The worst apartment in which I lived was a tiny box-like structure tacked on top of a house. Concrete steps leading up to the front door were so steep that I lived in fear of tumbling and cracking my head open.
The floor was covered with the muddy brown carpet one associates with bad motels. The heater didn’t work, but if I turned on all four burners of the gas stove it was warm enough to be tolerable.
I battled infestations of rodents and insects. Cockroaches crawled without fear across the LED-lit numbers of the microwave; even the telephone smelled of roaches.
With small children at home I didn’t want to spray poison into the air, so I used every home remedy I knew, lining the baseboards with sprigs of rosemary, sprinkling cinnamon or baby powder on the countertops, and finally buying a device that plugged into an outlet and allegedly made a high-pitched noise that kept animal intruders at bay.
When I resorted to buying poisonous pellets, the mice rewarded me by dying inside the walls, leaving an unbearable stench that lasted at least a week.
The refrigerator worked sporadically, and the freezer not at all. I bought a bag of ice at the corner store each morning and prayed it would keep food from spoiling until we ate it.
I loved living there. My neighbors and I looked out for each other. We struggled together and it felt like an adventure. I wore my hardships as a badge of honor, proud of myself for managing my tiny sufferings.
Unlike many of my neighbors, though, in the back of my mind I knew that if the situation truly were unbearable, I could make different choices, get a better job or several jobs, and find a better neighborhood.
Decades later I find myself planted squarely in the middle class. We are the proud owners of a condominium on which we signed papers seconds before housing costs shot skyward. It’s a pretty little condo, large enough that my children don’t share a bedroom, in a neighborhood without much drama. I’m lucky to call it home.
It’s far from perfect. We don’t have a garage. There’s never enough parking. We can’t make any changes without HOA approval. The stairs could present difficulty when we’re old. The neighborhood isn’t walkable.
I’d love to buy a house. I’m convinced I’d be a better person if I could just start over somewhere new. I’d purge our home of extra belongings. Legos, stuffed animals and little plastic wrestlers would have to find new homes, accompanied by blouses that haven’t fit in years.
White baseboards would stay clean and mirrors spot-free. My yard would be artistically drought-resistant. I would be more domestic. I wouldn’t burn tortillas or undercook pasta. I would serve pumpkin soup in pumpkin-colored bowls a la Martha Stewart. A fresh start in a new house is all I need.
I flip through the Sunday paper, scanning the real estate section, dreaming of houses I can’t afford. I envy friends who have large new houses in east Chula Vista, or friends who live in west Chula Vista,where the houses are older, on large lots, with interesting construction.
We’re nice people who work hard, I tell myself. We deserve it. It seems unfair that such a tiny thing is out of my reach. Is a house with a spare room and a garage too much to wish for?
And then I go to work. In my class, a handful of families live in homes nicer than I can afford, and I admit to being jealous. The majority live in apartments, not unlike apartments I’ve lived in through the years. Districtwide, however, approximately one third of the students are homeless or live in substandard housing. They bed down in cars, in garages, in campers. They fight for space in shelters or motels. Some seek refuge in junkyards in the Otay area. They live piled up, large families in tiny rooms. Many of the parents are nice people who work hard, in many cases harder than me. It seems unfair that stable housing is out of their reach.
My roach-infested apartment of decades ago is a palace compared to the places children lay their heads each night. It is hard for them to keep clean, hard to get homework done, hard to get a good night’s sleep. Astute teachers know to give them the first few moments of the day for hygiene, recognizing that school may be the only comfortable place they have to use the bathroom.
At the end of each day, exhausted, I return home, my house envy held temporarily at bay. I won’t lie; I will continue to dream of better housing, but now it isn’t just for myself.
