Indoor Adventures

So.. we live completely impoverished in a literal ruins of a trailer that barely, barely functions. Technically it's unlivable. There's no hot water, half of it is completely collapsed and a severe health hazard (we had to seal it off with some plastic wrap halfway down the hall years ago, not that it stops the mold growing thru the walls/floors) and our back room - use to be our bedroom - looks like some toxic spore scene out of the opening of Nausicaa. It collapsed in 2020 after a record year of hurricanes/tornadoes. So now, we sleep on the floor of our living room, there's only one faucet that works in the kitchen but the drain doesn't actually work so we have to literally carry water outside dozens of times a day and 90% of our outlets do not work, spark, or have caught fire. Because of the water damage in the walls/wiring our power flips, trips, and flickers on a daily basis -- not to mention when bad storms or just general power draw in our (very) impoverished hood cause a power grid flicker for hours like a demented rave show for everyone around here. It is a NIGHTMARE struggle during the summer months when heat index of 115F + severe tropical storms and hurricane season weather cause constant, constant power loss and serious heat waves every year.

Our entire lives fit in the cramped, duct-taped, barely-held-together ancient walls of our dilapidated "tin box" trailer that was built in the 1950s. First couple of years in this place in 2015 was more tolerable because we still had hot running water, the kitchen sink drain worked, we had an actual bedroom and real bed (even had a closet for clothes), the original industrial A/C that was in it (that caught fire later) actually worked well enough to cool the entire house, and we didn't have to cram our entire lives into one room. This was a boon for us after working so hard to clean it up (also, it was stacked floor to ceiling with COMPLETELY ruined/molded junk that'd never been cleaned out after sitting up for 20 years.. it was exhausting the first couple of years living in here) and make it a space that felt like a home. It was our first real space that was just ours. We'd spent the previous 5-6 years being homeless, bouncing from couch to couch, having nowhere to go and that wasn't even the first stint of me being homeless in my life so it was just more water under the bridge to stomach that for a while for us to have privacy/space to ourselves.

In 2018 the hot water tank burst, starting a cascade of Issues that compounded. Water pours through the walls unabashed during storms (you can physically hear a waterfall from the giant hole in the ceiling in the sealed-off back room during bad rain) so whenever that hot water tank initially burst, we knew it was going to be a downhill battle from there. We had to shut off the hot water tank, and some of the piping, to save the rest of what remained of the walls. The shower became unusable (we were already using pliers to turn on the faucet cut thru the wall) and since the tub is unsealed/loose and duct-taped together as well we've never been able to take baths in it -- so now we take baths by heating up water and mixing it in jugs and carrying it to the bath tub to stand in and use out of a stove pot we keep in there to hold water. It's.. a long process. Around this same time our stove also caught on fire in 2018, we're still not sure if it was the plug or the oven itself but it's just an expensive counter now. We've been using cheap hot plates ever since and have to workaround using that and a microwave to make meals + an electric kettle to heat water daily. We do not have a washer or dryer, and because of our electricity situation and/or floor weight problems (the floors are so mushy/collapsing you can see thru to outside in some sections, we have rugs + plates covering bare patches and visible support beams that have slowly pushed thru) there's literally nowhere to put or use one even if we were given a washer or dryer. We have a tiny little tabletop "I can basically fit one t-shirt or two underwears" portable electric spin washer we use that we have to manually wring out clothes from in the bathtub (remember! our sink doesn't drain!! so everything has! to be carried!! outside!! or to the bathroom!!!!) and dump water outside from our back door or into the tub as well.

It's exhausting daily work, it takes literal hours to do anything basic from washing laundry/dishes to just prepping a simple "bath" to get clean. Nobody offers to help get us to the laundromat even though there are some right up the road a couple of miles. It's hard enough having to ask for rides to the grocery store all the time. We use to walk places, but after some... really bad incidents that threatened our safety and well-being, we no longer walk up the road. There's weekly kidnappings, shootings, assaults, and drive-by hits that happen on this road and I wish I were joking. It's a really, really bad neighborhood. If you've ever heard of a "sunset town" this is a 24/7 sunset hood. Daily noises are a cacophony of gunshots, distant explosions, cars bumping music at 3am, ambulances, dogs fighting (and humans often too) and constant CONSTANT cops rolling in and out of our driveway that's more potholes than road and posting up like unwanted gargoyles.

