You are right, it is all relative. I left a midwest-state-that-I-will-not-name because of pretty deeply rooted attitude of prejudice. I am not a minority, and it was not against me. I quit a job because the sales staff would not help a minority customer, and the office manager laughed when I told him. It was the final straw in a long list of incidents, all leading up to that one. There were many wonderful things about living there, but ultimately I decided that was not an environment I wanted to raise children in. I want to add that this was the '90s. I almost hate to bring this up, because I believe in not painting with a broad brush, so to speak. But I encountered enough of it in both the workplace and my neighborhood to make the decision that this was not the place for me at that time.

Worst place was Truro Nova Scotia, as a child. I loved our quirky old house but the children were horrible bullies to me and also violently racist (literally - I saw a first nations kid tossed in a garbage can).

Sketchiest living situation was a charming one bedroom apartment on the worst corner in my city (not that bad really). Next door was a boarding house being squatted by junkies. The day I moved in they were having a heroin picnic in the “yard” and we decided it would be best if one of us always stayed with the I-haul. They eventually burned the place down (I woke up to flashing lights wondering who was having a campfire). The boarded up houses across the street were constantly being stripped. my tough neighbour was a neighbourhood doyenne and she kept an eye on me, even to the extent of inquiring about my gentleman callers. I think she kept me out of trouble. Loved the apartment!

the funniest house I lived in as a child was in my mom’s home village. Right on the railroad crossing with train horns blaring all night. The house was so uneven that if you set a ball down in the kitchen it would roll out the front door. The basement flooded feet in any kind of rain but the well also constantly ran dry. I distinctly remember my dad fishing a snake out of that well.

I haven’t lived in a place I would call bad. I had a couple of early apartments that were just ok, not the greatest, and from what I understand the first one is now a drug infested rathole, if it’s still there. My roommate and I didn’t even live there very long, as it was too far from work for both of us. I can’t recall why we moved there to begin with except it was cheap.

It was not fondly nicknamed The cockroach house. We moved in and all was good for the first three months. And then suddenly they showed up! We moved out and got rid of all of our furniture and washed and scrubbed and cleaned absolutely everything we had. We did not want to infest anywhere else! I never even knew that cockroaches could be as bad as they were at that house.

Apparently several months before we moved in a drug-ridden group who had lived downstairs and left food everywhere had attracted the cockroaches. They were evicted: things were cleaned up. Ha not even! I guess the cockroaches were just hanging around waiting to see if they could find our food. My daughter had nightmares. So did I. The owners tore the house down.

Interesting question and fascinating answers! I've lived all over the country and many places abroad, and my worst place has nothing to do with the physical conditions of the place, but rather my circumstances while there. My worst was my first apartment with my husband. I knew it wasn't right (the apartment and the husband). It was a very sad place for me. And it smelled like cat pee (which, yes, is a physical condition). And we could hear the neighbors next door knocking boots every night. And I was really lonely and lost. Yep--that was the worst place I've ever lived.

My best place, on the other hand, was my first apartment I had on my own. It was in a questionable neighborhood, such that the landlord was thrilled that I was there to "stabilize" the tenants. Oh, and the crime? He advised me to just carry a $10 bill in my pocket to toss to anyone who harassed me outside the apartment complex so that I could then run and get away. But I loved it there. That apartment was wonderful.

My worst place was in College Park, Maryland -- an old apartment infested with cockroaches. I didn't care for the area, either -- it was too built up, perpetually busy roads, way too crowded with people, buildings, cars, noise. No 'charm' or walk-ability to offset the bad points of city life. My time there was temporary, so it all could have been worse.

A Victorian row house in Sheffield, England. It had no indoor toilet, but an outhouse in a row of outhouses in a shared backyard. No light, no heating, cold, miserable climate. One small gas heater in the living room, unheated second floor (bedrooms).

ETA: Rent was $25 per week.

