describe your first apartment on your own. Daughter and her best friend got an apartment

[greenbriar]

it is dinky but they are happy

[Iggo]

1. Poor babies.

Their friendship is about to be tested like never before...lol.

[flvegan]

2. I was 17 and couldn't get anything done in my college dorm.

2 br/1 bath, around 1,000 square feet. Second floor, but that was the top floor for that complex. Tiny porch off the back, smaller porch off the front. Used the second bedroom as an office. Rented all the furniture (since I knew it would all likely be trashed). At least during the week, I'd have a bunch of friends over to study, write papers, etc. I was one of the only folks at the time that had a computer/word processing software, and it was quiet when we wanted it to be. I was a total asshole neighbor and had loud people over all the time on the weekends, though. Totally inconsiderate, and I hate what I put the folks directly below me through. I was making good money at the time, so to get them to rent to me (at 17, you can't really enter a contract for that) I paid the full year's lease up front, so there wasn't much they could do to me.

Lots of good times there. Wouldn't trade them for the world.

[Brickbat]

3. I lived on my own and loved it. Most people should, at some time in their lives, I think.

It was a one-bedroom apt. in a nice old brick building in Minneapolis. Wood floors. Across the street from a laundromat, small grocery store, bookstore and music store. The building was mostly quiet students (they smoked a lot of pot); I had graduated the year before and was working.

I loved living alone and doing whatever I wanted. I had plenty of friends in town so I was never lonely. I couldn't imagine having to clear it with someone if I wanted to have someone over or, ahem, spend the night.

[begin_within]

5. I just realized I have never lived alone.

There were a few times, in college and right after, when I wished I was alone because my roommates bothered me, but I've never actually lived alone and I always thought it would be too lonely unless I had a pet and even then a little too quiet. I've almost always had at least one cat though.

[Brickbat]

27. When I was young, I remember my mom telling me I should live alone at least once in my life.

She never had. I liked it a lot. I'm an introverted person and I like my space. I now have a family of four and while I wouldn't trade it for anything, I do remember my solitary days with fondness.

[susanr516]

51. I've never lived alone either

Although I'm quite introverted, I can't imagine living alone.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. The apartment wasn't too bad but my roommate was a nightmare.

Like the time I came home and she and her boyfriend were buck nekkid, doing the deed on the living room floor, and I had to *step over* their drunk, writhing, humping bodies to get to my room. And then the boyfriend puked up about a gallon of cheap red wine all over the rug -- which I had to clean up because he and the roommate were both too drunk to manage. It was always something like that.

[fizzgig]

6. i lived with my boyfriend and our best friend

we were all 19 or 20 and shared a three bedroom in a triplex in a less than savory neighborhood. our bedrooms were over the garages (we had neighbors downstairs and on one side) and the college kids next door had a pool table in their garage. they liked to throw parties during the week and stay up playing pool well after midnight. i'd always go over and talk to them first, but i called the cops on them at least three times.

the neighbors downstairs were a couple with two little girls. he went to work around 5 a.m. and in the winter he'd idle his busted 70s piece of rolling metal under my bedroom window for at least a half hour. he got pissed when i tried to talk to him about it.

it wasn't a bad time of my life, but the only memory i have of that year is the six weeks i spent in new york, england, scotland and amsterdam.

edit: if we're talking a place totally our own, it was an absolute shit hole of a two bedroom in a duplex. but it was cheap, close to a big park and my own.

[Tabasco_Dave]

7. Very 60's fake Tudor building

60's paisley tile, 60's light fixtures, 60's shag carpet, the only problem it was 2002

[vadawg]

8. first place i lived in that wasnt a barracks was when i went to live in maryland

bought a brick colonial, nice house, area sucked...

[vadawg]

25. first time apart from the army that i had ever slept indoors in my life

though i guess since i moved there with my wife i wasnt there alone...

[Arugula Latte]

9. Just off Berkeley campus; ugly 60s building, tiny studio, gross orange carpeting

I LOVED IT! :loveya:

I was immensely proud of it. It was so wonderful to have my "own" bathroom and my "own" kitchen. *sigh* Those were the days.

