# Your first squat



## mkirby

There's probably another thread like this somewhere but I can't find it...

When did you stop living like a normal person? 

For me it was getting kicked out of the house and just kind of camping and couch surfing for a while until I got used to it. I've never had a big enough group to hold down a good house squat for any length of time, but some people I know have lived in places like that forever.

I'm just kind of curious about how everyone ended up squatting the planet instead of like...working at radioshack or whatever. We can't all have been troubled teenagers being booted or running away from home...but that's most of the kids I meet. What's your deal?


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## DFA

back when I was 15 and stuck in tracy, CA my two older friends had an abandoned shack in their backyard covered in graffiti and makeshift beds. 
I had some good times there.
That place housed most of tracy's troubled youth for a good 3 years.
A couple times I stayed there I would walk in and my homie miles would
be trying to liquefy house plants into some kind of mind-altering substance. haha.


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## Dandeforeshadow

My dad skipped out when I was tiny, and my mom was an ass so when I was eight I left home and ran across a couple punks who showed me to a sxe squat in Denver (they thought it was awesome that I was a kid with a nose piercing. I wonder why I got rid of that piercing. anyway?). It was pretty cool before it got torn down when I was 12. A lot of times you could go in there and be blasted out the door by the volume of the music they played, and it was always the good stuff not the shit kids listen to today (shut up I know I'm 20, but I refuse to admit I'm in the same generation as those who listen to Justin Timberlake XD.)


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## mkirby

Wow. Eight.


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## Dandeforeshadow

mkirby said:


> Wow. Eight.


Eh...well there's a very good reason I don't talk about my homelife from before I hit the streets and the few times I was caught by the cops and returned home. Plus eight isn't that young since technically humans period of infancy ends when they're five years old *sweatdrop*.


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## Dmac

i hear you Mkirby, nobody should listen to justin timberlake, less it is his whimpering while ya kick him! i was just over in council bluffs iowa, there is an old holiday inn there that is all boarded up, they put a fence around it, but i could see where holes have been made, man i want to get in there! and soon i will, or will be in jail, getting free meals!


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## Jeremy Germ

Ok so check this shit out. My first squat was this old abandoned house way out in the stix with this old hippie dude named Daniel. Well he had this crush on this chick but the chick really didn't like him in return. My lesbian friend, Jade started hanging out with her a lot (I think on a pure drug addict relationship) so Daniel started getting all "emo" and wanted to do himself in by swallowing an assload of pills. Well, at the time I was upstairs reading a book, next to the kerosene heater. He came up and started talking shit on how he was going to kill himself and shit and then we got a phone call on his cell phone from Jade. She told me to stop him from taking any pills. The minute she informs me of this he downs them all lol. SO I call 911 on his ass, (I didn't know what else to fucking do) and he got sent to the hospital. Well the next day, his brother comes by and kicks us out of the fucking house!!!! I was like, man I just saved your brother's life, I don't at least get a thank you or anything?" Just a "no" and "if you not out of here by this afternoon, the cops will be here"


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## moe

wow, that's nuts dude.


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## Mari3L

I left an unstable home environment when I was 18 and lived out of my car for six months. Things kicked off from there. It seemed that all of my life I had met really cool and down to earth people (all the way through school) but they always left my life rather quickly. We didn't fit in with the rest of the crowd. When I hit the road for the first time back when I was 18 living out of my car I started meeting these people again; literally and in spirit. This is what has kept me on the road and living freely for the past several years.


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## Ravie

i started squatting uhhh about 3 years ago. i didnt know what i was doing so i slept in an apartment building laundry room. i was barely 15. It sucked because i was realy sick with a blader infection and stomache flu. so i was freezing, pissing blood, had a fever, had no food, and woke up every hour to down a beer to keep warm. and i was sleeping on a tiny blanket i stole from some dudes camp walking down the road. middle of winter with a dog, a shitty "blanket" and concrete. hard times.


