Will anyone care/notice if I lived in a 24 hour music practice space?
April 21, 2013 3:55 PM Subscribe
I figure if a practice space is open 24 hours it would be hard for the staff to determine if I'm living there or just practicing music alllllll the time. However, I also figure that a 24 hour practice space expects that starving artists will be trying to live there. However however, I also figure that the kinda people running a 24 hour practice space are cool with people living there and are kinda trying to say "shhhhh, don't tell nobody but this is a place where we turn a blind eye to starving artists trying to live here".
I just wanna beat on my drum all day.
Just in case you wanna know, I am in fact a starving artist and wanna live in a practice space because 1) I wanna play drums and scream weird things into a mic alllllll day long, 2) it's cheaper than real rent. I don't wanna live in a warehouse cause I can't afford it alone and don't wanna live with other people (I'm most productive and happy when living alone).
As far as showering is concerned, I've got lots of friends apartments I can shower at.
In terms of food, I have a mini fridge and don't eat anything that needs to be cooked.
For sleeping, I sleep on the floor.
Just in case you wanna know, I am in fact a starving artist and wanna live in a practice space because 1) I wanna play drums and scream weird things into a mic alllllll day long, 2) it's cheaper than real rent. I don't wanna live in a warehouse cause I can't afford it alone and don't wanna live with other people (I'm most productive and happy when living alone).
As far as showering is concerned, I've got lots of friends apartments I can shower at.
In terms of food, I have a mini fridge and don't eat anything that needs to be cooked.
For sleeping, I sleep on the floor.
I once had a job conducting surveys for an arts nonprofit, so I visited a lot of artist/musician studios. I'd say about a third of them slept there at least some of the time, and some were obviously living there full-time despite it clearly being in violation of their lease.
So: ymmv, but this seems pretty common.
posted by third word on a random page at 4:04 PM on April 21, 2013
So: ymmv, but this seems pretty common.
posted by third word on a random page at 4:04 PM on April 21, 2013
None of us can predict how things will shake down in your particular space. What I can say is that you need to read and understand your lease -- not because I expect you to not break it, but because you need to know how they can terminate your lease. This may mean possibly having a plan for re-housing yourself on very short (like immediate) notice.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:25 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by DarlingBri at 4:25 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
People absolutely do this, but it depends a lot on how lax the management of your specific place is about enforcing the no-living rule. You will want to feel it out with some of the existing renters, to see if it's common for people to sleep there. If you do decide to do this, have an exit plan in case you get evicted. Since allowing people to sleep in a building that isn't zoned/coded/insured for occupation opens the ownership up to significant liability, a lax manager may suddenly become very strict if he or she gets leaned on by the city or the insurance company. I'm not saying you definitely should not do this, but proceed with caution.
posted by Scientist at 4:29 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Scientist at 4:29 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Yeah, just do it. But absolutely have a backup plan in case you get kicked out and have to figure out where to go. Also, buy a cheapo gym membership nearby and shower there instead of being a mooch on your friends.
posted by greta simone at 4:29 PM on April 21, 2013 [19 favorites]
posted by greta simone at 4:29 PM on April 21, 2013 [19 favorites]
I am not going to say whether you should or should not. But do realize that if you try that, you will be de facto "homeless." Some things to consider:
Where will you get mail? You cannot get, say, a Paypal debit card sent to a P.O. box. No matter how much you do online in terms of paying bills, etc, you will still need a mailing address as a minimum, preferably a street address that you can use. If you want a P.O. box, you would be wise to arrange it prior to trying this. Renting a P.O. box requires two forms of ID, one of which needs to be attached to an address. There is a list of acceptable ID on the usps site. Read it before you give up a residential address. Think you can get around that by going to someplace like Mailboxes Etc? Think again. They have to comply with the same standard. On the upside, it may be a way to get a P.O. box with a street address, which would be a good thing.
Once you are de facto homeless, you will find that it is not acceptable for you to do some of the exact same things other people do in public. If a middle class person smells of cigarette smoke, sweat from hitting the gym or strong perfume, that is perfectly fine. If you smell, you can (and probably will sometimes) be thrown out for it. If other people brush their teeth or wash their face in a public bathroom no one will care. If you do it you can be hassled for using the bathroom for "bathing", which is "an unintended purpose." Again, the result can be removal from the establishment in question.
Don't be so sure you can impose on friends consistently for showering. People treat you differently once they view you as homeless. You might find that friends suddenly become scarce. I suggest you make sure there is access to a gym shower or truck stop shower in advance rather than just assuming friends will remain friends once you have the stigmatizing label of "homeless." Then factor in cost of gym membership or truck stop showers and see if your rent still sounds too high.