[likesmountains 52]

10. One bedroom apt. in Capitol Hill, Denver...1972

Shared a bedroom and a double bed with my (same sex but not homosexual relationship) friend from high school. We had stayed over at each other's house and shared a bed so often that we did not even consider that this was odd to some people. It was $45 a month per person!

[AngryAmish]

32. In 1991 I had rent of $37.50 per month

4 guys in a 2 bedroom apartment. Why yes, our neighbors were drug dealers, how did you guess?

[Blue_In_AK]

36. Hey, I lived on Capitol Hill, too,

but I was there in 1968-69. Hippie haven in those days. Was it still the same in '72?

[likesmountains 52]

46. oh, yes. ..cheap, plentiful and good. We've crossed paths on DU before about Denver in the

late 60s...maybe we crossed paths in real life too!

[Roon]

11. The apartment I have now was my first apartment

Fresh out of Job Corps. I moved into this flat above my Grandparents' place. I was 18 and think I was paying 50.00 a week to live here. I moved out into a bigger apartment and my Grandmother gave me my rent that I paid those months back!

Came back after breakup one,
came back after breakup two,
Came back and moved right next door..(duplex)
Broke up with number three after ten years and now I have been up here since late summer. I have twobedrooms and a living room but I just hang out in my bedroom. I simplified, man!!

[XemaSab]

12. It was the upstairs of a converted barn

Very cool. :D

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

13. I had a studio apartment in a not-so-great part of Wichita

It was small, but I loved being on my own for the first time. I missed my mom a LOT, though.

[Odin2005]

14. Little studio apartment.

Lived in it for a year. Was broken into a couple months after I moved in and my laptop stolen. Moved to my current 1R apartment because Section 8 doesn't subsidize studio apartments.

[Rhythm]

15. 3 bedroom place i shared with two of my Rocky Horror floor-show castmates

19 years old, and i moved in with two friends i had met at the midnight movies two years before. They were 'sort of' a couple (meaning that at any given time, at least one of them had an outside intimate interest), the place was HUGE, and only 1/2 mile from the heart of downtown Charlotte.

My guy roommate sang in the shower at 6am (usually the dentist song from "Little Shop of Horrors"), the girl lived in fishnets and boots, and we were equidistant to both a 24-hr Krispy Kreme donut shop and a wicked place called Spoon's, which made the best burgers on the planet.

Absolute bliss for a 19 yr old.

[Madrone]

23. You were in a Rocky Horror floor show cast??!?!!

I'm more than a little jealous, and can only imagine how incredibly FUN that must have been!

[Kali]

16. roach infested studio on the 8th floor

former ASU dorms that had been privatized and turned into apts. Grey slump block walls concrete floors covered with student-proof indoor-outdoor "carpet".

ASS-U housed the athletes in the same complex. Need I say it sucked? I did have some good parties there, though and for some bizarre reason I returned the next year and had roommates. They sucked even worse than the roaches.

[nolabear]

17. A New Orleans mansion divided into apartments.

I lived there with my first ex husband and a friend, who eventually became my second ex husband. Lovely little studio with a Murphy bed and a miniscule closet sized bedroom for the friend. I loved it.

[Silver Swan]

18. My first apartment

was a studio in an older building on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.

This was in 1968. I grew up and attended college in Michigan, and I had obtained a job in Chicago upon graduation. My mother worried about where I might be living, but the neighborhood around this apartment was not too bad.

The apartment had a cute combination sink, refrigerator, and stove all in one little unit. The oven was about sixteen inches wide, and refrigerator did not keep anything frozen. The apartment was fairly large for a studio, but my furnishings were rather sparse. I knew I wouldn't live there long, so I didn't bother doing much with the space.

One year later, when my lease was up, I moved to a one bedroom apartment, with a kitchen with a separate stove, refrigerator and sink! Then I bought real furniture.

I think everyone should live alone for a few years, just so they aren't afraid to do it again, if it becomes necessary.

