Space Invaders.

When you share your accommodation with eight other families, you can never truly put your feet under the table. For starters, there isn't even a table you can use - except the one with four chairs around it on the bottom floor that is supposed to be sufficient for everybody in the building. But the one time we sat at that we were asked to take our food to our bedroom so that the owner could lock up the 'dining room' for the night.

It's hard not to get angry at complete strangers. They're *right there*, and so easy to take your frustration and resentment out on. Of course, I wouldn't confront somebody for leaving water on the bathroom floor or using too much toilet roll. I wouldn't run out of my room in a fit of rage because somebody slammed their door too loudly, as much as I'd love to. I especially wouldn't knock on the door of a single mother who doesn't speak English, to ask her why she has DARED leave the wall switch for the shower in the 'on' position. Instead, I quietly seethe to myself and mostly tweet about how irrationally angry I am about nothing in particular. Which is neither healthy nor productive.

I don't blame them for my situation. I pity each and every one of them because they're in the same situation that I am - most of them have been there for god knows how much longer than my family has. I'm just angry at them. Because they're there, and it reminds me that I am too. Because being homeless means that nothing in this world is your own, and that you have no control over anything in your life anymore. I desperately crave my space and my rules, so when somebody comes in and doesn't flush the toilet after them or speaks a bit too loudly on the phone, I hate them for being inconsiderate enough to remind me that they are in my universe. And I know what a spoilt brat that makes me sound. I just can't help feeling this rage.

I started this blog as a place to share exactly what being homeless feels like. I try to put a positive spin on things. I try and inject humour into everything I write, if only to make it worth reading so that people will want to keep reading. But if you want the truth of the matter, there is only one word to explain how being homeless really feels: angry. Angry at yourself, angry at 'the system' and angry at everybody around you - either for not understanding at all, or for understanding completely but only caring about themselves.

This is not a nice way to feel.

A Make-Shift Draining Board.

Today I learned that I have A-Team style substitution skillz. With a Z.

At 40 weeks pregnant, it was getting increasingly difficult to carry my dirty dishes down three flights of stairs, wash them up and bring them all the way back up to the bedroom. Counter space is incredibly limited (we have a two-shelf fridge, the top of a chest of drawers and one shelf to store all of our food, cutlery, pots and pans, plates, bowls, cups, kettle and anything else we don't want to 'store' on the floor) so we can't keep dirty dishes sitting around. Besides, we don't want to. It's skanky enough being here without adding to it. So in an attempt at being all clever and organised, my partner and I went out to buy ourselves a washing up bowl.

None of the hot water taps work (not even in the bathrooms or kitchen, actually), so I boiled the kettle for warm water. Not a problem. I did that every day for two and a half years in our old flat, so I'm used to having to wait for access to hot water. I squirted washing up liquid into the bowl (that is now taking up space on the shelf), ended up soaking myself completely because it's about armpit height to me and then took the first clean dish from the water. And had nowhere to put it.

And so I learned to make a 'draining board'. A Sainsburys carrier bag with a bath towel over the top of it, laid out on our bed, to be precise. I had to dry and put away the items after every three or so were washed because there was no more room on the carrier bag, but hey. It worked. Our bed didn't get wet and I was able to wash a few dishes at a time. I'm pretty impressed with my skillz. With a Z.

I'd say we were going to go out and buy a draining board but we haven't got anywhere to put it, so the carrier bag on the bed method is going to have to continue. Nobody can say we don't know how to make the best out of a bad situation.

My god it is dire here.

The Footstool.

We were laying in bed last night, almost asleep, and I turned to my partner and asked him the same thing I ask myself again and again and again, every single day.

"What are you most looking forward to about having our own house?"

He took a moment to think.

"A footstool", he said.

I wasn't expecting that response. "A footstool?" "Yeah. I want to get home at the end of the day, sprawl out on my couch and put my feet up. A really nice, comfy one, not just something to prop my feet up on. It'll be my footstool. At the end of the day you'll see me coming up the drive, turn to the kids and say "Dad's home. Off his footstool now."

"Oh. We haven't even got a couch. Shouldn't we worry about having a couch first?"

"Yeah. But when we do, I want a footstool."

Fair enough...

Incidentally, I'm looking forward to having a kitchen. To having the space to store food. To having a work surface on which I can cook and create lovely dishes. I miss cooking so much, and I really never thought I would. A dining table. Art work to hang up in the kitchen. A fruit bowl. A sink with hot water. A cupboard full of plates. Pictures on the fridge. A high chair.

