We asked you, our fair readers, ‘what’s the worst living situation you’ve experienced or seen in San Francisco?’  The following were our favorites/least favorites depending how you look at it, please enjoy/cringe with us:

10. Pot ‘Sweatshop’

Lived with a pot grower roommate who owned land up north that was essentially a plantation. Paid people in buds to sleep in the fields and protect the crops; then paid people in buds to clean buds for sale in our place in SF. I lived in a pot sweatshop!
He died of a heart attack soon after I moved out. The cops found heroin, cocaine, etc. in the apartment.
I did a performance piece about it!  – Barbara S.

9. Single-occupancy

This single-occupancy near California and Van Ness…  –  Juan F.

8. Wait a Minute

My self imposed 3 day crack bender in the streets of the Tenderloin. Actually, check that. It was kind of a high point. Ha ha! – John B.

7. SF ‘Wrapper’

Not long after I’d moved here I threw an It’s-It wrapper into a box on the sidewalk. A naked man jumped up and shouted, “Don’t be throwin’ shit in my home!” The amount of money landlords charge for living in close quarters with little privacy is beyond outrageous. – Max V.

6. Only $1200

I went to look at a “studio”. It was built inside of a car painting shop standing on stilt legs. Guess what, no bathroom or kitchen. but only $1200/month – Maria P.

5. SRO

I had a job doing outreach to SRO residents. I had one guy beg me to come to his room and to help him by taking photos so he could document the condition of the room. He was an immigrant who was trying to be transferred, by the non-profit who ran the hotel, to a better hotel. I went to his room and it was horrible. The roof was literally caving in from water damage, all of his belongings were in bags because he believed he had bed bugs but the hotel wouldn’t do anything, there were cockroaches everywhere. It was horrible.

I also saw bed ridden seniors living in SROs who couldn’t leave the room. Half empty hotels that were falling apart because the private owner was letting it dilapidate and forcing out tenants by not making repairs. This one hotel must have had 50 or 60 rooms but only 2 or 3 were occupied, the hallways were dark, everything was moldy, doors were ripped off the hinges, holes in the walls.

SROs are both necessary in that they provide low income housing but many of them are no better than slumlords. Even the nonprofits.  – Samantha L.

4. I’ve Heard It All Now

1. Tenderloin SRO crack hotel with bedbugs. 2. Bunk beds in Yoga Cult / Mossad safe house. 3. Dishwasher at IRA safe house. 4. With junkie who left his dirty works in the sink 5. Subletting on Turk & Hyde from a guy who got picked up later for bank robbery. He told me to tell the building manager I was his girlfriend if asked about what I was doing there.  – Melissa E.

3. Reality

The one that caused Oakland rents to rise 20% this last year. – Charlie L.

2. A Room by the Beach

Got a nice room near the beach but landlord/roommate was always wasted drunk, peeing on the couch in the living room, threatened to kill the neighbors, punched me in the face on 2 different occasions until I found him dead on the living room floor one morning. Then I got illegally evicted from his ex-girlfriend that inherited the house. I am not exaggerating.
– Michelle A.

1. For Real Though

The line of tents along the road by rainbow grocery. It’s like a small city there now. – Brenda B.

Thanks EVERYONE for mixing it up with us!

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