[MilesColtrane]

19. Shotgun shack built circa 1940's.

No insulation and one wall heater.

I think it was haunted too.

[grace0418]

20. Champaign, Illinois. 1990. Four bedroom, one bath apartment. Rent was

$150 each. It was furnished with hideous 70s furniture and had nasty carpeting and a tiny bathroom. Four girls and one bathroom is not a good idea (and I'm the furthest thing from a girly-girl). It didn't end well, two against two over god-knows-what issue. It was fun for awhile though. And over the following summer the other two girls moved out and my friend's boyfriend moved in. We had a great time that summer. He was an exchange student from Ireland who was going to spend the summer traveling, but he broke his ankle right before finals (poor thing). So he spent the summer with us and we had a blast.

[quakerboy]

21. I dont know which would be considered "first"

I had a campus house while in college. I stayed solo in a cabin for 6 months, but it was owned by my parents. I shared a house with 2 other guys for a while, that was the first non-school/non-family, paid residence.

That was interesting. I started with no real furniture, and a large room. I acquired a inflatable mattress, a small tv, and enough milk crates to simulate furniture. I saw one roommate about once a week, and the other for up to five minutes a day. I was a very lonely person, but it was still better than living by myself in the woods. I don't have to interact with others, but somehow it is important to me to have then around.

[blogslut]

22. My technical first

...was a one bedroom plus bath and wee kitchen. The first night I was there I tried to light the pilot on my gas stove and it blew up in my face. I can still see that fireball coming at me.

Before that I had lived in the shared quarters the dinner theater supplied for its actors and while that was my first place away from my folks I don't know if it would count as my first apartment alone.

[WCIL]

24. An attic apartment

in a 6 unit building. Beautiful when I moved in in the Fall, but hot as hell when spring came around. I was lucky because my attic apartment had an indoor stairwell - the other attic apartment had a scary 3 story homemade wooden outside staircase with no landing. A friend and I really strained our backs trying to carry a quarter barrel up the stairs for the housewarming party. The kitchenette was almost unusable, but it didn't matter because I rarely cooked.

I was 20 and it was the time of my life. My 20 year old daughter and her friend plan to move out in May, and she is really looking forward to it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

26. I never lived on my own, but hubby and I did live in a dinky little 3 room apartment for the

first two years we were married. No working light in the bedroom. Window on the floor in the bathroom, and up too high to see out of in the kitchen and living room. But it was just the right size for newlyweds. :) (And two baby kittehs.)

Oh, and did I mention the floor was warped?

[Rabrrrrrr]

28. I would describe it, but I need my mother's help to do so and I won't do it on my own.

Harumph.

You and your conditions.

What is this, a test?

[Orsino]

29. A dorm room.

Well, a double-wide version of a boarding-school dorm room, where I lived for my first year of teaching.

[nuxvomica]

30. 2nd floor front apartment in an old house on the main street...

..of town. Nice 10x10 living room, decent-sized kitchen and bathroom, bedroom with no door, and a small storage room behind the bathroom. $250 a month.

[NMDemDist2]

31. it was a great place above a bodega in sacramento. had the neon sign outside my window

built in the 20s, very deco if a bit shabby

i loved it

[Blue_Tires]

33. outside D.C., 2002: very small studio apartment, run down building,

no cable, noisy, had a tiny balcony and sliding door but i could never leave it open at night because motorcycles would drag race all night on the main road outside...oh, did i mention the crime? we had a triple homicide right in our parking lot, and if i ever got home late at night, i RAN to the door...it was also an area with the widespread reputation -- trying to talk to girls in trendy bars and telling them where i lived, i frequently got the "Oh, you live in THAT place--your annual income is probably less than what I pay in taxes"-type look from them...fun times...

but still, it was relatively clean and bug-free, utilities were free and they worked, it was my own place and I loved it...

[suninvited]

34. I got married in Hawaii in 1979, when I was only 18

My new husband and I got a little apartment in Kaneohe. We were on the fourth or fifth floor, for some reason I cant remember which. It was small (one bedroom, combo living dining area, kitchen and a bathroom, probably 500 square feet) and the rent was high! It had white walls and green carpet.