With my grandparents in their 4-room house with a wood stove in the living room and a coal stove in the kitchen. The only running water was a hand pump in the kitchen (cold water of course) and we peed in a bucket we kept under one of the beds in our bedroom. My parents, my brothers, sister and me all slept in that bedroom - 8 total. Frost was thick on the windows and I remember lying in bed with my siblings and studying the water stain on the ceiling that looked like Central America.

My dad had lost his job and couldn't find another. We were homeless so we moved in with the grandparents and stayed through the winter. We did this twice, when I was about 8 and again when I was 15. The second time, I thought I would die if I went another week without a real bath!

Worst apartment was in 1969 in the Haight Ashbury only because of the cockroaches. But every thing else about the place was wonderful.

I grew up in a tedious little factory town in Wisconsin, known for, among other things, its high rate of alcoholism. I moved away when I hit 18 (as did all of my friends and family.) Years later, while visiting with friends who were from other places nearby, I mentioned how much I hated my hometown. They told me that it wasn't just me, that nobody liked the place.

This was the worst place I lived. Our kitchen was the room on the second floor with the air conditioner. The rest of the apartment was the entire third floor. The heater was part of the oven and the upstairs was heated by heat rising through a hole In the ceiling. It was freezing in the winter and stinking hot in summer. This is in Hartford, CT. We entered through that side door and went up a flight of stairs to the door to the apartment. Funny thing is when I took a google maps tour, the rest of the street is much improved since the ‘60s when I lived there.

I've never lived in truly awful or dangerous towns or cities, so I'm going with a particular house: the half-of-a-house I rented my first two years of law school. Ca. 1910, zero insulation, plank floors you could see light through from the right angle. There was a window unit air conditioner (noisy and awful, yet necessary in Tuscaloosa, Alabama) and gas space heaters in shallow corner fireplaces that I'm pretty sure were original to the house. The house didn't have a bathroom originally, so the bath was in a lean-to addition on the back of the house and had a tiny space heater of its own. It got SO COLD in that joint that my shampoo would crystallize. I had a butter knife by the tub and I used it to scoop out shampoo like it was paste, then I would warm it up in my hands. But, it was $160 a month.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2031838,-87.5599885,3a,75y,180.09h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sqpr2V8EngCSyI12b8h8lew!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

I am so sheltered, and also not filled with wanderlust (regarding moving...I’ll travel anywhere but I love feeling “planted.”) I moved from my parent’s home (typical nice home in a typical nice suburb of a nice Southern city) to my college dorm at UGA. I did decide late to attend UGA...so I got in the nastiest dorm...an un-air conditioned, coed, high-rise complete with gross yellow cinderblock walls and a quite um, sexually promiscuous pot-luck roommate, lol. (Not judging, but it definitely made it hard to sleep & study in the room at times. ;)) Fortunately, I had joined a sorority so moved into the sorority house after initiation.

After college, I just lived back home for a bit to do graduate school & plan my wedding. Dh and I have lived in three places, all in or near this same city. I’ve loved all three. What can I say...I’m incredibly boring and rooted, lol! :)

I've never lived in a bad place, though I haven't moved much. In fact now I'm living next door to the house I grew up in...

Bergen county New Jersey. Way too crowded with a lot of rude people. Thankfully I traveled quite a bit for work while I lived there. I did enjoy other parts of NJ and the northeast in general when I got out of the city on the weekends.

Southeastern KY

Arlington, VA....not sure the place was bad...just the times, I guess. Beautiful

area...but not many fond memories.

Downtown in a big city in Europe where it rains a lot. Shared an apartment in a gorgeous old building with 15 feet high ceilings, but it was surrounded by four six-lane busy roads and the subway underneath, single pane windows. Never a quiet moment.The good news was that within the apartment, you couldn't hear noise from one room to the next because the walls were thick and the doors closed tight --- unlike my current house.

Apart from the noise, I loved living in a big city and really, really would love to move again to a place where everything is accessible on foot.

Great topic and responses

I thought..probably our first rental in Israel. Not itself per se (yes of course there were roaches, but many places had roaches-I'm very afraid of roaches btw, no resilience built during all these years..and airport was kinda close so hard to sleep through the night until you finally get used to the planes going through the sound barrier), but because of the neighbors.