To me, the kitchen is the centre of a home. Where the family gather and can feel most relaxed and "together". And to my partner, the focal point of his home is his footstool. And that's okay.

This situation has made us appreciate and long for the most simple of things.
I hope that, whenever we get the life we want, we never lose that gratitude.

That One Time, When I Tried To Shower.

Today, I made a terrible mistake. I tried to have a nice, peaceful, relaxing shower.

I decided to venture to the "downstairs shower", which is down two flights of stairs but actually has a lock on the door. I was quite looking forward to it; the shower by my room might get less traffic than the other one each day, but it is impossible to find a balance between a good temperature and a good pressure. Plus, like I said before, there isn't a lock on the door. I didn't have the patience to be on edge, fearing being walked in on every time I heard a noise.

The first thing I saw was black grime and hairs of various lengths smeared all over the bottom of the bath (which I actually tried to use first, but no water comes out of the taps so it can only be used as a shower. I even tried holding the shower over the bath in an attempt to fill it up, but it didn't work.), so I spent a good five minutes trying to clear it up without losing my lunch. I don't understand how anybody can leave something in that state, let alone if somebody else has to use it after you. Some people have no self respect, and even less respect and consideration for others.

Once the bath was clean and I had given up on trying to fill it up and actually use it as a bath, I connected the shower head back to its stand and tried to find a temperature and pressure I was comfortable with. I stepped under the water and started to wash, but within seconds the water had started to get cold. 

"It's okay", I said to myself. "I can handle a bit of cold water". I kept washing, my head starting to ache because the water had got so cold. After putting shampoo in and lathering it up, I leaned back under the stream. Immediate burn. There is now a scab on my head where the water was so hot it took some skin away. 

And so the cycle continued. My entire shower was bent over backwards (five days before my due date, I might add) so that I could avoid the water actually touching my skin any more than was necessary. Burn. Cold. Trickle. Brain freeze. Burn. Brain freeze. Warm. Trickle. Hot. Cold. Brain freeze. Burn. SOB WITH RAGE. Burn. Brain freeze. Burn.

I'm looking forward to going to hospital, now. I'm going to stay there for as long as I can, and I'm going to take advantage of having a lovely, warm shower that is of a consistent pressure. And then I'm going to heal from giving birth, then start going to the local swimming pool. Hell, I might even start going before I heal. I won't swim, I'll just take long and luxurious showers. Surrounded by a room full of strangers. Because that would be more comfortable than the demonic hell that is showering in this god damn B&B.

Next question: how the hell do I wash a newborn baby in a bathroom like that? Hint: the hot taps don't turn in either bathroom or our bedroom. We have access to cold water, or demon showers. My son is going to hate me.

A Typical Day Here.

As we swiftly approach a full week in this accommodation, I have noticed certain patterns forming. Little things you can't help but notice. Annoyances... Quirks... Worries...

Through the night, I wake up about once an hour at the moment; being 39 weeks pregnant, the cause of waking up is usually either heartburn, excessive drool on my pillow (ugh! seriously!), needing to pee or I have, yet again, rolled over onto my front. That shit hurts. Of course, I try and tell myself that my body is just practising for a newborn. At this rate, I'm going to find that I'm awake more than he is. I digress.

Each time I wake up in the night, the baby in the room next door to ours is crying. It sounds like the baby is a newborn. I haven't seen it, so it's hard to say. Currently residing in the other top floor room is a Nigerian looking woman, her baby and her daughter, who looks about four or five. The woman doesn't speak English, but she likes to grunt a lot. The little girl appears to go to school here, and has a pretty good grasp of the language. The top floor holds the only two "family rooms", which I can assume is the only reason that the two families who need to use prams have been placed up three flights of stairs. The family rooms have a double bed and a set of bunk beds, but not much room for anything else. I'm worried about where we're going to put the moses basket. We've been told that as soon as a smaller room is vacated, we'll be moved to it as we aren't eligible for this much space. I'm trying not to worry about what floor space is going to be like in an even smaller room, because at least it'll mean one less flight of stairs to climb.

Anyway, her baby cries. Which is fine. We can't hear it from our bedroom, and to be honest it reassures me that we won't be as annoying to other "residents" as we thought we would. However, at a certain point in the night she obviously gets tired of hearing her baby cry, and decides to put it outside our door. Which is nice. I look forward to it waking up my son in the coming weeks.

