San Francisco Software Engineer lives in her Van

[eDJ_]

Saw this today and thought it may be of interest here.  I understand it is illegal to live in a vehicle in California.

Rent is so high in San Francisco that I’m a software engineer and I live in a van

About a year ago, I was having lunch with a friend when I made a throwaway comment: “Have you seen the rent in San Francisco? If I get a job in the Bay Area, I’ll totally live in a van.”
As I sit in darkness writing this, I’m trying to keep my typing quiet, lest a real inhabitant of the neighborhood I’m parked in should walk by and wonder about the sounds coming from the rusty bus loitering on their block. Yes, you understood that correctly: Today, I work in a multi-million dollar office complex, and I live in a van.
This summer, after receiving a job offer in Silicon Valley, I went on Craigslist and began sifting through housing listings: “verrrrrryyy cheap bedroom ,” “great deal on rent!” A single room with a shared bathroom? Two thousand per month on the low-end. A small studio apartment, you ask? If your startup wasn’t recently bought for seven figures, forget about it.
I perked up after finding a listing for $1,000 per month. Now this could work. Clicking through to the details section however revealed the offer was for a single bunk in a room with eight people, a set-up referred to as a “hacker house” by an (evil) marketing genius.
Even if I was to spend the huge majority of my salary on rent, I knew I would likely still be in a grim living situation, resenting every penny I handed over that could have gone towards paying back my student loans. And as a software engineer, I’m one of the lucky ones! Imagine those who aren’t lucky enough to be on the tech payroll.
Anyway, three weeks ago I took the equivalent of three months’ rent and bought an old red bus. It’s a 1969 VW camper van with a hole in the floor and a family of spiders that has more of a right to be here than I do (sleeping in your car on public land in California is illegal).

But with the help of Ikea and an army of cleaning supplies I was able to get the bus into livable condition.

From certain angles, it even passes for a tiny, $1,000-per-month bedroom.

Overall, I’m proud of the way my project turned out. But of course this living situation wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t already have a job that feeds me and allows me to shower and do laundry at work. I also have a network of friends who are ready to step in should a crisis emerge and offer me a temporary bed. And I am a young, white woman, which gives me the immense privilege of pulling up a creepy van and parking it without being harassed. People don’t report me; neither do they assume I’m a vagrant. They smile and ask if I need anything.
There are many people who are forced to live in their cars because they really cannot afford to live in the Bay Area. I am not technically one of them, and in doing this by choice I am inevitably appropriating their hardships. However, I am also saving hard, trying to pay off my debts, and learning a few invaluable life skills—like carpentry and how to be a fairly competent mechanic—in the process. Also, I get to flood social media with updates that basically equate to “Ha. Told you I’d do it. Look at me now. I’m in a bus. You’re going to have to pay up on the $5 bet you made that I would never go through with it.”
To these insufferable comments my friends reply that it is $5 well spent.

This story appears in  "Quartz"  a digitally native news outlet for the new global economy.


Source:  http://qz.com/524138/rent-is-so-hig...t-im-a-software-engineer-and-i-live-in-a-van/


When I read about her concerns for neighbors hearing the clicking of her typing on a keyboard,  I wondered
why not use a projected light keyboard.   I understand that there are Smart Phones that can project a keyboard this way too.

http://www.prodigitalweb.com/how-to-use-laser-projection-keyboard/

 

[LeeRevell]

As I type this it strikes me, my Toshiba laptop keyboard is very quiet.
Those rents are utterly criminal!  Makes me really appreciate the Deep South.  My last rental, granted before 2001, I was paying $165 a month for a midsize singlewide trailer with no AC.  I was working for minimum wage at U-Haul.
Got my airport security job, also minimum wage.  Stayed in the cheap trailer.  Had soft spots in the floor, one window leaked, was hot in summer, but had gas heat for winter.   Landlord had mental issues (Literally!)   He sold the rentals to his evil sister, who was raising the rents to $450 a month!  We were PO'd. 
Then finally landed my IT job with the state and was soon able to buy my current property Doublewide on my little .47 acre of suburban Hell.  But it's MY suburban Hell.  I will never rent again.  I have read of sky high rents in other big cities, Chicago, NYC, LA, etc.  You couldn't pay me enough to move to and live there!  I value my 'quality of life", and my privacy.
Had I gotten into vanliving at that time, my office building did have a locker/shower room for employees, but laundry would have to done at a laundromat.  It would be doable, though needing a fixed 'mailing address', I would likely have used my parents' or a friend's address to receive mail.

 

[MK7]

Those rents are utterly criminal!  Makes me really appreciate the Deep South.  My last rental, granted before 2001, I was paying $165 a month for a midsize singlewide trailer with no AC.  I was working for minimum wage at U-Haul.

Yeah, but she probably makes $90,000-120,000/year, full benefits... and there are lots of such jobs there. Seems like she's just cheap....that vanagon looks like hell on wheels.

 

[Spirituallifetime]

Yeah, but she probably makes $90,000-120,000/year, full benefits... and there are lots of such jobs there.  Seems like she's just cheap....that vanagon looks like hell on wheels.

But after taxes and health insurance rent is about 40% of take home pay! I would live in a van too!

 

[USExplorer]

Working such a well paying job, why not get a nice used Sprinter and trick it out yourself? A Sprinter dweller would blend in very well.

I never got why people love rusty old vans.

 

[ZoNiE]

More dramatic that way.
Google will probably can her for the bad press.
Yes, I said Google. More than likely them.

 

[caseyc]

Come this February will be my 2nd anniversary of full timing in my van in the streets of Frisco. I now consider myself an expert at this, haha.

 

[MK7]

Come this February will be my 2nd anniversary of full timing in my van in the streets of Frisco. I now consider myself an expert at this, haha.

How do you find free parking? It's expensive as hell in Wash DC so I can't imagine what the cost is like in Frisco. Or do you hideout in the residential areas? But then, wouldn't rich people call the cops like crazy. But then again, you've been doing it for 2 years, so what's the secret?

 

[darude]

I thought California passed or struck down a law and saying with the way rents are that it's ok to live in a vehicle. I guess it would be all about location location. hell I see vans and RV'S parked all over the place with there gensets out

Post edited by Moderator

 

[accrete]

i know times have changed...
Though I had a great time living in a chevy based hi-cube van for nearly 2 years in San Francisco down to San Bruno area. I frequently parked the very commercial looking _van_ on side streets and was never harassed or asked to move. One thing I did do was always arrive about 10pm and leave about 6am.

Thom