Their apartment, among several others, was on the same floor, and right across ours. And the father, he was using heroine I think, and we were told as much..he looked the part, and had always his friends coming and going, ..and the family had a bunch of kids, I remember the oldest girl the best, well she was little next to me, she was probably 8 or 10, while I was 18, but she knew Hebrew much better obviously)) Maybe she knew life better too.

Anyway, these kids, they really either didn't want to play in their apartment , or were told to be there as little as possible, so when they got tired of the yard, and streets, or it was too cold, or rainy, or extremely hot, they'd play right there between their apartment and ours, and I'd feel so bad for them , and helpless, and so..redundand, like I'm bothering them just to get to my own door. They'd spend there hours, playing,on the floor, and many times when I went in or out they had to move a little bit, and they'd look at me strangely, like I'm a roach, and it sure felt like it-like I'm invading their space. Their rightful space to be somewhere safe-on the cold tiled floor between two apartments on the outskirts of the city.

For me, the worst place I’ve ever lived was more geographical than a specific house. I lived in Windemere, Florida for three years. I really disliked living there. It was a new home in a gated community and on the surface, quite pretty. But there was zero sense of community, and what seemed like flashy shows of wealth. I grew up in New England in neighborhoods buzzing with kid activity, open door policies and old homes. Everyone kept saying, give it two years, But after three years, I had had enough. Fortunately, my ex husband was less than thrilled with the expenses of private school and we moved to upstate New York.

A year ago, sold the house we lived in, before buying another one. We rented a loft apartment above an electrical shop, from a friend, Steve. The shop is across the street from DH's shop. We quickly purchased a SS frig, upgraded a few things in the bathroom. It was GREAT! Until the guys in the shop next door took their street rods out at night, squealing tires. Doing doughnuts in the street. Running over people's pets(a dog & cat died), who let them out at night. We laid awake at night waiting for the noise to stop. We were there two weeks, before making an offer on a house, we ordinarily would NOT have purchased....just to get out of this apartment.

Street racing is illegal. We could have turned the guys in, but Steve owned the building they rented. We didn't want HIM to lose his renters. He'd already lost his insurance coverage when the insurance company found out who rented the building. We also knew the owner of the cat they ran over. He was very angry...but also did not turn them in. Said he was a reckless teenager and they deserved a chance.

We rented a house in a sketchy neighborhood in a small Arizona town for a few months, pending military quarter availability. We had huge brown roaches, huge black roaches, mice, ants, and no air conditioning. We were able to remove the mice by live-trapping and relocating them to an adjacent wild area, but the roaches and ants were there to stay.

Just before military housing finally became available we were out of town for a week and returned very late at night and went straight to bed. I woke up around 3 a.m. and saw someone standing over the bed and looking at us and then walking out of the bedroom.

I woke up husband who thought I'd had a bad dream, but turned on the light and as soon as he did, we heard footsteps running through the house and the door slammed. We called the police and someone had definitely broken in, they probably thought the house was still empty and were surprised that we were home when they attempted to search the bedroom. Very scary, we were lucky they didn't harm us and ever since we always close and lock our bedroom door at night.

Needles, CA. They named it right because there were needles everywhere from the drug users and homeless that slept in the bushes in the parks. The hot part of the season it reached 115 and in the cooler season there seemed to be a sandstorm every other day - walking around with a face full of gritty sand - lovely. Theres a reason its called the armpit of California.

I've been through Needles and I agree with you. But California is a very large state and there are dozens of armpits. As just one example, there's a string of too many armpits to count that runs through the Central Valley for three or four hundred miles. A huge and important area for agriculture and the state capitol but not anywhere you'd want to live.

After graduating college I had a period where I was interviewing and not having much luck. I was only finding two types of companies: Places I didn't want to work and places that didn't want to hire me. I had decided to go back for grad school, had applied and had been accepted, and had sublet a room for the summer in the house where my brother and several of his friends lived. When summer ended I was going to move to an apartment with a friend of a friend who was coming to the area for a year long class somehow associated with his Air Force job.