At about 7 or so, the little girl gets up for school. The toilet is right outside our door, and she tends to stand opening and closing the bathroom door repeatedly and shouting about how it's okay because there's nobody in there. This morning, it was being slammed particularly loudly. I hadn't long got back to sleep, so my partner got up to ask her to be quiet. It seems it wasn't the little girl after all. It was her mother. Because slamming doors repeatedly is a normal thing that grown women do.

It isn't always just the three of them, though. At the weekend we were graced with the presence of an incredibly loud man - I assume the father of one or both of her children. When he isn't there, the woman just calls him. All day and all night. On loud speaker, with the volume on full. And she isn't capable of talking into her phone. She feels the need to yell her conversation in whatever language she's speaking. She's probably only asking him to pick up some milk.

I don't like to stay in here all day. It smells awful, and it isn't healthy to stay cooped up and miserable. When I walk down the stairs, doors open a crack and eyes peer out at me. I'm the white girl, so I stand out and I'm weird. Kids run to their doors and whisper about me. If they pass me in the corridor they double take. There is one other white couple, I think, but they live lower down than me and have only ever been seen standing outside smoking together over the woman's bump. Nobody socialises, though, so none of us know anything about eachother.

I try not to go to the toilet in the daytime, because it causes me too much anxiety. The lock has been snapped at some point and management haven't repaired it (we're probably going to end up buying one and doing it ourselves) so people are constantly almost walking in on us. If either of us shower, we sit with the bedroom door propped open so we can tell people that there's somebody in there. To make matters even more stressful, as well as trying the door handle to double check that I'm not lying when I shout out that there's somebody in the bathroom, the young girl from next door has taken to standing and peering through the keyhole. There's nothing quite like taking a dump and meeting the eyes of a four year old stranger. Especially when you walk out of the bathroom and her mother pushes past you, grunting in your direction and listening to a particularly noisy phone call on loud speaker. Again.

My partner goes back to Milton Keynes to visit his daughter after school every afternoon, and drives back once she has gone to bed. Every evening I carry all of our dishes from the day before and our food down the three flights of stairs to the kitchen. We cook and do the dishes together if we have time; if not I do it myself. At 9.30 on the dot the kitchen and dining room is locked, whether you've finished or not - there is no wiggle room on this, and I have actually had to stop halfway through a meal before because it was time to lock up. We carry our meals, along with our utensils and uncooked food etc, up the stairs again. My personal favourite was trying to carry a plate flooded with gravy up the three flights because I ran out of time to eat downstairs, putting the plate on the bed and having to crouch on the floor because it was the only way not to spill anything. But hey, we're allowed to eat in our rooms in this place - we weren't allowed that luxury in the guest house in MK. And if nothing else, it has taught us the importance of buying one of those hospital bed table things. So there's that.

And so it's night time again. People opening their doors to see what we're doing every time we go out to the toilet. Kids running up and down stairs trying to get ready for the next day at school, their mothers screaming at them in an assortment of languages, each one louder than the last. We lay on our bed, watch DVDs and dunk choccy biccies in cups of tea and coffee until around midnight, when we finally accept defeat and hit the hay. An hour after we drift off, my hourly night time battle begins all over again. And that is my life right now. A bit of tweeting here, a blog post there and pretty much all evening whinging about my back/pelvis/hips hurting - and that's all there is. I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of Munchkin now (or Oswalt as we affectionately nickname him. I'm not sure why.) purely so that I've got something to do.

"Remember?"

Originally posted at Vintage Fee on Thursday, 14th March 2013.

Remember how everything was okay? How it wasn't home but it was safe and clean and suitable for my baby?

Remember when I let myself relax for just a moment, and actually convinced myself that things were on the up?

Two weeks ago, myself, my partner and a friend who lived in the same temporary accommodation as us approached our local council about some concerns we had regarding our living situation. Nothing major; unsecured CCTV, fire alarms that didn't work, staff lying to residents and hearing staff lie to authorities who were inspecting the property - one of which being the council themselves. we stressed that we loved the building itself. The rooms were spotless, light and airy and we felt like we were part of a community when we were there. Given that nobody is there because their situation is ideal, we all got along great and our families meshed together into a happy home. I was excited to bring my baby home to that house. Everything was set up and ready, I loved the location and I was surrounded by a support system I felt positive about.