How much personal stuff do you have? You will need to travel really light if you hope to pull this off. Using the practice space to store mounds of personal items will likely tip them off that you are engaging in a nonconforming use of the space.
How good are you at keeping your mouth shut? At deflection? At not saying something stupid that will tip people off? If you have a big mouth, your big mouth may be the thing most likely to lead to your undoing. Also, all these many friends you think will lend you their shower -- "three can keep a secret if two are dead." Do you think they will all keep mum? If not, how do you expect to cadge showers?
Where will you change clothes? How will you handle laundry? What other places will you go so that you are gone enough to try to look normal-ish and be less likely to be noticed (as living there)? Where will you go when you are inevitably discovered and thrown out? (Expect to have essentially zero notice. It will likely be "get out now.") You may be okay with sleeping on the floor but will you be okay with sleeping outside, potentially in rain or freezing temperatures, when this goes south?
Not intended to dscourage you. Intended to help you think it through thoroughly.
posted by Michele in California at 4:36 PM on April 21, 2013 [38 favorites]
Where will you get mail? You cannot get, say, a Paypal debit card sent to a P.O. box. No matter how much you do online in terms of paying bills, etc, you will still need a mailing address as a minimum, preferably a street address that you can use. If you want a P.O. box, you would be wise to arrange it prior to trying this. Renting a P.O. box requires two forms of ID, one of which needs to be attached to an address. There is a list of acceptable ID on the usps site. Read it before you give up a residential address. Think you can get around that by going to someplace like Mailboxes Etc? Think again. They have to comply with the same standard. On the upside, it may be a way to get a P.O. box with a street address, which would be a good thing.
Once you are de facto homeless, you will find that it is not acceptable for you to do some of the exact same things other people do in public. If a middle class person smells of cigarette smoke, sweat from hitting the gym or strong perfume, that is perfectly fine. If you smell, you can (and probably will sometimes) be thrown out for it. If other people brush their teeth or wash their face in a public bathroom no one will care. If you do it you can be hassled for using the bathroom for "bathing", which is "an unintended purpose." Again, the result can be removal from the establishment in question.
Don't be so sure you can impose on friends consistently for showering. People treat you differently once they view you as homeless. You might find that friends suddenly become scarce. I suggest you make sure there is access to a gym shower or truck stop shower in advance rather than just assuming friends will remain friends once you have the stigmatizing label of "homeless." Then factor in cost of gym membership or truck stop showers and see if your rent still sounds too high.
How much personal stuff do you have? You will need to travel really light if you hope to pull this off. Using the practice space to store mounds of personal items will likely tip them off that you are engaging in a nonconforming use of the space.
How good are you at keeping your mouth shut? At deflection? At not saying something stupid that will tip people off? If you have a big mouth, your big mouth may be the thing most likely to lead to your undoing. Also, all these many friends you think will lend you their shower -- "three can keep a secret if two are dead." Do you think they will all keep mum? If not, how do you expect to cadge showers?
Where will you change clothes? How will you handle laundry? What other places will you go so that you are gone enough to try to look normal-ish and be less likely to be noticed (as living there)? Where will you go when you are inevitably discovered and thrown out? (Expect to have essentially zero notice. It will likely be "get out now.") You may be okay with sleeping on the floor but will you be okay with sleeping outside, potentially in rain or freezing temperatures, when this goes south?
Not intended to dscourage you. Intended to help you think it through thoroughly.
posted by Michele in California at 4:36 PM on April 21, 2013 [38 favorites]
Are you dating anyone or plan to date anyone during this time of living in a practice space? You might be limiting your available dating pool significantly.
posted by mmascolino at 4:53 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by mmascolino at 4:53 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
> Expect to have essentially zero notice. It will likely be "get out now."
"...and take your drums with you." So you should have an emergency plan for taking not just yourself and a backpack, but everything you have in the practice space.
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:00 PM on April 21, 2013 [6 favorites]
"...and take your drums with you." So you should have an emergency plan for taking not just yourself and a backpack, but everything you have in the practice space.
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:00 PM on April 21, 2013 [6 favorites]
Does anyone else (appear to) do this at that facility? If not, you'll likely get caught and evicted. If so, then clearly, they don't mind.
posted by Etrigan at 5:00 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 5:00 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
I have known lots of people who did this. Scout around and find a likely space - the best one IME was one over commercial space in a disused part of downtown. And make arrangements with friends - can someone keep a few boxes of your stuff if they have a big place? You won't want all your stuff there. As Michele says, you will have to be pretty thoughtful about showering and laundry, but it's not impossible - cheap gym membership for showers, laundromat for laundry. If you're leading a young and broke lifestyle without too many possessions and with a job where you don't need to dress up, this isn't so bad. However, living in a windowless space can get to be a real drag after a while.
posted by Frowner at 5:07 PM on April 21, 2013
posted by Frowner at 5:07 PM on April 21, 2013
I think it depends on the nature of the space.
