exposed camping spots. A careful electrician could tap the street or sign lighting to power their electrically powered gear, hotplates, etc. If trash starts to visibly build up the city will often kick everyone out and come in with a prison work crew to throw everything away including your camping gear.
Spaces between and behind buildings
Think about the narrow space between buildings, Some boxes or a dumpster blocking the entrance give you some privacy. If you keep it clean and move out during the day the owners may not brick or fance over your camping spot, but remember that it is first come first serve every night.
Parks
Most urban parks have overgrown areas large enough to allow real camping. Try to find a place hidden by thorns and vines that will discourage city workers. A regularly used trail will lead other homeless or even park services to your hideout. To avoid making a trail use rocks as steping stones if possible. Steep forested hillsides are great to hang a hammock for a few days.
Hostels
In most cities and also near many adventure tourist destinations worldwide inexpensive hostels, inns, or motels can be found. Research the rules and clientèle that hostel is aimed at. Some hotel/hostels are for college age travelers, others are long term housing for low income people, and even others are populated by migrant workers. It is a good idea to get an idea of the social scene and find out how much a stay is. Many hostels are dorm type arrangements where you may be rooming with a dozen or more people. Also don't be surprised by people engaging in sex hidden only by their sheets, loud snoring, and questionable hygiene. Keep a close eye on your gear and never let anyone see anything of value. Before taking a room at a hostel check for hotel discounts and coupons especially in the off season that may actually be cheaper than a hostel dorm room, use this as bargaining leverage at the hostel.
Storage Space Rental
What freak has not dreamed of renting a storage unit for a home? Unfortunately the on site management is almost always against this, one inspection by the fire marshal and the manager is canned and the owner is in big trouble. It might be possible to bribe a manager but the trouble of modifying the unit, lack of water or bathrooms, and the locking of the buildings are all problems that make it almost not worth the trouble. In a free country storage unit type apartments would be an option for the very poor. The good news is that a small storage unit can be very useful to a person without a regular home, be sure to have a friends mailing address and valid phone number as well as to dress as cleanly as possible when opening the unit.
Bike Locker
Some say that rented city and college bike lockers can be converted for personal use by modifying the lock. Even if not such a realistic place to urban camp this is one of the few 24 hour accessible places that a homeless person can safely stash some gear, check rules about city inspection of contents.
Tent Cities
Many cities have an informal or well organized homeless movement which often with local assistance is working for the right of homeless groups to establish transitory or permanent settlements in or near urban areas where there are many services and sources of sustenance available to the homeless person. Examples are unofficial camps in Los Angeles, Dignity Village in Portland Oregon, or Tent City Three and Four in the Seattle area although there are usually small tent enclaves hidden in most cities near older industrial zones, electrical sub stations, railroad easements, and parks. Occasionally unauthorized tent camps will be raided, the cops have been know to slash their way through camps with razor blades to destroy tents and packs hoping to drive the homeless away. Acquire shelter materials or a larger tent locally for long stays and use this for your shelter, try to keep your nice tent packed away for emergency moves once you get settled. As we say keep your gear organized, packed, and ready to go as much as possible.
Dumpsters
This is simple, don't sleep in dumpsters. The reason for this advice is that while you are having a stinky but restful night of sleep safely hidden from the cops and security who want to arrest or molest the homeless you might easily oversleep and wake to find yourself being dumped and compacted in an automatic dumpster unloader garbage truck. So while it may be one of the easier places in a downtown area to catch a sticky nap, don't do it, try stealth camping in an industrial area or under a bridge.
Underground Structures
Many cities have old established tunnel, utility, or unused subway networks that might be opened for our use. Be sure to explore large drainage tunnels during the dry months of the year and if safely possible active train tunnels although this may entail serious risk unless there is a maintenance walkway wide enough to prevent a fall onto the tracks when a high speed train passes. Just check any interesting holes, tunnels, access pannels, or doors that appear to lead into walls, sidewalks, or hillsides. In New York and London lost subway stations have been turned into meccas for street punks and the homeless. In rural areas re-purposed military nuclear war bunkers and missile silos can be found although most are on farmers land or destroyed by the DOD, a famous example was a group producing the majority of Amerikan LSD operating out of an abandoned underground nuclear missile launch silo.
The Street
See also The Street
Suburban Living
Suburban areas are likely the most difficult to improvise housing. Short of renting a basement or garage for a very small amount, it will be difficult. The suburban sprawl was designed with a petroleum powered vehicle in mind, so most services are a highway drive away. Radically-dressed and -minded outsiders will likely be harassed by the local police
Garden Shed
In older neighborhoods with large lots adjoining park or wetland areas there are sometimes disused sheds or old garages. Look for unkempt yards or long grass without foot trample around the out building this may indicate an elderly homeowner or uninterested renter who has no use for the building. Choose and use a path of approach that does not leave a trail visible from the house or easily noticed from other homes.
Garden Shed Kit
A mini-barn or garden shed can be purchased at most North American hardware stores. All that is really needed is a concrete platform or four stone corner pedestals to start. These quick shelters have two benefits in a suburban area they may not be noticed by neighbors if built quickly during the work week, they are also a quick way to get shelter on a piece of land you plan to build a larger alternative home. These were proposed as a third world emergency prefab home after disasters. A good idea is to build on property of a friend who you will share utilities with. Contact a manufacturer with your plans, most will have at least one design with a normal size door and windows, some will custom cut the wood to include windows and doors where you want them as well as the overall height and size to your liking.