The other housemates where I was subletting returned to resume classes for the fall so I had to vacate that room, but because of reasons, the Air Force guy was delayed in coming to town and I didn't have enough reserves to get a place on my own, even for a little while. My brother and his housemates suggested since is was only supposed to be a week or so, I could move my bed and small amount of stuff to the basement -- the damp, dark, dirty, dusty, scary, unfinished basement.

I started by sweeping, first the ceiling rafters which were festooned with sooty black cobwebs, then the walls which was rough laid stone parged with a layer of loose crumbly mortar, then the dank, bare concrete floor. There was so much dust and dirt and crumbled mortar and gravel and rock bits and unidentifiable debris that after bagging it I decided I had to weigh it and it was over 40 lbs of swept up material.

I then put down a rug, moved in my ancient twin bed, and hung blankets to partition off the far corner of the basement, since the house's laundry facilities were at the other end. I ran an extension cord/power strip to the only outlet and had a borrowed floor lamp and a clock radio and a heavy metal bedside table, and little else. But at least it was only going to be a week.

However the start date of the Air Force guy's class was delayed another week, and another, and another, while I was living like a veritable troll in a awful cave-like environment. I suspect it wouldn't have taken too much longer before I'd have started mumbling to myself "my precious, my precioussss"

We had to rent a furnished house while in between houses in 2009. It was short notice and had to be in our school district. We were lucky to find anything. The house we rented was in a swampy area of town. It was dark and damp. The laundry room had at least 15 garbage bags full of damp bedding and clothing. My daughter(14 at the time) started to get itchy eyes. We tried to spend as little time there as possible. Luckily, it was only for 2 months. Awful place.

Lars, thank you so much for staring this thread. It prompted me to continue my little walk down Memory Lane, and I'm now writing down and expanding on the various random things I recall from my time in the Philippines. I'm not doing it for anyone or for any other reason than for the sheer enjoyment of putting what I recall into words. It feels like a good thing to do.

This is such a fun thread to read through! The worst place I lived was my first apartment in Deerfield Beach, Florida. It was actually a very nice apartment complex and mine was on the top (third) floor, but after spending my life in Michigan, South Florida took some getting used to! I had never even seen a cockroach before moving there and soon discovered that we had Palmetto Bugs, which are basically BIG flying cockroaches! Turning on the kitchen light in the middle of the night was a real eye-opener! I quickly found that bug spray didn't work on these guys . . . but good old AquaNet hairspray slowed them down enough for me to kill them by whacking them with the can. Sometimes they would be so thick flying around the lights in our parking lot and on the ground that it looked like something from an Alfred Hitchcock movie! And then I discovered "Housekeepers"! Not the wonderful people who clean your home, but the giant spiders people actually buy and leave in their condos, etc., while they're at their Summer homes Up North. They keep the Palmetto Bugs and such in check while they're gone. Seriously! I can't recall where those spiders went to once their "owners" were back, but one morning before heading to work, I climbed into my shower and there was a Housekeeper in my shower with me! It actually raised up pawing the air between us with it's front legs! I have no idea how it got into my apartment, but I was late for work that day, as I had to knock on neighbors' doors until I found a guy still home to come kill it for me. I'm generally not afraid of spiders but that one was huge and aggressive! Oh yes, and those tiny tiny ants! I had to keep my salt and pepper, my cereals, my bread, actually just about everything in my refrigerator to keep those ants out of them! One morning I plugged in my iron to iron my uniform for work and all of the sudden the iron started smoking, crackling and smelled very bad. As I picked it up and shook it, many tiny fried ants fell out of it. Ugh! I ended up loving my singles life down in Florida, but it did take a while for me to get used to the "wildlife" down there! All I can say is thank goodness that I was raised as a tomboy, as my sisters would have had total meltdowns there!.