If you're talking about raw "Artist In Residence" workspace, you're renting the space from a landlord type person who isn't there all the time to monitor who's sleeping where. So, while I wouldn't make it obvious that you're living there, you could sleep there and probably be OK if you were discreet.
If you're talking about a school rehearsal space or something more regimented, with, say, security guards and such? Probably not. I tried to pull that once, and it did not go over well.
Join a gym for showering.
posted by Sara C. at 6:02 PM on April 21, 2013
If you're talking about raw "Artist In Residence" workspace, you're renting the space from a landlord type person who isn't there all the time to monitor who's sleeping where. So, while I wouldn't make it obvious that you're living there, you could sleep there and probably be OK if you were discreet.
If you're talking about a school rehearsal space or something more regimented, with, say, security guards and such? Probably not. I tried to pull that once, and it did not go over well.
Join a gym for showering.
posted by Sara C. at 6:02 PM on April 21, 2013
Where will you get mail?
This is a good point. I'd go so far as to say that, if your space is the type of artists' space where people routinely have mail delivered there, like an office or business address, you're probably OK to sleep there at least some of the time if you're discreet.
If your space is NOT a place a person could conceivably have mail delivered, moving in would probably be frowned upon.
posted by Sara C. at 6:06 PM on April 21, 2013
This is a good point. I'd go so far as to say that, if your space is the type of artists' space where people routinely have mail delivered there, like an office or business address, you're probably OK to sleep there at least some of the time if you're discreet.
If your space is NOT a place a person could conceivably have mail delivered, moving in would probably be frowned upon.
posted by Sara C. at 6:06 PM on April 21, 2013
If there is staff there that will notice you are around a lot, they will notice you are living there. They expect people to try this and there is no way they won't notice. Especially if you play drums, you'll be there and pretty quiet for hours.
Whoever runs the place probably isn't running it to provide free housing to starving artists, they may well be in the starving artist category themselves.
posted by yohko at 6:22 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
Whoever runs the place probably isn't running it to provide free housing to starving artists, they may well be in the starving artist category themselves.
posted by yohko at 6:22 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
Re dating: If you are male, you can kind of bet on being celibate for the duration. Homeless men have a hard time getting even homeless women to give them the time of day. (Homeless women don't have the same issue. Men will still try to pick them up, and not just homeless men. Homeless women seem to be at higher than normal risk for harrassment. The assumption seems to be they will put out in order to have a place to sleep -- and some of them will.)
If you do not care, hey, more power to you. But if that matters to you, you are, yeah, "seriously limiting your dating pool." And that brings up another question: If you resort to, er, self fulfillment, where will you do that? Doing that in a public place can potentially lead to charges of the sort that get one labeled as a "sex offender."
posted by Michele in California at 6:34 PM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]
If you do not care, hey, more power to you. But if that matters to you, you are, yeah, "seriously limiting your dating pool." And that brings up another question: If you resort to, er, self fulfillment, where will you do that? Doing that in a public place can potentially lead to charges of the sort that get one labeled as a "sex offender."
posted by Michele in California at 6:34 PM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]
Crashing at the space occasionally and actually living there are two very different things. Yes, the staff will notice. The musicians coming and going to use their rehearsal spaces, many of whom are also starving artists, will notice that you appear to be living there and will mostly be uncool with this.
> However however, I also figure that the kinda people running a 24 hour practice space are cool with people living there and are kinda trying to say "shhhhh, don't tell nobody but this is a place where we turn a blind eye to starving artists trying to live here".
And risk zoning ordinance violations and other city business licensing and tax violations? What happens to their business reputation when words gets around that they're turning a blind eye to people living there? Will tenants trust that their equipment is really secure? Gods forbid if there were a break-in and property was damaged or stolen and it comes out that someone is living there illegally...
posted by desuetude at 7:18 PM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]
> However however, I also figure that the kinda people running a 24 hour practice space are cool with people living there and are kinda trying to say "shhhhh, don't tell nobody but this is a place where we turn a blind eye to starving artists trying to live here".
And risk zoning ordinance violations and other city business licensing and tax violations? What happens to their business reputation when words gets around that they're turning a blind eye to people living there? Will tenants trust that their equipment is really secure? Gods forbid if there were a break-in and property was damaged or stolen and it comes out that someone is living there illegally...
posted by desuetude at 7:18 PM on April 21, 2013 [4 favorites]
don't wanna live with other people (I'm most productive and happy when living alone).