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## Turtles

I started squatttin over the summer. I basivly got bored with life. Im from mass and basicly you dont squat in mass. In Boston everything gets built up too fast and Worcester where im close to no ones ever squatted for more then a month. Its kind of the pits. So i took the China town bus to Philly and started lookin around. I've had a couple but they've always got busted. The best was when we found a bunch of appartments in a building that werent occupied and we moved in. It was cool we had a TV and heat. But the landlord wasnt happy to find 4 of us one day when she was showin it to someone who wanted to buy it. After a few days we went back and someone had kicked the door off the hindges so we managed to get some of our stuff back.


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## dirty_rotten_squatter

My first squatting experience kinda sucked because my girlfriend and I were kicked out of it because they didnt know us well enough and couldnt break security culture or some stupid shit like that. from what we heard, they were certain that we were iformants for the fbi fuckin lame, and then the guy that we were kickin it with broke their politically correctness by calling a girl a chick and she went all freak-o on our asses so we got booted, but the started another squat next door haha, got fucked up every night and invited a few train hopping cats to come bask in our palace of greatness and booze, haha.


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## MIND DETERGENT

in san francisco, in the lower haight nayborhood, at the old oak and fillmore squat way after it got boarded up over and over again me and 4 others stayed there for about 2 months before it got busted again. it was grimey and soo much fun the best 2 months of my life probly. every morning me and my friend el tofuo would wake up and smoke hella pot and just paint skulls and bart simpsons and demon pig girls on the walls. one big mural was a huge pile of skulls that said pile of dead trespassers undeneath it and above it a 30 foot long FORT DOOM. this kid dannyboy called the place fort brooklyn though. i had the best room in the place. it was at the very top floor in the very back room and the first 10 times i went in there i had no idea but there was a loft up in the ceiling and in the loft there was a little sliding window that looked out over downtown san francisco . in the morning times the fog would cover the tops of the buildings. seriously i had the funnest 2 months of my life there.

now ive had a couple other squats in chicago and other places since then but im always alone and its never as fun. but they are alot more chill and stable which is very good


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## Raging Bird

Kicked out of the house when I was 17 and lived in a car, surviving by tablepicking at restaurants and making my own Yogurt...

This would have been far more fun and less difficult were it not January at the time...


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## Dirty Rig

Kicked out of school. Started living in a car with my college roommate. Traveled the east coast in his car together. We split ways, I started hopping trains.


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## nothing_left_here

been squattin for about 6 or 7 monthes now, been to a few place and its pretty hard in upstate new york to find a good place. my parents kicked me out about a year ago and up until 6 or 7 months ago i was living on my aunts couch until she kicked me out too. so right now im basically on my own lookin for ppl to stay with till i get to california, but if u need a really awsome place to squat, go to ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA. its the best place ive ever been, i was at a squat there in an old grocery store until somebody bought it 3 months later and kicked me and a few others out, definently the best 3 months of my life tho


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## mkirby

I've been to that squat!!!


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## nivoldoog

It was a old, Bar called galaxy... Electro, drugs, cross gender, gay bar+ And thats before it closed... It got taken over by the youth, and for a couple months a squat party house. Till it got taken over by a "Buy me drinky" korean joint. At the time it was simply called OLD GALAXY..... Man... Hawaii is a dope place to bum


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## Mouse

I guess I never really stayed in one place long enough to say I legitly squated but I think the place I frequented most was an empty used-to-be frat house in RVA next to a 7-11. It was pretty clean and my friends and I got our own room staked out and this guy that was a cook for the VCU campus had the kick boxing room (had a punching/kick bag still hanging in the middle. I don't know if it's still around but that place was very handy when I was far too drunk to walk back to Carry st. from the James to crash at my friends houses. 

And there was a squat I stayed at in SF a lot near the greyhound stop downtown. we got the guest room (aka the nastiest room in the place) but it was better than sleeping outside int he bay fog all night.


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## Salem M.

Well I guess it started when I was 11 and my dad died from cancer. My mom always was at work so I found myself growing up alone in North Dakota where I went and broke into abandoned farm houses and barns to crash out while walking around the countryside. It got more complex in Humboldt I guess, a seven year time gap, I've squatted these abandoned train station ruins and this one news station on the main street, until the owners started coming back around.
Being homeless never helped me much from having a 'normal' life. So what the hells a person suppose to do, other than that, I just crashed around town wherever I could lay my head for more than two minutes.