I grew up on a farm where we burned all of our trash. In my new apartment, we took it to a chute at the end of the hall and dropped it down. I loved doing that, and waited to hear the thump when it hit.

One day when I was home alone I discovered a GIGANTIC bug which I had never seen the likes of crawling on the wall of the front door hallway. I knew I was not brave enough to smash something so big so I squeezed by it and managed to open the door. My plan was to coerce the bug outside. I tried a broom and discovered that this bug FLEW ! I was standing in my apartment throwing shoes at the bug trying to force him outside when a Japanese man in the ouside corridor began yelling at me. He thought I was having a fight with someone because shoes were flying out of the door. He was telling me 'no fighting, no fighting'. I was able to point at the bug and explain what was happening, and he ran in my apartment and grabbed the bug WITH HIS BARE HANDS, and threw it outside. I thanked him and thanked him, and he told me to not make so much noise. That was pretty funny.

We had a nice little balcony and we grew flowers there, and had a little habachi grill where we cooked out.

We had to ring a buzzer for visitors to be able to come up and see us, they could buzz our apartment from the main entrance and we had to push a button to unlock the door.

Being a country girl, it was all very exciting to me.

[Blue_In_AK]

35. My first apartment

was across from the University of Houston on Calhoun Road, if I remember right. I moved in when I was a junior in 1966. It was two bedrooms, $60 a month. Not a bad place, but hot as hell, no air conditioning. I lived there for a couple of years, by myself part of the time, and with different roommates later.

In my senior year 1967-68 when me and all my friends were pretty psychedelicized, we painted the whole place up in DayGlo, like poster art, and my Commie friends painted big slogans. All those white walls were just too tempting. :hippie: It actually looked pretty cool, but when I moved out the landlady was not amused. She kept my deposit and charged me another couple hundred bucks. It probably took several coats of paint to cver all the "artwork."

It was worth it, though. :evilgrin:

[EndersDame]

37. I moved in with two crazy ladies in their 30s and I was not prepared at all

The house was just East of downtown Austin and it was crazy
They were really cool but way too wild as my first place on my own
They had a "party" every night
They shared their scripts booze pot and coke with me!
They gave me pointers on how to give a good blow job
I also learned about some really cool music from the eighties.
We painted are nails together while listening to Johnny Cash all inebrieted
good times just too much fun for me to handle

[TK421]

38. In 2000, it was a pretty big place for one person...my boss was my landlord

cost $475/month. Condition was I was filling in for a position that was changed, and needed to get out of Florida. Best place ever....tiny kitchen, though

[Chan790]

39. 11th floor, Yonkers, overlooking Hudson River, cost more per month than a mortgage in 99% of America

...on a 2BR 1,500sq.ft. house.

It was classy though, whatwith the drug dealers living down the hall and the biker-gang that commandeered our social room and declared it their new clubhouse.

[la_chupa]

40. 1986 my god it seems like yesterday

It was basically a living room and a bedroom. There was a small bathroom with a shower (no tub) and the kitchen was the hallway between the two rooms.

It was above this parking deck and I didn't know how dangerous that was at the time but since it was cheap and in a whole building full of people who also didn't have any money, the cars parked below me were not exactly mechanically sound. One in particular used to fill my entire place up with fumes during the long start up, warm up, try to get the car moving process.

How I didn't die of CO2 poisoning is the real mystery.

[seemunkee]

41. Moved in with my girlfriend and now wife for 24 years

Had a velour beanbag sofa, some teak and rope chairs and a chippendale side table that I built. I also built a king size waterbed and dresser. We had an Amazon parrot at the time too.

[gmoney]

42. My first real place (not counting a campus apartment)

It was actually an apartment building I drove by everytime I went home from college for two years. After graduation, I moved home, but within a few days was offered a job back in Columbus, so I knew the name of this apartment building and called. They had furnished 1 bedroom places with only a six month lease, in a pretty good neighborhood, and the parking lot backed up to a Kroger, so I could easily walk to the store. Also was a block from a bus stop that took me directly to my new place of employment, no transfers or nothing.