It seems like a safer and more hygienic strategy would be to live with roommates but only sleep and shower there, and spend most of your time at the music practice space.
posted by deanc at 7:18 PM on April 21, 2013 [12 favorites]
It seems like a safer and more hygienic strategy would be to live with roommates but only sleep and shower there, and spend most of your time at the music practice space.
posted by deanc at 7:18 PM on April 21, 2013 [12 favorites]
Whoever runs the place probably isn't running it to provide free housing to starving artists, they may well be in the starving artist category themselves.
And a lot of people running these are on friendly terms with others that run them in your city so consider getting kicked out of one is the same as getting kicked out of the rest in your city. The people that run practice spaces deal with enough headaches and hassles, they're likely to kick you out and call it day on putting up with it before they turn a blind eye to you living there in violation of your agreement.
posted by playertobenamedlater at 7:21 PM on April 21, 2013
And a lot of people running these are on friendly terms with others that run them in your city so consider getting kicked out of one is the same as getting kicked out of the rest in your city. The people that run practice spaces deal with enough headaches and hassles, they're likely to kick you out and call it day on putting up with it before they turn a blind eye to you living there in violation of your agreement.
posted by playertobenamedlater at 7:21 PM on April 21, 2013
From your description, I'm betting you're talking about the kind of practice spaces where someone buys or leases a crumbling former industrial space in a sketchy part of town, divides it up into a bunch of small rooms with cheap drywall and doors, then rents the space monthly to bands.
I also figure that a 24 hour practice space expects that starving artists will be trying to live there. However however, I also figure that the kinda people running a 24 hour practice space are cool with people living there
Sorry, but this is wishful thinking. Neither you nor us can make generalized assumptions about what people who own or manage practice spaces are expecting. I've known some where anything goes, and others where the owners are dead serious about running a legitimate business, which would include immediately booting out anyone who tries to live there.
And they might not be staffed 24 hours, but the staff or owners could show up at any moment, for an alarm going off, or a plumbing emergency, or part of the roof falling in, or whatever.
Plus all of what pretty much everybody up-thread has said about various other complications and considerations. I get the appeal of "cheap place where I can make noise whenever I want", but I don't think you've really considered all the pros and cons of this idea.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:30 PM on April 21, 2013
I also figure that a 24 hour practice space expects that starving artists will be trying to live there. However however, I also figure that the kinda people running a 24 hour practice space are cool with people living there
Sorry, but this is wishful thinking. Neither you nor us can make generalized assumptions about what people who own or manage practice spaces are expecting. I've known some where anything goes, and others where the owners are dead serious about running a legitimate business, which would include immediately booting out anyone who tries to live there.
And they might not be staffed 24 hours, but the staff or owners could show up at any moment, for an alarm going off, or a plumbing emergency, or part of the roof falling in, or whatever.
Plus all of what pretty much everybody up-thread has said about various other complications and considerations. I get the appeal of "cheap place where I can make noise whenever I want", but I don't think you've really considered all the pros and cons of this idea.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:30 PM on April 21, 2013
Response by poster: Wow, thanks for all the help, y'all. Got way more insight than I was expecting.
Mail -- Yeah didn't think about receiving mail. For that I have a relative who can receive mail for me (but I'm glad I now know what's require for one to have a po box).
Sex -- yeah, had sex a few times before. It was cool but can definitely live without it.
Hygiene -- word, definitely didn't think about a cheap gym membership as an option.
Backup -- yeah good call on that y'all.
So i'm gonna do it. I gotta friend who always has an open room that he'll rent to me exclusively. Just in case that changes, though, I can always just say "fuckajob" and go back to my folks. Aright, well here's to defacto homelessness. Cheers!
posted by defmute at 7:45 PM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]
Mail -- Yeah didn't think about receiving mail. For that I have a relative who can receive mail for me (but I'm glad I now know what's require for one to have a po box).
Sex -- yeah, had sex a few times before. It was cool but can definitely live without it.
Hygiene -- word, definitely didn't think about a cheap gym membership as an option.
Backup -- yeah good call on that y'all.
So i'm gonna do it. I gotta friend who always has an open room that he'll rent to me exclusively. Just in case that changes, though, I can always just say "fuckajob" and go back to my folks. Aright, well here's to defacto homelessness. Cheers!
posted by defmute at 7:45 PM on April 21, 2013 [3 favorites]
Renting a P.O. box requires two forms of ID, one of which needs to be attached to an address. There is a list of acceptable ID on the usps site. Read it before you give up a residential address. Think you can get around that by going to someplace like Mailboxes Etc? Think again. They have to comply with the same standard. On the upside, it may be a way to get a P.O. box with a street address, which would be a good thing.