The evening of our complaint, a member of the management staff visited the building and entered the dining room, where most of us gathered to socialise throughout the day. He was a short, runty Asian man who looked like a shrew and barely spoke any English - I had only seen him once since the day we had arrived and been shown around by him. He asked if anybody had any problems. We said no. He then specifically asked me, telling me he was disappointed that I had gone to the council instead of approaching him. I hadn't actually given my name at the council - I had mostly gone for moral support - and we were told all complaints would be anonymous, so I was upset to be singled out in front of a room full of people. I explained that my partner would be more than happy to speak with him when he got home that evening: he is better with words than I am, and the complaint had been made in his name anyway. It was a conversation he was keen to have and, to be honest, I was keen to avoid. I can't stand confrontation. A meeting was arranged for 7.30 that evening. The member of management (I still don't know his name) did not show up.

A few days later, the owner of the building arrived. She was a tall, skinny German woman who would have done well for herself as a prison guard in the war, both in attitude and sternness of face. My partner and I were on our way out to the launderette, and were carrying things to the car. When my partner was safely out of the way, Mrs K (the German) told me to stop where I was. I was carrying a large laundry basket (at 38 weeks pregnant) and didn't want to be hanging around. Especially not with this woman, who I found incredibly intimidating.

"What's your problem?", she asked me.

"I don't have one. I'm just on my way out."

"I hear you have a problem. So go on. What is it?"

"I don't. My partner will talk to you. I'll go and get him." She just glared at me while I scurried off to get him. He came in, said he absolutely wanted to talk about his issues but was tight on time.  He explained that he'd had plenty of time to speak at the meeting that was arranged previously, but that nobody had showed up.

"Just tell me now. Is it about the cctv? It's got to go somewhere. It's hardly a big deal".

"Actually, your footage is unsecured and the woman monitoring it doesn't have an SIA license. You're breaking the law."

"Oh. Well like I said, it's got to go somewhere. What else?"

"I really need to go. I'd like to talk to you properly about everything, not rush it now."

"Well I won't be here again any time soon so you can talk to me now."

He left. She had no interest in listening to him, so there was no point trying to reason with her.

For the next week or so the staff made my life hell. Every time my partner was out, I was confronted. I was getting nervous and stressed, and my partner was frustrated that they would only confront me, never him. It got to the point that as soon as my partner drove away, a quiet phone call in another language was made and a member of the elusive management team would arrive within minutes. My bedroom door would be knocked, or the dining room would be entered, and I'd be aggressively asked if I had a problem. Nonetheless, it was better than the streets. It was a clean home and I was surrounded by friends. I stayed quiet, kept myself to myself and hoped they'd get bored soon.

On Monday morning, I unlocked my bedroom door and allowed two builders to enter, as they were changing a window to make it more fire safe. I stayed out of my room all day so as not to get in their way; I chatted with a friend in the dining room in the morning, we took her daughter for a walk then came home and made lunch together. After lunch, the Littlest Asian showed up. "I want to talk to you in your room", he said. I followed him in.

"Where you have been smoking, you have burned the carpet", he said. My partner and I don't smoke at all. I explained that. "Well that is amazing to me", he shouted, "because I can see the marks on the floor and it wasn't like that when you arrived". I informed him that there had been two builders in my room all day and that I could assure him it wasn't due to smoking: neither of us smoked, I'm 9 and a half months pregnant and I don't even have candles, straighteners or ANYTHING that could cause a burn in my room. I left, confused as to what the mark could be. My partner came home shortly after and examined the mark, which was greasy and brown and not a burn mark in the slightest.

When my partner left to collect his daughter from school, the man came back and told me I had broken the contract by smoking. I explained again that we don't smoke and that my partner would like to talk to him about the accusations. He said he wouldn't talk to him, only to me. And then he left.
He and my partner arrived back to the building at almost the same time that evening. An argument erupted. He said that he had never said we smoke. Then that we shouldn't smoke in the rooms. He yelled in my face that I was a liar. He told us to get out for breaking the rules by smoking. He said the council had found a home for us anyway. My partner asked him to say that on tape; he immediately denied having said it. Eventually he told us he knew we smoked, we were a danger to the other guests and to be out by 9.30 the next morning. We packed our things, I cried, eventually we fell asleep, not knowing where we were supposed to spend our next night.

At 9am he banged on the door and asked me why I wasn't gone yet.

"You said 9.30, and my partner isn't back from dropping his daughter off at school yet", I said. I still felt incredibly fragile and had spent the morning fighting back tears already. "Tell him to hurry up. I want you out now." He told me. Then scurried off to another room.

My partner arrived and was livid at him for stressing me out again. They argued again, we walked out with the last of our things and made our way to the council. The council told us we had forfeited the right to temporary accommodation by smoking in the rooms (we don't smoke.) and to find a friend with a comfy couch because the wait for a house is still 10 - 12 months. We asked to speak to a senior officer to appeal the decision.