Not very interesting at all.


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## drun_ken

hey arrow you talkin about clay 1 and clay 2? up the street from O.I.? 

the first squat i cracked and stayed in was back when i was 11-12 yrs old...i had put my foot thru our glass coffee table and instead of gettin beat down by daddy fer it i left....it was just an abaoned house in my neighborhood...i stayed there fer like three days before a kid around the corner told his cop father i was there...my favorite was the holocaust in athens GA.....


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## Rash L

I first left home at 16 because my boyfriend at the time had been kicked out of all his relative's houses and I was getting REALLY sick of watching my wonderful mother letting herself be walked all over and abused... so we left. We ended up going to a Krakus show in San Diego and sleeping in some bushes instead of going home. When my mom called in the morning my boy smashed my cellphone with his cane, yelling something about how it was my electronic leash and I didn't need that shit from a woman who didn't even have enough respect for herself to get out of a bad relationship.. and that's how it all started for me.

My first real squat was in Hollywood though, a couple months later -- before that it was all alleyways, rooftops, and bushes. My BF and I (the same one I originally left home with) had been staying with strangers and crackheads in their hotel rooms and sleeping in alleyways (we went into the TAV and promptly decided we weren't staying there with the junkies, ghosts, and rats the size of cats -- and THAT SMELL! so unique...); we decided to catch some food at The Way In drop-in shelter. They had hot water and we ended up making some pretty hallucinogenic tea that night and pretty much going out of our minds. Some older squatters who had come to pick up meals for their house saw us (and I guess talked to us for awhile -- I don't remember ANY details of that night though), and I guess they felt sorry for us. They took us back to the house near Melrose and Vine and we promptly fell asleep. When we woke up we had NO fucking clue where we were or how we had gotten there, and we could have really gotten fucked up that night if we would have run into bad people... I will never forget Angel's kindness and generosity, and I have tried to keep contact and remain friends with him throughout the years. The squat collectively decided we could stay there, since most of them were leaving for a festival in canada in a few weeks anyways... and it became the "Penis Squat" (don't ask). We stayed there all summer, it had a MOUNTAIN of beer cans that reached the ceiling, AC for about a month before it died, and one electrical socket that worked, with a 13" b&w TV we would watch The Simpsons on and one light. By the time the place got raided we had at least 13 heads sleeping there (RIP Shaggy), most in the living room . As we all lined up against the fence on Melrose Blvd at 9am in our underwear and weird hair, in handcuffs, Ethan Embry (Empire Records, Freaky Links, etc) recorded the whole thing on his lil camcorder and I spit at him while he laughed at the trespassing homeless kids who were being hauled off to jail. 

I wonder if he still has that footage?


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## drun_ken

Rash L said:


> My first real squat was in Hollywood though, a couple months later -- before that it was all alleyways, rooftops, and bushes. My BF and I (the same one I originally left home with) had been staying with strangers and crackheads in their hotel rooms and sleeping in alleyways (we went into the TAV and promptly decided we weren't staying there with the junkies, ghosts, and rats the size of cats -- and THAT SMELL! so unique...); we decided to catch some food at The Way In drop-in shelter. They had hot water and we ended up making some pretty hallucinogenic tea that night and pretty much going out of our minds. Some older squatters who had come to pick up meals for their house saw us (and I guess talked to us for awhile -- I don't remember ANY details of that night though), and I guess they felt sorry for us. They took us back to the house near Melrose and Vine and we promptly fell asleep. When we woke up we had NO fucking clue where we were or how we had gotten there, and we could have really gotten fucked up that night if we would have run into bad people... I will never forget Angel's kindness and generosity, and I have tried to keep contact and remain friends with him throughout the years. The squat collectively decided we could stay there, since most of them were leaving for a festival in canada in a few weeks anyways... and it became the "Penis Squat" (don't ask). We stayed there all summer, it had a MOUNTAIN of beer cans that reached the ceiling, AC for about a month before it died, and one electrical socket that worked, with a 13" b&w TV we would watch The Simpsons on and one light. By the time the place got raided we had at least 13 heads sleeping there (RIP Shaggy), most in the living room . As we all lined up against the fence on Melrose Blvd at 9am in our underwear and weird hair, in handcuffs, Ethan Embry (Empire Records, Freaky Links, etc) recorded the whole thing on his lil camcorder and I spit at him while he laughed at the trespassing homeless kids who were being hauled off to jail.
> 
> I wonder if he still has that footage?