I've been lucky, I've never lived anywhere THAT bad. Hubby and I did live in an old mobile home for a few years, but it wasn't horrible. Drafty and cold in the Winter, hot in the Summer, but it was ok. It was cheap, and allowed us to save up some money. We also lived in this one apartment where the landlord was an old busy body. Now THAT was annoying! Lol.

When my sister lived in southern Louisiana, she had palmetto bugs that sounded like mice when they would scurry around at night.

Yikes....I guess my "most hated" wasn't too bad after all. Thanks for the posts.

Sushipup, I lived on Ashbury in the Haight as well. It was in the early 80's. We had the first floor apartment which was pretty neat. However, it was right above where they kept the garbage cans under the house and so we had many, many roaches to where they would drop on you from the ceiling when you were trying to sleep. I hated that place so much.

The other bad place was in Bernal Heights. The place itself, a top floor of a house, wasn't bad but I had to do my laundry at an awful laundromat on Mission Street. It was a scary place in a rough neighborhood.

This is the best post in a long time. Thanks Lars!

This area is the worst place I've ever lived. I had never lived this far north before (NE OHIO). It is way too cold for any human life to exist here! UGH! All I can say is thank goodness for heaters!

The worst place I lives was a temporary apartment when I first moved to Albuquerque. It was an old building and kind of charming. There was a great courtyard with grape vines. It was also close to a lot of bars. Bars that the woman in the next apartment frequented until closing time, when she came home drunk and sang along with Billy Joel songs at the top of her voice. She would also sometimes blast music so loudly that it would rattle the dishes in my cabinets.

Anyway, I discovered that the utility room, which I had access to, had the breaker box for the whole building. Once I figured out which one controlled her stereo, when it got too loud I would just flip that breaker for the night. She finally asked the upstairs neighbor if playing music too loud would overheat her stereo (they knew the whole story and were also bothered by the noise). They told her it would and if she did it too much it would probably eventually catch on fire. :) The game was fun while it lasted and I moved not long after that, to a blissfully quiet house.

WOW being an Army brat, then the wife of a soldier, I have lived all over the US and abroad.

Worst place in the US was Ft. Chaffee Arkansas. I cried when I got there! Was awful.

Europe was an experience everytime I moved back there. I found France, Italy and Spain to stink something awful. The bigger the city/town the worse it was. And the water quality was well below our standards. I loved the sites, the arts, the history, and the people (except France, they are mean and rude). I found Germany to be the cleanest and the most friendly. Although I didn't find it as interesting.

I studied abroad in Chile during undergrad. My assigned housing was an old house downtown. At that time downtown Santiago was not the safest. I arrived during the winter and the house had no heat. My bedroom was literally outside as was the shower. I could see my breath in my bedroom and taking a shower in 30 degrees was painful. I was given a hot water bottle to stay warm in my bed. I also was the only girl. There were five other Chilean students who were all guys. I can not even begin to mention the food. It was inedible. I got out of there as soon as I could find another home to move to.

I also worked abroad after undergrad in London with a friend. The cost of renting was outrageous. My friend and I lived in a tiny room in a large home in a sketchy neighborhood. There was no heat in the house and other than putting pounds into a meter to keep the electricity and heat on in our closet sized room.... the rest of the house measured 35 degrees. It was incredibly difficult to say the least. We moved once we were able to find another place. So, I guess the two worst places were terrible given they did not have heat and I was always freezing.

Let's see. I grew up in a split-level (excuse me, mid-century modern) that was perfectly nice in every way if you like bland suburban suburbia. Everyone was on 1/2 acre, our lot was on the corner and we had 3/4 of an acre (woo!). My first apartment, in Phila., was a fabulous luxurious old building with such charm albeit in a meh part of town. It had a circa 1920 indoor swimming pool with fabulous tile and a wooden retractable roof! I had a french door to a limestone juliette balcony from my bedroom, and a my own bath with 6 showerheads. Best of all, i was rooming with my BFF since 7th grade. Then I got my own tiny charming studio in an historic townhouse in Phila.; 5 blocks to work (or from work if i needed to nap at lunch to get rid of a hangover). From there i changed jobs and moved to NYC, living at first in a charming tho fairly ordinary garden apt in NJ till i moved into a modern place in NYC on the E river w my BF. When we broke up I got a gorgeous UES side apartment with a sweeping courtyard entrance and dramatic marble lobby. It was on the 32nd floor and had the most wonderful views; i could see three bridges intertwined in the distance. Then I met DH and we bought our first house, a 3story brick georgian colonial in a leafy suburb. About 10 years later I semi-retired and we moved to our rambling country house with our pond.