In my experience, the USPS will check your ID when you setup the box, but never again. I've moved a couple times since I set mine up, and they've never bothered me. So, if you have a valid address now, a P.O. Box might still be an option.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 9:30 PM on April 21, 2013
In my experience, the USPS will check your ID when you setup the box, but never again. I've moved a couple times since I set mine up, and they've never bothered me. So, if you have a valid address now, a P.O. Box might still be an option.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 9:30 PM on April 21, 2013
Yes, if it is set up beforehand, you should be gold.
posted by Michele in California at 9:32 PM on April 21, 2013
posted by Michele in California at 9:32 PM on April 21, 2013
"cheap place where I can make noise whenever I want"
This is another good point.
You know why so many bands use non-residential practice spaces?
Because nobody wants people making loud noise at all hours of the day and night.
Keep in mind that by choosing to "live" in your practice space, you will forfeit any right to uninterrupted sleep or quiet time of any kind.
FWIW I legitimately lived in a live/work artists' space for a few years, one that had rules to balance the living and working aspects. There are still albums I can hear in passing and be immediately taken back to 2 in the morning, sometime in the spring of 2003, and the sculptor next door who preferred to work through the night, stereo blaring, despite the copious house regulations about quiet hours.
posted by Sara C. at 9:52 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
This is another good point.
You know why so many bands use non-residential practice spaces?
Because nobody wants people making loud noise at all hours of the day and night.
Keep in mind that by choosing to "live" in your practice space, you will forfeit any right to uninterrupted sleep or quiet time of any kind.
FWIW I legitimately lived in a live/work artists' space for a few years, one that had rules to balance the living and working aspects. There are still albums I can hear in passing and be immediately taken back to 2 in the morning, sometime in the spring of 2003, and the sculptor next door who preferred to work through the night, stereo blaring, despite the copious house regulations about quiet hours.
posted by Sara C. at 9:52 PM on April 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: A lot of people do this. More than many people even think. These places often don't have cameras, any real security, or even all that much oversight. At the bigger places with 80-100+ spaces there's so many people going in and out and all the doors to the individual rooms are always locked, to the point that its impossible to really tell who's been there for how long or what rooms even have anyone in them.
If you keep a really low profile, have friends who also use the space, and don't stay there every night you should be fine.
The key here is keeping your mouth shut. I've heard of many people doing this, I know it goes on a lot. However I haven't heard anything like "oh yea, joes been doing that". It's always nebulous. The people who do this and get away with it really keep their mouths shut.
Another good thing to do if you could swing it would be to sleep odd hours. Don't go in and go bed at 11 or even 1 then get up at 8 or 10am. Go in at 8am and get up at 2, etc. have an abnormal schedule, even for someone with a job who'd be at a practice space.
I've also never seen anyone keep anything more than a few beers and a sandwich in a minifridge in one of those. Some people have couches or lazyboys though.
I'm assuming you already have a place in mind, but if you don't you're going to have to make friends with people who already have spaces so you can check the places out. Obviously all of them aren't created equally, and you want one of the ones with very little oversight and a sketch factor. The good news is that there's a lot of those though. I've been to some that seemed to have absolutely no one on site ever unless the roof leaked or something. Others have a boss in there every day for XYZ hours, some have people around the entire time they're open, which can mean always.
I also figure that the kinda people running a 24 hour practice space are cool with people living there and are kinda trying to say "shhhhh, don't tell nobody but this is a place where we turn a blind eye to starving artists trying to live here".
This is categorically not true. If such a place exists, it's pretty rare. Your only hope here is flying entirely under the radar, and you'll have to find a situation in which that isn't too hard.
I'll also add that the celibacy thing isn't true. I have a friend whose gone between couches, floors, and shit like this for years. Hasn't slowed him down much of at all in that department. Showering regularly, having clean clothes, and having a job pretty much knocks out a lot of the issues. On the front of brushing your teeth and such, with those things covered who will know you're not just some random normal guy? As I said, most of the people who do this... Basically no one knows they do.
posted by emptythought at 10:02 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
If you keep a really low profile, have friends who also use the space, and don't stay there every night you should be fine.
The key here is keeping your mouth shut. I've heard of many people doing this, I know it goes on a lot. However I haven't heard anything like "oh yea, joes been doing that". It's always nebulous. The people who do this and get away with it really keep their mouths shut.
Another good thing to do if you could swing it would be to sleep odd hours. Don't go in and go bed at 11 or even 1 then get up at 8 or 10am. Go in at 8am and get up at 2, etc. have an abnormal schedule, even for someone with a job who'd be at a practice space.
