- You’ve met several of your neighbors outside with lights flashing and sirens blaring.
- You can’t be 100% sure that the red smeared on the side door is ketchup.
- At least one vehicle in your parking lot has a club attached to the steering wheel.
- Someone stole two tires from your neighbor’s car while it was parked next to the building.
- You put duct tape on the bottom of your front door to seal it.
- You cover your secondhand sofa with bedsheets, towels, and/or a combination of the two to cover the gaping holes in the upholstery.
- You honk your car horn to let someone know you’ve arrived to pick them up.
- You open a window and shout at your neighbors to pipe down.
- Most of your furniture has come from friends and family (without any form of payment exchanging hands).
- You go “shopping” for furniture left by the dumpster.
- Your mattress and box springs are directly on the floor.
- More than one set of window blinds has been broken beyond repair at a time.
- You have resorted to putting one side of a large cardboard box in the bedroom window to block the street light out.
- You peruse the giveaway/discard pile in the hallway and have found several items to add to your cupboards.
- A white plastic outdoor table and chair set has served as your dining room table.
- There are circumstances under which you deem it acceptable to hitch a ride from a total stranger in a questionable part of town because you feel reasonably secure once you’ve seen that there are no bodies in the trunk.
- Cab drivers are afraid to pick you up at the location where you are when you call or where you will be going, so they insist on picking you up at a different place or dropping you off short of your intended destination.
- You have a printer that’s wireless, but a laptop that has to stay plugged in.
- You like to brag about how much junk you can fit in your car’s trunk.
- Loud music with more bass than treble has been known to blast through your walls.
- Packages delivered to your third-floor apartment have been stolen.
- Your building is so old not all of the outlets are grounded.
- You’ve resorted to doing several loads of laundry at a friend or family member’s house.
- It smells like a disposal blew chunks whenever your neighbor runs his dishwasher.
- You regularly borrow movies from friends with wide selections rather than renting movies through Redbox, Netflix, etc.
- Your big screen TV stopped working, and you left it where it was for months because you couldn’t afford to replace it.
- You actually get excited about clothes shopping at Goodwill.
- Your pajamas never match, and you wear them outside of your apartment to do chores such as: get the mail, take the trash out, and do the laundry.
- You have walked into a home goods store and said out loud near the customer service desk: “Those are too big to fit in our drawers” when you see a display of silverware trays.
- You’ve brought your own store-bought cake to the restaurant where you’re having your birthday dinner.
- You’ll wear a brand new pair of pants or a sweater without washing it first and are not offended by the term “picking tags.”
- You wear clothes that are two or more sizes too big for you.
- There isn’t a straight doorframe in your place.
- You still own and use a VHS player.
- A neighbor wearing an oven mitt on each hand has come to the door to ask for assistance in getting a bat out of her apartment.
- More leaks were found after the roof was fixed than before.
- The building’s two “cleaning” people sweep the hall and stairway carpets with tattered brooms once a week but never vacuum.
- In your mind, changing the shower curtain is synonymous with redecorating the bathroom.
- You are willing to eat soup directly from a pan to reduce the number of dirty dishes you will have to wash by hand.
- You turn in a school homework assignment on the back of a used envelope.
If you have anything to add to this list or that you think should be removed from it, please share your thoughts in the comments below.