The apartment itself was nice enough. Sort of an L-shaped main room with living room, dining room and kitchen. Basic bathroom, smallish bedroom that fit into the L, but with decent closet space. Had a nice big window on the front of the building where I could watch the world go by, but high enough that people couldn't really snoop in. It rocked, and some days, I wish I could go back to the simplicity of an uncluttered 1 bedroom furnished instead of having a 3-bedroom house teeming with stuff. I want to say the rent furnished was $225 back in the late 80s.

[Terry in Austin]

43. A one-room pad in 1966

It was in a big, rambling, rickety three-story wooden frame building west of campus that most of us referred to as "Dostoevsky Arms." Architectural style was Texas Gothic, circa 1915, complete with screened-in sleeping porches with the canvas curtains that rolled down in cold or wet weather. It hadn't been painted since before the war. Yeah, that war.

My apartment had burlap curtains and a big iron bedstead, and was sort of tacked on to the building, supported by one lonesome four-by-four. A couple of the other apartments were painted completely black. The lobby downstairs had the original carpeting, adding much essence of mildew to the ambience.

Scene of many happy times, many a late-night discussion around a bottle of cheap red wine, etc. A fair amount of etc., actually...

[tigereye]

44. group house full of vegetarian grad and medical students

next apartment was with some friends on the second floor of an old house in a now too expensive and trendy part of town!


Best of luck to your daughter.

[femmocrat]

45. It was in the attic of a cute Cape Cod house in VA.

It had been divided into a bedroom, walk-in closet, bathroom, huge kitchen, and spacious living room. Furnished. Off-street parking. I lived there my senior year of college and during student teaching. It was adorable!

A Korean couple with a newborn baby lived on the first floor, and a Vietnamese student lived in the basement.

[greenbriar]

50. that sounds really cool

I love houses with character!

[Rising Phoenix]

47. on my own....no mommy daddy help

a crack house in Clinton, Ma.....for real, they smoked crack and had social workers bring their kids to visit. It was small, dirty, cheap as hell.

That time the Puerto rican Mafia came and shot out the windows.....awesome

hiding drugs for a neighbor for free goodies

and a bee infestation

425 a month.....we got out of there in about 3 months.....with some good stories....

[Rising Phoenix]

48. I was living with my fiance at the time

and when we used the microwave the rest of the electricity went out.......

the night we moved it we got there so late, we were too tired to unpack the uhaul and my brother had already gone home

we slept on uhaul blankets and ate dorittos washed down with Sam Adams

[Liberal_in_LA]

49. 1st appt. - studio with small patio. Crazy apartment building - folks fighting all the time.

[murielm99]

52. It was a studio apartment in a semi-bad neighborhood.

The building was cinder block.

The place was furnished and clean. The neighbors were the only problem. The girls downstairs made noise all the time. The guy directly across from me liked to run around naked with his curtains open. The people on one side of me played Christian radio stations constantly. The girl on the other side brought men home late at night every night.

I moved as soon as I could.

[fudge stripe cookays]

53. Wonderful.

I had put up with a lot from my mother over the previous 10 years, and just wanted OUT of that house. I was 26 years old before I could finally get out permanently!

I finally got a job that allowed me to get out, and I had been stockpiling furniture and homegoods in her garage for months before I finally made the big move. I rebelled against everything she had ever told me to do, in terms of my decorating, and everything else.

1992- My REAL first place was a 1-bedroom apartment just east of I-35 in Austin, with a nice big patio, spacious, with a dining room and a big kitchen. The only thing I didn't like was being on the ground floor with a neighbor upstairs who had an electric guitar.

I discovered I LOVED to cook. Even just for one. I'd create fabulous recipes then eat leftovers all week. I came to enjoy grocery shopping, examining all the cool ingredients I'd never even noticed before because we had always bought pre-packaged everything.

I came to really enjoy my privacy and being truly alone.