It occurs to me that reads rather like a housing resume.

Anyway, about the only bad housing experience I can lay any claim to was an apt. my DH had briefly. It was in a chopped old house that literally leaned. Every inch had "indoor-outdoor" carpet that by the time he got there was unfit for both. His apartment was on the second floor. To make a "kitchen", they closed off part of the second floor hallway with a door. The stove was placed in front of this door (!?). It had an old clawfoot tub in the bathroom, that I scrubbed each time before using, but still seemed dirty. The ceilings were low and the floors were funhouse worthy. It was either 90 degrees in there or ice-skating weather, no inbetween. We have driven by it in recent years and it looks the same!

ATK, how fun (perhaps apart from housing) to have lived and studied abroad so much.

I already responded here but some of these posts made me remember my freshman year at college when I and three other girls were housed in the tower of an 1850 stone building where the winter temps were literally in the 30's. One of my aunts went to this college back in the day when raccoon coats were the rage and she gave me hers which I piled on top of me every night. When I see the luxurious accommodations my grandkids have at college, I'm jealous.

I guess I've been lucky as I've never lived anywhere truly dreadful. The first place I remember was an apartment in Kansas City. It was small - 2 BRs/1 bath and on the 2nd floor in a 4-plex. But it was part of a huge brand new complex built right after the way, and it was filled with tons of families with young children. There was lots and lots of open space and a wonderful slope behind our building that was made for sledding or just rolling down a hill. There was a playground at the bottom of the hill. There were so many children, the local school district opened a Kindergarten in the basement of one building! I have very fond memories of that apartment but I'm sure my parents were very anxious to move to a house.

When my first husband and I moved to Washington DC where he was stationed in the Army in 1966, we lived for 2 weeks in a short-term furnished rental apartment in Virginia. It was early Sept and hot and there was no AC. The kitchen was dirty and the stove and refrigerator were tiny. I hated even sleeping in that bed! I'm sure it wasn't really that bad, but I was not quite 23 and had come to marriage from my parents lovely house, so I was spoiled. One thing I was sure of was that the apartment we rented would have a nice CLEAN kitchen and have AC! I got my desire!

When my 2nd husband an I moved to LA, we were allowed to live in a small faculty house on the grounds of the school where he was teaching. It was infested with fleas! Had to have it bombed and have our own cats and dogs de-flead as well! It was a very charming little house but very small with two large children who were 9 and 11. The children shared a room and a bath. The problem was that the LR was also the "hallway" between all the rooms, and the area where we put up a small breakfast table, was a ways from the kitchen and quite small. We were very ready to move into a rented house after 4 months there!

Here's a photo of where I lived on Valencia Street, 1974:

The first place I lived in San Francisco was a residence hotel in North Beach above Moonie's Irish Pub at 1353 Grant Ave, and I only stayed there two weeks, as it was very loud. The pub had live music every night, and the week-night bands were not so good, and on the week-ends I went out, which was when the good bands played there. Besides the noise at night, I did not like having to go through Chinatown on the 30 Stockton bus to get anywhere. Walking down Grant Ave to Market St wasn't any better, as the sidewalks were narrow and crowded. I was only 22 at the time, and so it was a bit easier for me to handle.