I've also never seen anyone keep anything more than a few beers and a sandwich in a minifridge in one of those. Some people have couches or lazyboys though.
I'm assuming you already have a place in mind, but if you don't you're going to have to make friends with people who already have spaces so you can check the places out. Obviously all of them aren't created equally, and you want one of the ones with very little oversight and a sketch factor. The good news is that there's a lot of those though. I've been to some that seemed to have absolutely no one on site ever unless the roof leaked or something. Others have a boss in there every day for XYZ hours, some have people around the entire time they're open, which can mean always.
I also figure that the kinda people running a 24 hour practice space are cool with people living there and are kinda trying to say "shhhhh, don't tell nobody but this is a place where we turn a blind eye to starving artists trying to live here".
This is categorically not true. If such a place exists, it's pretty rare. Your only hope here is flying entirely under the radar, and you'll have to find a situation in which that isn't too hard.
I'll also add that the celibacy thing isn't true. I have a friend whose gone between couches, floors, and shit like this for years. Hasn't slowed him down much of at all in that department. Showering regularly, having clean clothes, and having a job pretty much knocks out a lot of the issues. On the front of brushing your teeth and such, with those things covered who will know you're not just some random normal guy? As I said, most of the people who do this... Basically no one knows they do.
posted by emptythought at 10:02 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
Do you snore? If so, someone may very well come knocking on your door in the middle of the night to boot you out.
posted by markblasco at 12:48 AM on April 22, 2013
posted by markblasco at 12:48 AM on April 22, 2013
I work at a university and we had a student who tried to move in to our 24-hour department library once. He got away with it for about 6 months, by which I mean that it took about three weeks for people to notice, another three for anyone to say anything to the administrators, and a couple more months for them to kick him out.
Anyway, the building was manned a lot more than yours probably will be, but in case it helps, here's what tipped us off that this wasn't just a very studious student:
1. amount of time he spent there. Like, every time you walk past the library, he was there, whatever time of day.
2. seeing him coming out of the bathroom with wet hair and/or wet face, so he had clearly just had a bit of a wash. Seeing him go into the bathroom with a toothbrush. Seeing that once or twice, you'd brush it off. Seeing it every day, especially early in the morning, is something else.
3. seeing him try to eat surreptitiously in the library. And not just candy like most students, but real meals. Seeing him bring take-out back to the department tea-room. If you are getting take-out for dinner, which requires you to go into the city, why wouldn't you go the extra mile to take it to your own house instead of back to the library?
4. seeing him socialise with his friends there. People who were not students in our department kept coming over to hang out in the library. And would sit around chatting with him. Since none of them were studying, and it was often not during the middle of the day when they might conceivably be on the way to or from classes, it seemed like he was just treating the place as his lounge to hang out in. Which made us wonder why he didn't take the friends back to his lounge.
5. the tipping point was when he got a girlfriend and started making out with her in the library a lot. That is something people don't tend to do if they have somewhere else to go.
posted by lollusc at 1:46 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Anyway, the building was manned a lot more than yours probably will be, but in case it helps, here's what tipped us off that this wasn't just a very studious student:
1. amount of time he spent there. Like, every time you walk past the library, he was there, whatever time of day.
2. seeing him coming out of the bathroom with wet hair and/or wet face, so he had clearly just had a bit of a wash. Seeing him go into the bathroom with a toothbrush. Seeing that once or twice, you'd brush it off. Seeing it every day, especially early in the morning, is something else.
3. seeing him try to eat surreptitiously in the library. And not just candy like most students, but real meals. Seeing him bring take-out back to the department tea-room. If you are getting take-out for dinner, which requires you to go into the city, why wouldn't you go the extra mile to take it to your own house instead of back to the library?
4. seeing him socialise with his friends there. People who were not students in our department kept coming over to hang out in the library. And would sit around chatting with him. Since none of them were studying, and it was often not during the middle of the day when they might conceivably be on the way to or from classes, it seemed like he was just treating the place as his lounge to hang out in. Which made us wonder why he didn't take the friends back to his lounge.
5. the tipping point was when he got a girlfriend and started making out with her in the library a lot. That is something people don't tend to do if they have somewhere else to go.
posted by lollusc at 1:46 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
3. seeing him try to eat surreptitiously in the library. And not just candy like most students, but real meals. Seeing him bring take-out back to the department tea-room.