i remember that....my dog was on the news as we sat there against that fence....wait you were fukin there....my ex wife was the only one not ta get picked up...that was her first squat...holy fukin shit....and dont tell me shaggy is dead...last i heard he and his shit head husban were still up in portland...were you stayin there when dallas came thru with phoenix?tell angel i said hey and shit if ya talk to him again...ican;t even remember who all was stayin there.....ahhh good fukin times....now ya gotta come get some booze yo....


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## Rash L

drun_ken said:


> i remember that....my dog was on the news as we sat there against that fence....wait you were fukin there....my ex wife was the only one not ta get picked up...that was her first squat...holy fukin shit....and dont tell me shaggy is dead...last i heard he and his shit head husban were still up in portland...were you stayin there when dallas came thru with phoenix?tell angel i said hey and shit if ya talk to him again...ican;t even remember who all was stayin there.....ahhh good fukin times....now ya gotta come get some booze yo....



wtf!? YOU WERE THERE!? in that duplex?

After the squat got shut down (just before the DNC) they leveled the place, last time I went back (4 years later) it was still an empty lot.

I was living in the room closest to the front door so we had no chance of escape while the rest of you fuckers ran through the shitty (literally) back "yard"... meaning that the lil mexican girl who got shoved the the backseat of the cop car with me and my boy (we were the 3 minors) gave me scabies.

Shaggy (who had AIDS).. as far as I know he ended up in a AIDS center in LA where they provided his food and shelter. They tested new drugs on him until he got too sick and either just died or OD'd on purpose(depending on the story you hear). He was a really good kid.

I really dont really remember who was all staying there either.. there were SO many kids coming in and out of that place, and most of us were doing dope... but I know China and Faust opened the place and then left for canada with stephanie (who introduced me to my first speedball), there was that Japanese punk kid who spoke no english, the mexican metal kid who spoke no english but had awesome music, Holly and her roaddog Juggs Galore, and the Mexican Johnny Bravo, corina... then Angel and his stupid "Pro skater" GF in one room... and me and Nick in the other. I remember some of the kids had a big black car that they arrived in...

heh, do you remember that game where we would all sit under the light bulb.. and there was that one plastic school chair and we would wait until whoever was sitting there to nod out and fall off so we could all laugh at them? Later talking to my mom she told me a similar game that her and her friends used to play when she was young... I thought that was funny.

I guess angel always had a crush on me, which is why he kept in contact, and when I got back to LA he let me sleep at this weigh station he was working at, night shifts. I kind of turned him down once because he's always been more like a big brother to me, and I havent really heard much from him since, although I hear he's settled and has a Distro somewhere around southern CA. He's probably STILL sending all his extra money to his mom. I miss that clown-haired mofo.

And yes, now I will definitely have to come see you. Damn it.


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## drun_ken

uh yeah...i when it got raided my pregnate dog got sent to the pound...shaggy my ex wife and i were travleing together back then....what time frame are you saying he died? he is one of my best friends and i don't want that to be true...but yeah he was staying in the front room with candace...i dont what our hung over asses were doing runnin the way we did thats why we got picked up...my ex wife ran the oppisit way and got away....shaggy used ta talk shit about seeing us on cops for that later....yeah the girls all got put in a cell and the guys got locked down to a bench while they wait fer the minors to be delt with....that would be you...then they took us back lead us in 1 by 1 ta get our gear and gave us a burrito on the way out the squat...we were bitching the entire time that we wre missing all the feedings....then we ran to the starvation army ta watch our selves on the news...shaggy my ex and i ended up stayin with eyeball fer a few months before heading back ta new orleanse....i traveled with shaggy for about 3 yrs me him my ex my dog and one of her pups that my ex kept.....hell i got him a job in portland working in the homeless youth continum....i love that boy...i hope your mistaken....first time i ever did dope was in the squat...drank and puke up some grape jucie....and that was the best grape juice i ever drank...even comin back up....