I have lived a lot of places-as a military kid we moved-every place had its ups and down sides but the place I was happiest to leave was a very small trailer that I rented for the summer in Tazwell Tenn. I needed some place furnished and that would let me have my cat. Very clean. No bugs. reasonable kitchen/LR. It was right up against a fence next to a pasture full of cows and right in the middle within a couple of feet of the little back door(safety exit) was a power pole. There was a light on the pole which attracted the cows at night. I have spent plenty of time on farms but never knew cows made so much noise ripping off grass and eating it. I hung a really nice white Russian Cossack style shirt to dry on the fence and a young steer tried to eat it. It didn't survive the attempt-the shirt that is. Still these things happen. Now the area has fabulous thunderstorms in the summer. Actually the worst most violent storms of any place I have ever lived and that is saying something because it includes the place where my house was struck by lightening and burned down. Apparently the power pole had a Lightening rod on it as it was repeatedly hit during every storm we had. It would make your hair stand on end. I would sit on the sofa with my feet up holding my cat pretending we would not fry if the trailer was hit because the sofa had wooden feet. The land lady tried to keep my cleaning deposit when I left though the place was spotless and it was having been frightened out of my wits all summer that made me fight for my money-which she did cough up.

I've only ever lived in 2 cities and one town and there are good and bad about all three. But as for homes: the worst place was here in Calgary. We rented a duplex about a 10 minute drive from where I live now. The area was okay. Behind the house was a back alley and behind that a busy railroad track that we got used to fairly quick. Behind that the main route out of the city to the east. Or into the city from the east. :) Across the highway was a drive in theater. The kids would lay on the top bunk and watch movies on one of the four screens that faced our home. They couldn't hear a thing, but imagined the words. It was a block from the school and I could watch as my oldest walked to school by himself. We had wonderful neighbours with kids my kids ages. It was great to have those close friends as we all had so much in common.

But the house itself was a disaster. The roof was in dire need of repair. I called the landlord often to tell him about the leaks. He had his insurance check it out and he collected the money to repair it, but he never had it repaired. His wife insisted it was done. I said, "I'm a stay at home mom of 3 kids. It's a tar and gravel roof. I would know if someone was on the roof fixing it as I never leave the house". In the meantime, we had to disconnect the ceiling light in the boys room as the water leaked through the light on to the floor, where we had a bucket to catch the water when the snow melted or when it rained. It was a fire hazard. My front large burner would collapse with heavy weight so I couldn't use it. The fridge leaked all over the floor so I had towels lay on floor beside it to catch the water. The floor in the bathroom was rotting away and I could see into the basement. The foundation was cracked and when it rained, I would have puddles of water on the floor in the basement. I had video and photos to show them, but nothing was ever done. The area flooded really bad. Because we had an under the living room garage, the basement filled with 4 feet of water which put the hot water heater and furnace under water too. They never sent anyone in to clean the furnace or repair the hot water tank.

I didn't give notice when we moved. Instead I left them with a copy of the video tape I made of all the damage and a letter explaining why we moved. And all the garbage we didn't want to keep. I told them to sue us. We could prove what terrible landlords they were.

We never heard from them again.

Following

I'm with Lily--country living was the worst for me. I hated the isolation. I'm a city girl. I get why others like it--the privacy--the quiet--pretty settings--just not for me. As far as physical structures--I once rented a house in the city where you couldn't run any water and flush toilet at same time and the heat didn't work great--we were always on the landlord and he was not responsive.

I once lived in two rooms in an old house with an ex in Sheffield, England. There was one small gas heater in the living room, no heat in the bedroom. There was one bathroom that we shared with the family downstairs and their brother in the attic. One day I found a note in the bathroom: One bath per person per week.

This was a different worst place than the place I mentioned upthread.

DH was in training on Wall Street, and we needed a little apartment for 3 months or so. Ended up in New Jersey in a little one bedroom that was in a bad neighborhood. We came home one day to discover every apartment in the building had been robbed.

I’ve lived in 15 homes in Washington, DC and 7 states. I will name the Midwest city where I “found the people to be horribly narrow minded and the whole area a racist hot bed under the guise of middle and upperclass pretensions”: Cedar Rapids, IA. I had a beautiful post modern house on a treed acreage with wonderful woodland gardens so my personal living conditions were not the problem. I made it through 8 years there with as much time as possible spent away on business travel. I never returned after moving back East.

My car.