This is truly self-defeating behavior. Paying other people to cook for you - even in huge industrial assembly-line kitchens - costs so much more than preparing your own food that the difference could easily fund share-house rental most places.
posted by flabdablet at 5:05 AM on April 22, 2013
This is truly self-defeating behavior. Paying other people to cook for you - even in huge industrial assembly-line kitchens - costs so much more than preparing your own food that the difference could easily fund share-house rental most places.
posted by flabdablet at 5:05 AM on April 22, 2013
OP sez "I have a mini fridge and don't eat anything that needs to be cooked" but in re.
Paying other people to cook for you - even in huge industrial assembly-line kitchens - costs so much more than preparing your own food
Discussing this with an economist once we came to the conclusion that one of the cheapest ways to live would involve having one's living space be a short walk away from an Ikea. Ikea special prices are not ones I can easily compete with at home.
Once when dirt poor I regularly ate, with a group of broke friends, at a hospital cafeteria -- the cafeteria was, for the good of the staff and patients, subsidized. (Bland but fairly nutritious fare...)
Living near a cheap cheap food place would make a big difference in one's kitchenless budget.
posted by kmennie at 5:47 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Paying other people to cook for you - even in huge industrial assembly-line kitchens - costs so much more than preparing your own food
Discussing this with an economist once we came to the conclusion that one of the cheapest ways to live would involve having one's living space be a short walk away from an Ikea. Ikea special prices are not ones I can easily compete with at home.
Once when dirt poor I regularly ate, with a group of broke friends, at a hospital cafeteria -- the cafeteria was, for the good of the staff and patients, subsidized. (Bland but fairly nutritious fare...)
Living near a cheap cheap food place would make a big difference in one's kitchenless budget.
posted by kmennie at 5:47 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
When I went through my rootless semi-homeless sleeping on my college campus phase I just ate things from the grocery store that didn't need to be cooked. I remember a lot of bagels dipped in cream cheese (I didn't have a knife or a plate), a lot of crackers, a lot from the prepared foods section, and plenty of outright junk. It wasn't a good way to eat, and it wasn't sustainable for the long term, but it didn't kill me to subsist on cream cheese and snickers bars for six months.
Then again, I did this in New York where there are extremely cheap food options everywhere. When I got tired of bagels there was always the "recession special" from Grey's Papaya, or the Indian places that cater to taxi drivers.
posted by Sara C. at 9:01 AM on April 22, 2013
Then again, I did this in New York where there are extremely cheap food options everywhere. When I got tired of bagels there was always the "recession special" from Grey's Papaya, or the Indian places that cater to taxi drivers.
posted by Sara C. at 9:01 AM on April 22, 2013
The arts space I am a member of says no sleeping there because it could result in a large increase in their insurance rates if anyone finds out -- insuring an apartment building is way more expensive than insuring a workshop. People do a lot of crazy stuff there but seen to obey that one rule. I wouldn't do it.
posted by miyabo at 9:35 AM on April 22, 2013
posted by miyabo at 9:35 AM on April 22, 2013
Be careful when you are taking laundry, food, and trash in and out of the space. Don't use grocery bags and laundry baskets. Store food trash in the fridge until you can dispose of it, and take it somewhere else to throw it out.
If you get caught once, you might be able to get away with saying you had an argument with an SO or something like that, but consider it a warning sign to move out.
posted by yohko at 12:02 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
If you get caught once, you might be able to get away with saying you had an argument with an SO or something like that, but consider it a warning sign to move out.
posted by yohko at 12:02 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I help manage an community art workshop space; it has showers, a kitchen, and a laundry facility, so we've had a few people just sort of quietly start living there, and it was just obvious. You can just tell. Even if you can't catch someone violating the rules directly, you can sense that they are interacting with the space differently. There's likely to be a lot more privacy at a practice space than at a workshop like ours, but the people who work there are still going to figure it out.
The more irregular you are, the harder it will be to spot you. Develop habits and people will pick them up right away. In the end, though, the real question is not whether they'll notice - because they definitely will - but whether they will care.
posted by Mars Saxman at 2:36 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
The more irregular you are, the harder it will be to spot you. Develop habits and people will pick them up right away. In the end, though, the real question is not whether they'll notice - because they definitely will - but whether they will care.
posted by Mars Saxman at 2:36 PM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
This is truly self-defeating behavior. Paying other people to cook for you - even in huge industrial assembly-line kitchens - costs so much more than preparing your own food that the difference could easily fund share-house rental most places.
Only replying because i think this could possibly be helpful to defmute, but this just isn't always true. Especially on the second point.
To take advantage of this reduced cost, you also need a kitchen. And not just a kitchen, but utensils, pots, pans, dishes(or at least a bit of flatware to eat out of the pots and pans with). Similarly, basically nowhere around here can you be added to the lease to officially rent a room in a share house without going through the landlord anymore. Every place seems to have that "less than 7 days a month or notify the landlord" thing. You need to go through a credit check, generally provide pay stubs, and at some places even make a minimum amount of income.