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## Feral

My first squat was a three story apartment building on Governor Nichols St. in New Orleans. It has since been torn down, and all that jazz, but was a hella cool squat. That place got raided too many times (too close to the other houses I think) but we almost always got away because we could hide in the walls of the building and make it to the outside alley that was filled with trash, this was if they didnt have the dogs with them. Anyways it was a nice place, and i miss it.


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## Winter

Feral....I used to squat there too! Wow...that was a long time ago lol. My story isn't that much different from anyone else's. Bad home life...ran away at 16...hooked up with some Rainbow kids who took me to NOLA...then befriended some punks who showed me the ropes. Been wandering off and on ever since then. Been thinkin about goin back to NOLA to see whats up there since Katrina. Evidently there are plenty of place to squat there now...


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## Mouse

oh, I forgot the "Why/when" part.... lol

I left home shortly after high school. durning high school I had been with a guy, my first love *gag* for almost 4 years. We were engaged and I was getting ready to head to Pitt for college and get alll that typical shit in motion. Then I found out he'd cheated on me, so it was obviously over. Well, you would think it was over. I moved on, didn't go to Pitt for college (only chose that place becuas HE wanted to live there so I decided to not go there when we broke up) and I met a new guy a few months later and moved to the outskirts of baltimore with him for a few months. During this time my ex kept harrasing me, sendign threatening emails to my new boyfriend, all that fun stuff. Eventually my and the baltimore guy parted ways and I moved back home. I got a job at McDonalds workign 50 hours a week and started to save some money. After a few months of that, and still being an emtional train wreck from all the drama and harrasment, and the fact that I've always HATED my tiny home town and had a crazy family, I decided I needed to find a new way to live. I wanted to go to Cali and do some sort of "starting over" deal, so I started trying to find ways to maek this happen. I drained my bank account and started driving.... made ti to cali 2 weeks later. I had no plan as to what to do and I really had no clue what I was doing, so I just winged it and hoped for the best. About a year later I ended up back in PA trying to find another escape, and I left again. came back, left again, came back, left again. now, after gaining the experience from my somewhat short stints at travel I finally have a hold on what I actually WANT to do so I'm back in the PA area again working towards that goal.


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## Komjaunimas

Well in Lithuania its impossible to squat due to the laws, but there were 3-4 squats that made concerts and etc... but they were closed down in the times when i began living "street life". So the first squat was an abandoned 2 story cottage almost outside of the city, it had electricity and running water, there were few guys living but mostly it was a drinking place in winter for punks, metalheads etc.. it lasted about half a year untill one 14yearold ran from home and somehow police tracked her down and found out our squat... we got evicted eventually. So we needed new drinking place, so me and 2 friends were walking in the old town of Vilnius (in those times 75% of old town was abandoned ) we climbed huge fence and proceeded to make our way to one of the abandoned buildings, in the second floor we foun 2 sofas a table and few stools, and some magazines with dates on them 10years ago, so we lived in there till winter because it got too cold, in spring we came back to check it out, re-wire the electricity grid etc, but the house was renovated... so now there are officialy no squats in the country..


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## Ahab

I'm just preparing for my next "Get away", I've ran away a couple of times now and I'm 15! One more year and I plan to get out of it legit . For now I just hang out at a crackhouse in walking distance of my trailer. It's pretty rad seeing as it's a friendly smoked up environment lol...


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## paddymelt

when i was two my parents threw me in the sewer to die but i was saved by a family of albino aligators who, along with the sewer rats and wild packs of dogs, raised me, taught me open my own squat anywhere, and showed me how to hop trains. I remember that ol white gator saying "Paddy, you can lead a crusty kid to water, but you can't make him stop stinking" ... I often sit up late at night and wonder what he meant by that...