Despite that, we have carved out a small space for ourselves here in the past decade (or at least have tried to) and find small moments of living. We both want to make stories, and art, and writing, and just be creative but it became harder and harder every year since the moment we moved in here back in 2015. Initially @savgecabbage did a lot of construction jobs, and eventually his injuries wracked up until he had a really, really bad injury that left him essentially crippled and unable to walk for 6 months in 2018 (around the same time we lost our hot water access, shower + the stove). He had to rehabilitate without any medical assistance or physical therapy using crutches. It took two full years to remotely recover the muscle he'd torn free from his hip, and he still has trouble with that side of his hip/leg years later. Next in 2019 a short time after this I lost all 8 of my studio/dev jobs with various game development asset work I'd been doing for years because of cutbacks + new, cheaper AI replacements. We plunged into irreversible Debt before 2020 even rolled around.

Anyway fast forward to COVID in 2020 (which we got.. multiple times -- this is the same year the back room collapsed from hurricanes btw~) thanks to whatever it did to my immune system also became the reason my medium allergies turned into SEVERE, life-altering allergies that have cut out 90% of food options for me and make it a literal threat on my life to go to the grocery store or ANY public place with food now. My body can now know the most bare minimum trace amounts of certain (EXTREMELY common) food ingredients that it apparently refuses to tolerate at ALL anymore. I use to be able to eat a sandwich without nearly dying. I have always had allergy problems, but it increased to literally 90000% after 2020 to the point we were nearly going to the hospital weekly from me going into anaphylactic shock or swelling so, so badly my skin was splitting (I've developed permanent indent/scars around my joints from how badly/regularly I swell) or I stopped being able to breathe at ALL for weeks on end. My health tanked. I kept having panic attacks from trying to eat the most basic things. We were down to just rice, potatoes and eggs at one point because we couldn't figure it out. So now EVERYTHING has to be checked, and even if its checked sometimes it's not listed if the food/item touched a manufacturing line with my allergies so I just have to constantly risk having a reaction.

So presently in the year 2026 we are struggling extremely hard this summer to even survive and afford food now for new issues that popped up this year. I lost food assistance back in Spring (around @savgecabbage 's birthday) because the old method of proving my freelance income was no longer valid and they required me to file last year's taxes in order to stay on assistance. This is extremely expensive, something we can't afford right now. My caseworker knew about my severe allergy issues and knew how important it was having that money to afford the food we needed. I begged them to at least keep my allotment for a few months while I tried to work this new issue after spending 2 months attempting to verify/send paperwork/go through an entire ordeal to prove my income, but despite efforts they refused and we plummeted into a severe financial deficit. This also happened at the exact same time we had food assistance for an entire month's worth stolen from us (they stole/activated our new card right out of our mailbox) while I was dealing with my caseworker and desperately trying to prove my income by sending over paperwork/calls so I was also filing police reports, identity theft reports, and federal mail theft reports + constantly on phone rotation between police, investigators, and caseworkers that led to literally nothing. My food assistance case was dropped, we were never compensated for that lost food money (which was one of the last times we were meant to receive it also~), and we were out on a limb as summer went into full tilt in June this year.

We have been surviving on a string's worth of effort over an endless pit of doom for years, and it's turned into a nightmare tightrope walk. Both of us would love to have jobs out of the house to help alleviate this financial tragedy we're in, this impossible living situation, but there's no options for us right now. We don't have a car, connections, or the local/IRL support we need to get on our feet or change this right now. So we rely on selling artwork and getting by on odd jobs and plasma donations (which only @savgecabbage can do since I am too anemic/health issues 90% of the time) to which the latter is extremely taxing and counterproductive for my husband's health. We're doing everything in our capacity to make things work, but we are essentially being priced of of existence inside of a collapsing, completely dilapidated ruin of a "home" that is barely held together by duct-tape and hope.