Useful upgrades to a quick build shed home include the following features:
- Normal size house door with proper lock(as opposed to double barn doors)
- Windows angled to catch summer and winter sun
- Overhang and decked or cement porch
- Garden hose plumbing, drain into a gravel/sand pit or garden next to your shed-house if soil drainage allows
- Electricity, include a circuit breaker of a lower value than the circuit you are connecting to so your breaker will flip first
- Dry wall, paint and insulation
- Shower curtain rail around porch for showering in summer
- Fold away bed and table
- Propane gas for heating and cooking can be plumbed in using camping components
- Fireplace or wood stove for heating and cooking makes sense in some areas
- A directional WiFi antenna mounted on the roof can let you connect to a house even hundreds of feet away
- Toilet plumbing can be a challenge to include on a low budget, an outhouse or chamber pot would be easier
- Tall bushes, garden trellises, and shrubberies around your shelter will obscure the view by neighbors giving you privacy.
Car
How to camp comfortably in your Cars
The practice of finding and squatting an unlocked car can be quite dangerous, angry auto owners have been known to attack and even shoot homeless people sleeping in their vehicles. Use this as a real last resort, try to only use abandoned vehicles if you must.
Squat a House
At the edge of the suburban rural boundary and near parks there are often pockets of older neighborhoods where a house may sit for years unoccupied waiting for inheritors to sue each others asses off until the lawyers take the house and divide the spoils amongst themselves. Look near large construction projects for houses slated for destruction or partialy finished structures with a good roof abandoned by bankrupt contractors. An old weathered for sale sign might be a house open to squat, but could also mean somewhat regular visitors depending on the husing market, take down the realator sign. Even better finding an incomplete subdivision with some nearly finished homes.
Deciding to squat a house takes some good detective work. Find a place where it is apparent that the yard work is not being taken care of, peek in the windows has anyone been home in a few months. Does it appear that the house has been squatted or burglarized without cleanup? All of these are good cause to stake the place out. Put a padlock on the front door and see if it is removed, camp out in the back yard if you can do so discreetly just to be sure. Try before you pry, an open door or window might remove the charges of breaking and entering if you get busted.
Squat the place. While you are squatting light up your devices you use and go outside to see what is visible at night, pull the shades and check again, light and motion will give you away most easily. Keep your travel in and out infrequent, at night only if possible, no music or noise. Cooking fires, cigarettes, and grilling might be noticed from the smoke and smell. If you kept clean you will be hard to spot. To the average WASP the homeless are dirty and distant, the suburban and rural townies and cops won't tolerate filthy bums, but will they notice a clean one?
Always make your living space as near as possible to the back door on the ground floor, clean that room up first for occupation. Since this is not your house be ready to run if you hear someone trying to enter through the front, legit owners drive up and enter through the front door 99% of the time without doing a walk around, pile up junk in front of the front door to make noise and slow them down. Always have your bags packed for a quick escape, if confronted be apologetic but be sure to get away before anyone gets violent. It might help if you tell a story of your dead grandfathers house in this town that you thought you were squatting in, this is just a distraction to get out the door and prevent violence, be cool, smile, grab your pack, don't let anyone get their hands on you, know your escape routes have at least two. Expect the cops in the area soon so get away from the property and into a store or movie theater, stash your bike and pack safely nearby, the pack really gives you away.
See also Squatting
Original Urban Living
If you're headed for city living, the first thing you'll have to do is locate an apartment or loft, an increasingly difficult task. At certain times of the year, notably June and September, the competition is fierce because of students leaving or entering school. If you can avoid these two months, you'll have a better selection. A knowledge of your plans in advance can aid a great deal in finding an apartment, for the area can be scouted before you move in. Often, if you know of people leaving a desirable apartment, you can make arrangements with the landlord, and a deposit will hold the place. If you let them know you're willing to buy their furniture, people will be more willing to give you information about when they plan to move. Watch out for getting screwed on exorbitant furniture swindles by the previous tenants and excessive demands on the part of the landlords. In most cities, the landlord is not legally allowed to ask for more than one month's rent as security. Often the monthly rent itself is regulated by a city agency. A little checking on the local laws and a visit to the housing agency might prove well worth it.
Don't go to a rental agency unless you are willing to pay an extra month's rent as a fee. Wanted ads in newspapers and bulletin boards located in community centers and supermarkets have some leads. Large universities have a service for finding good apartments for administrators, faculty and students, in that order. Call the university, say you have just been appointed to such-and-such position and you need housing in the area. They will want to know all your requirements and rent limitations, but often they have very good deals available, especially if you've appointed yourself to a high enough position.
Aside from these, the best way is to scout a desired area and inquire about future apartments. Often landlords or rental agencies have control over a number of buildings in a given area. You can generally find a nameplate inside the hall of the building. Calling them directly will let you know of any apartments available.
When you get an apartment, furnishing will be the next step. You can double your sleeping space by building bunk beds. Nail two by fours securely from ceiling to floor, about three feet from the walls, where the beds are desired. Then build a frame out of two by fours at a convenient height. Make sure you use nails or screws strong enough to support the weight of people sleeping or balling. Nail a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood on the frame. Mattresses and almost all furniture needed for your pal can be gotten free (see section on Free Furniture). Silverware can be copped at any self-service restaurant.