While we waited for the senior officer, I received a phonecall from a friend still living at the old accommodation. She told me that Runty had announced that sadly we had to leave. The guests began arguing "no, you forced them out for something they didn't do when she is 9 months pregnant" and he told them people should be careful who they complain about, and that we should never have gone to the council. An independent builder was working in the house and was shocked to hear we didn't actually smoke, so asked to examine the mark. He said he didn't know what it was but it certainly wasn't a cigarette burn. Runty shrugged and said we hadn't seemed happy being there anyway, so it was for the best that we left.

We relayed this information to the senior officer and, luckily, she took our side. We were offered a b&b 20 miles out of our city. It is skanky as hell. Ten families share a bathroom (with no lock, as it has been snapped), and we are asked to keep all food in our rooms and not linger in communal areas. The walls and beds had things smeared on them (god knows what). The stained carpets are 2 inches away from the walls. I have to climb 3 flights of stairs to reach my room. I am due to give birth next week and the thought of my baby being here breaks my heart. But we can't complain - we could be on the streets. It is better than nothing. And it is only a year.

Of course, there is the issue of the six week rule. It is against the law to keep a family or a pregnant woman in b&b accommodation for longer than 6 weeks, yet it is reported that councils across England are guilty of this in 800% more cases this year. Not only that, but the length of time that it takes councils to take families from poor conditions and give them homes is impossible to report because of the illegality of it: councils have no figures to provide because any figure beyond six weeks is a broken law. Yet my council told me a year. They told my pregnant friend with two existing children a year for two bedrooms. They don't even try to stay within the six week law. When I asked why the length of time was a year and not the six weeks that the law dictates, I was told that there are too many people to house, they are only just housing people who were made homeless 10 months ago and there is no breakfast provided here - it is fully self catering so it is only TECHNICALLY called a b&b for the purposes of the contract. In the same way that the guest house we were thrown out of was. What a nice little loophole.

The moral of the story should be to keep quiet, but no. Why should we keep quiet and allow somebody to lie to and mistreat our family? The moral of the story will have to be endurance. I need to get through the next year so that my baby has a good home. I'm doing this for him. And that's all that matters.

Attached is a photo of the carpet mark that lost us a home, if anybody is interested. I almost bloody wish we DID smoke, so this whole thing could have been worth something!

"The Path"

Originally posted at Vintage Fee on Wednesday, 20th February 2013.

And so begins the next step for my family. I have been vague about this situation in the past, because it is not only incredibly painful and embarrassing, but because I never had anything concrete to share. Basically, our flat was not suitable for a newborn (no hot water for the last 2.5 years, flooded foundations caused severe mould - think entire black walls - and the doors and windows were rotting and growing mushrooms to name but a few things) and, after the council spending the first half of my pregnancy saying "you'll be fine, just deal with it", we finally had a visit from EHO. The property was condemned immediately, I was told that a health visitor would involve social services if they saw me raising a baby in those conditions and that it was disgusting the council had ignored me for so much of my pregnancy and waited until the last minute (once we'd involved our local MP, funny enough) to actually do anything about it.

And so we needed a new house. Private rentals in my area are extortionate and we discovered pretty quickly that leaving that hellhole might be the best decision for the health of our family, but that it would render us homeless. After a LOT of persuasion, the council agreed to help us with some temporary accommodation. We have been placed in a guest house just outside of our county, where we will now live for the next 10 - 12 months - that is how long the waiting list for a house is if you are an urgent priority case in this area.

The guest house itself is lovely. It's in a nice area, the beds (we have two singles pushed together!) are comfy and there is room at the end of my bed for a moses basket. We have a TV in our room, a shared bathroom with a lovely bath and shower, and access to a shared kitchen. The other residents have children too, and it seems like everyone is very caring and supportive of eachother. I'm a pretty shy/awkward person but have pushed myself to be chatty with the girls (who seem to be about my age) and they've all been lovely to me.

No, it isn't ideal. It isn't where a mother is supposed to take home her newborn. I still feel bitter to mothers who tell me it's not that bad, he won't remember, all they need is food and warmth etc - because none of them would choose it for their children in a million years, and they have no idea how lucky they are to be able to throw out such hollow sentiments without having to live through the situation themselves. But it's okay. It's warm and dry and it is the first step on the path towards a home for my son. It's what I need to do. So we'll cope. :)