If you have a flaky super part time, under the table, or some other just generally sketch job and possibly fucked up credit a sharehouse isn't always an easy option unless you have friends who are willing to let you move in and not hop on the lease, at which point the landlord could still kick you out or evict you if they wanted to depending on the laws/landlord tenant rules there.
If you're making a shitty amount of money getting paid daily or weekly, getting over that initial hump of living off takeout when you cant prepare food and trying to save up enough money to grab the next rung on the ladder is pretty fucking hard.
It's not like you're going to make a comparable sandwich with a bunch of vegetables and such as a $5 subway sandwich for much less anyways. Not all takeout is an abject ripoff, and you're not always "throwing your money away" buying it especially if you're living the sort of lifestyle that's been suggested here.
Living near a cheap cheap food place would make a big difference in one's kitchenless budget.
This is kinda the gist of my point as well. There was a vietnamese place near an old shithole share house i lived in. Everything on the menu was $1-4. The $3.75 i think option got you a HUGE styrofoam bento box full of food that was honestly good for two meals. the $2.50 sandwiches slayed and had tons of fresh vegetables. There were other options like this around, and that was in a fairly sketchy part of town. A lot of practice spaces are in pretty sketchy places, and food like this probably isn't awfully hard to come by there.
My kitchen was a perpetual wreck because of crappy roommates, mice, and an endless stream of breaking fridges. I ate nothing but random takeout or stuff that didn't need to be cooked(or at least not in more than a heat-water fashion) for basically a year. TONS of people kept trying to make the same point that's being made here, but i did the math and spending $10ish a day on takeout for two weeks was $140, you'd be eating a pretty boring repeating list of the same things for that same amount if you just went to $BIGBOXGROCERY and bought ingredients for things you could make without a kitchen.
We could saw hairs in half forever over this. I just wanted to make the point that take out isn't the devil or massive money drain some people make it out to be.
posted by emptythought at 7:31 PM on April 22, 2013
Only replying because i think this could possibly be helpful to defmute, but this just isn't always true. Especially on the second point.
To take advantage of this reduced cost, you also need a kitchen. And not just a kitchen, but utensils, pots, pans, dishes(or at least a bit of flatware to eat out of the pots and pans with). Similarly, basically nowhere around here can you be added to the lease to officially rent a room in a share house without going through the landlord anymore. Every place seems to have that "less than 7 days a month or notify the landlord" thing. You need to go through a credit check, generally provide pay stubs, and at some places even make a minimum amount of income.
If you have a flaky super part time, under the table, or some other just generally sketch job and possibly fucked up credit a sharehouse isn't always an easy option unless you have friends who are willing to let you move in and not hop on the lease, at which point the landlord could still kick you out or evict you if they wanted to depending on the laws/landlord tenant rules there.
If you're making a shitty amount of money getting paid daily or weekly, getting over that initial hump of living off takeout when you cant prepare food and trying to save up enough money to grab the next rung on the ladder is pretty fucking hard.
It's not like you're going to make a comparable sandwich with a bunch of vegetables and such as a $5 subway sandwich for much less anyways. Not all takeout is an abject ripoff, and you're not always "throwing your money away" buying it especially if you're living the sort of lifestyle that's been suggested here.
Living near a cheap cheap food place would make a big difference in one's kitchenless budget.
This is kinda the gist of my point as well. There was a vietnamese place near an old shithole share house i lived in. Everything on the menu was $1-4. The $3.75 i think option got you a HUGE styrofoam bento box full of food that was honestly good for two meals. the $2.50 sandwiches slayed and had tons of fresh vegetables. There were other options like this around, and that was in a fairly sketchy part of town. A lot of practice spaces are in pretty sketchy places, and food like this probably isn't awfully hard to come by there.
My kitchen was a perpetual wreck because of crappy roommates, mice, and an endless stream of breaking fridges. I ate nothing but random takeout or stuff that didn't need to be cooked(or at least not in more than a heat-water fashion) for basically a year. TONS of people kept trying to make the same point that's being made here, but i did the math and spending $10ish a day on takeout for two weeks was $140, you'd be eating a pretty boring repeating list of the same things for that same amount if you just went to $BIGBOXGROCERY and bought ingredients for things you could make without a kitchen.
We could saw hairs in half forever over this. I just wanted to make the point that take out isn't the devil or massive money drain some people make it out to be.
posted by emptythought at 7:31 PM on April 22, 2013
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posted by xtine at 4:02 PM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]