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## BrittanyTheBananarchist

umm well for me i was staying in a town and i didnt have no couch to surf, so i knew of a house tht wasnt bein used pretty close by. um. i had to hop a really tall gate and also i wasnt able to stay in the house part but like it was a porch tht was all covered and shit. there was a bunch of oil barrels there and also u cant touch the windows AT ALL or the alarm would go off. so i slept on the inside porch thingy for a good few days. it was a good spot i think. but basically i just go into placs most ppl wouldnt, then again i dont bring a huge group with me so tht might be another factor. 
and for me its kinda just if i dont have a squat i sleep on trains. or wherevere . anyways i feel rude when i stay at houses and ppl get mad u stay there too long. i mean i dont have a story as to why i started doin it i kinda just did.


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## BigRockCandyMountain

Cant say I ever lived like a "normal" person. lol

I ran away from home a lot starting at 12 years old. I never knew my real father since he ran out before I was born. I only ever knew my stepfather who was always a huge dick to me because I wasnt his blood, he'd told me this many times to my face. The older I got the more of a dick he was to me and I was abused pretty heavily physically and at around 12 I couldnt take it anymore. One day, he decided to knock me around a bit and I snapped. Despite him being twice my size at the time, I threw him into the side of the garage and packed a bag of my stuff and left.Prior I mostly just avoided him by staying out all day and I hardly ever went to school. I'd setup temporary camps in an old riverbed off the beaten path. The river bed was made up of long huge flat slabs of stone which made it easy to stay on as it was quite level. Someone would have had to hike quite a ways down the river bed to find me and even then I had setup camp under an old train trestle and brush,small shrubs grew up from cracks and crevices in the stone on the side they'd have to approach from.

The river barely trickled along anymore and was more like a small creek then but it still had plenty of fish, crawfish, and turtles in it.Rabbits often ran down along the river as well. I used my outdoors skills to keep me decently fed and what I couldnt supply on my own I'd sneak in to the house to take when everyone was gone on an errand. Often this was just a day camp and after my stepdad would go to sleep I'd sneak back in, catch some sleep, get up before he did, and head back out. I'd bathe in the larger portions of the river mostly.

This time though, I wanted something more permanent. I didnt want to have to go back to the house. I ended up finding out that a local church owned a house across town in a fairly empty area and they only used it for some youth program a few weeks a year.They paid the utilities on it year round. I decided to check it out and it turned out they left the doors entirely unlocked. Not too uncommon in those parts at the time since crime was fairly low and the old timers hardly ever locked up anything because they didnt have to. Hell even after the area turned to hell, my grandparents never locked their doors or car til the day they died.

I walked in and checked the place out. It had full facilities, running water, shower, stove, a fridge but no furniture except for about a dozen bean bag chairs. The fridge was stocked with food as well as the cupboard and it was overall a nice place. I stayed there alone for a few months and hit up the soup kitchen during the day as well as food programs when I could manage as far as food went, I was afraid if they checked the place out they'd notice if I used too much stuff. I also kept my use of utilities to a minimum to avoid running a much larger bill and being found there that way.

During the day Id stay away and tried to leave it the way I found it as much as I could and at night Id go and sleep in there.Of course if weather was bad Id just stay in. It was pretty cozy. After a few months I headed back home hoping things would be different, they promised it would be. Of course it wasnt, I ended up spending a lot of time running away and heading back and each time I went further before I went back.Eventually I just started traveling and kept on going and never looked back.


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## Kalalau

in an old mining shaft above county market in Breckenridge CO. I just turned 16 and the house burned down.. I stayed up there for a few days before a friend of mine invited me into his house... next squat I was 21 in Hawaii.. and been on the move since.


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## creativitysucks

I disagree - while you most certainly ought to be kicking him, there's no reason to listen to him while you do so. Just hum yourself a tune!


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## creativitysucks

I spent a lot of time in tents and tarp structures until I learned how to make myself a crude cabin out of pallet wood. It worked well enough for a season. Once I started travelling I just paid close attention to houses as I walk by them. There are some tell-tale signs of a good potential squat - graffiti on the walls, trash in the yard, overgrown grass, etc.. The first abandoned house I stayed at was with a group of train kids in Atlanta, nine deep in a two bedroom house. Apart from the kindly crackheads and abundant body lice, we had a great time. I stayed there for about two weeks the hopped out to Gainesville - there I found a four apartment building, only one of which was being squatted and another in disrepair, the other two were in great condition.


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