I could live in a place that big and be happy, I think, as long as the bathrooms were clean and I had easy access to food.

I lived in a YMCA for a while. I had a very small room with a bed, a small dresser, and a kitchen chair. You couldn’t sit on the chair of the door was open. I had no fridge so I would keep things on my window sill outside (it was late Fall) but crows kept stealing the food. Worked well for drinks.

The bathrooms weren’t great but I was a breakfast cook going in at 4:30am so I was living opposite other people.

I heard crazy stuff in there. There was a guy who was really mentally ill and prone to raging out. One night he was storming up and down the hall yelling “this isn’t a hallway, it’s a trap!” over and over. That was scary. Other crazy stuff happened because a bunch of other people were staying in two rooms and were really into coke or something (this was a long time ago) and they’d come home after last call, run out of coke, and start arguing over who was holding out, who had had more than their share, did anyone have money, etc. Sometimes they would fight.

I was only there for about six weeks before I found a better place but it kept me from being homeless after I had to move out of a place with one day notice (hotel employee residence, my roommate had an opposite shift to me and had been violating rules left and right and getting written up so the evicted us both with very little warning). Anyway, I was lucky to get in there, I couldn’t afford an apartment. I eventually was able to explain to the hotel security that I had no idea what was going on and signed a paper saying I was out on the first infraction and got back into residence.

Good times.