This is probably a bit of an obscure one, thinking about it. I used to live with my mum right up until I got kicked out this March. Seeing as I was 17 at the time and was suffering a bit of a drug problem, the powers that be placed me into the magical world of Supported Housing. For those that haven't heard of this (I.E pretty much everyone), this is one of the routes you go down if you're deemed unable to take care of yourself for one reason or another. This means that I live with a pretty diverse group of people, and by diverse I mean complete fucking nutters.
My next door neighbour hears voices and sees demons and it's not uncommon to hear him talking to himself in the shower, the guy next door to him beat up his elderly grandmother after she refused to fuel his gambling addiction. Further down is a guy who has completely lost the plot (drug-induced psychosis) after years of Ketamine and MCAT, who regularly accuses people of stealing his drugs/shagging his on/off missus and seems to enjoy telling us that we will go nowhere in life. Pretty rich from someone who bitches about being kicked off an adult education course because he couldn't be arsed to show up on the first day. His neighbour was a bloke who had quite the affinity for sharps to the point where we'd be finding knives down the back of sofas, in our rooms, in the toilet, pretty much everywhere but the kitchen. He's currently in prison for an armed robbery, god bless his soul.
Downstairs we've got a girl who is the thickest and most obnoxious person I have ever met in my life. She's joined by an MCAT addict who keeps forgetting to wash, another bloke who flat out refuses to wash and stinks out any room that he enters and someone who decided that robbing the lead from the shelter roof for weed money was the best idea ever.
Obviously this "diversity" leads to frequent.. er.. tensions. This isn't helped by the fact that the staff are terrified of any visits from the Police or Environmental Health checks, because the conditions are so poor that it's starting to look like we might get closed down. Imagine a 21st century permanent adaptation of Lord of the Flies that you also have to live in, day after day and you'll see what I mean. I came back from a funeral a few weeks ago to find human shit in the kitchen sink, which had apparently been in there for a while since nobody could be arsed to clean it up.
I feel really isolated from the outside world as well. Somehow, when people hear about your circumstances, they stop returning your calls and messages. I spend most of my time browsing imageboards and news sites through an internet connection created with the help of a password reset disk, a .bat file and ICS.
Oh, and this also costs the taxpayer in excess of £300 a week in rent alone, not counting staff or the endless array of social workers and similar services that are layed on by the council or the crippling debt that most of us are in because the council, in their infinite wisdom, pay Housing Benefit directly to the shady housing association that owns the place. You'd think that this would work well, considering the state of the people who tend to occupy these shitholes, but somehow things are never that simple.
This doesn't cover half the shit that goes on in these places, if anyone wants a deeper insight from the other side of the coin, a guy who used to work in the industry wrote a brilliant blog and book on the subject (Winston Smith - Generation F).
Ask away if theres something in particular that you want to know.
>>16184 Hopefully within the next 6 months, you can stay here for 2 years before they turf you out though. It's tricky because if I got a job, I'd lose the housing benefit and be liable for the full rent. /101/ because I hate it.
>>16189 Yeah, there's not a lot they can do. Apparently this place is a bit of an anomaly, where the building i owned by one housing association and operated by another, so if you try to raise an issue with either of them the stock reply is that it's the responsibility of the other.
>>16190 A bit of everything really, weed and synthetic cannabinnoids to get me through the day and other stuff on top of that if I felt like pushing the buzz a bit further. Off the top of my head:
There's a few more but mostly other variations of research chemicals.
>>16188 There's definitely good days and I'd be lying if I said that nothing interesting or funny ever happens. It's just a bit intense having to deal with it day after day.
This is our kitchen a while back, every single bowl, plate or utensil in this picture got thrown away when the smell got too bad.
>>16192 On the subject of regular doping, a study was in the papers today saying that smoking skunk once a week lowers teenagers' IQ by an average of 6 points by the time they reach adulthood.
Seems that I might have narked off my housing association a little, got a threatening letter from the landlord telling me that I keep "hacking" the computers or CCTV I'll be booted out. They monitor the wifi here as well so they'll probably see this thread and boot me out anyway.
>>16192 It's easier than you think if you preload before you take it and only snort lines. Magnesium supplements help with the gurn and there's a wide range of downers to get you to sleep when it wears off. Having mates who deal is useful when you're skint. I've thought about studying Pharmacology or Organic Chemistry before, but I left school with no qualifications whatsoever which makes these things a bit tricky.
>>16194 Wouldn't surprise me if that was the case to be honest. Then again, I was reading this article in a certain red top that was telling me how nitrous was going to kill the yoot and bring about a new age of terror or something so, y'know, grain of salt and all that.
>>16285 >They monitor the wifi here as well so they'll probably see this thread and boot me out anyway.
Well that's dickish. In fact, so dickish is it that it has motivated me to write an open letter to your housing association.
Dear OP's housing association,
Stop being dicks. Yours, some bloke off of the Internet.
>>16285 >I left school with no qualifications whatsoever which makes these things a bit tricky.
Tricky, but not impossible - an Access course takes 1 year full time or two part time at most places, so if your interest is serious then have a word with your keyworker (if you have one) about where to go to find out about funding and support (living in supported accomodation you may be able to access stuff most people can't).
