I dislike being homeless, even if I have a place to sleep.
Three times in my life I have been homeless, once for three or four weeks, and I’ve vowed not to let it happen ever again.
Mind, you, I did that the first two times, too.
September 2000 - Educational Squalor
The first was my second year at university. I wasn’t planning on doing my second year at university, really. I was planning on finding a better university somewhere where they didn’t start the course by teaching me (doing compski) what a mouse was and not to hold it up against the screen. I’d decided to ditch it, find somewhere new, do something else.
I didn’t tell the university, so I could retain my place on year two as a last ditch emergency your-parachute-has-failed backup measure. So, in the last fortnight before university, I went looking for a flat.
My ex-roommates had been looking for a house, and had I joined them in that (instead of saying “Ah no, I won’t be here next year” we’d have had a nice house (Because the house they found was nice) and it would have been nice, and social, and more like the first year).
Instead of the grotty hell hole I ended up paying too much for.
I arrived in Sunderland on Thursday 21st September 2000 with nothing but a large rucksack of clothes, and my landlord declared that he couldn’t let me move in until the cheque cleared, which I’d been assured wouldn’t be a problem. My ex-flatmates had a sofa, which they offered, and I lived on that for two weeks, until on Wednesday 4th October 2000 when I moved into my new flat.
2001 I moved back to Paddock Wood
2002 I moved into Cambridge
March 2003 - Reading Lessons
At the end of March 2003 we moved out of Cambridge. Saturday 10th May 2003 we moved into Catrion Towers, Reading. That’s a month and a half sleeping on sofas with my life’s possessions scattered across the country. I have just - almost two years later - found the box into which my hat went. Why?
We couldn’t really find anywhere. Or decide, really, where we wanted to be, and then we moved out - and of course the new house wouldn’t take long… - and it took a month and a half to get the paperwork complete, not helped by the fact that much of the documentation was in storage because I didn’t have a house. I though that was bad, but it turns out that the house in Reading was going to get worse.
February 2004
Bah, click the link. From 9th November 2003 to 31st January 2004, LC was living somewhere else and working in Letchworth while I was hating Reading. From 1st February 2004 to 6th March 2004 I was living with my parents while - once again - the paperwork resolved. Click the link to read the whole story, including the bit where the house was taken off the market three days before we were due to move into it, which would have caused no homelessness whatsoever.
2005
Possible move. Again. One year, I’d like to not move. Please? I mean, I know I hate the commute to Bedford, but it’s better than not having a place to call my own. Really.
I realise I’ve had it easy in a lot of ways, I’ve never had to sleep on the streets (Well, except that once) but though disorganisation and bad luck I’m reasonably sure I’ve had my allotment of this “No home” thing. I never intend to have to update this article.