So I was pretty pissed to see my landlord removed the bathtub faucet from my shower when he fixed the leaky bathtub faucet. Not because I ever took baths, but that was how I filled my water containers for camping. As he ended up replacing the entire faucet and ripping out the wall while making the he also installed a cheap waterproof wall over the sheet rock, that doesn’t match the rest of the shower stall which is yellowed plastic. I guess it doesn’t really matter, as the rest of my low rent apartment is falling apart, and honestly I’d rather pay less in rent then have a fancy bathroom. I did figure out how to use my kitchen sink to fill the water container. I’m not sure if my landlord would be happy to find I’m taking 3 or 6 gallons of water each time I camp, but I figure it’s probably a net savings to him, because I’m not flushing toilets or taking a shower while I camp. My lease (which has long been on an auto-extender clause) bans outdoor watering and car washing, but is silent on filling water jugs for camping.

I know a lot of my colleagues have much nicer apartments then I do. But I like my location and like how it’s cheap. I can get free Internet by walking down to the library or the park, I have public transit to take to work, and plenty of places to walk to get some exercise. While things are wearing out in my apartment due to age and somewhat my neglect after living there for ten years, renters don’t normally fix up their buildings themselves, and landlords only fix what is critical when a tenant resides there. No need to nice appearances when you not renting to a new person. I’m fine where I live, and in recent years have gotten the mold under control by using excessive amounts of concentrated bleach.

Some people dream of owning a house with marble kitchen tops, a big screen television, and hardwood floors. I’d rather own a house where I can burn my own trash, heat with wood I harvested, and power things with wind, sun, or micro-hydro. I also don’t mind firing up a gas powered generator – I’d rather burn gasoline that I bought for actual electricity used then send a check to an invisible entity plus a bunch of connection fees, that are bulk of my bill. Raise animals for meat, hunt and shoot on my own land. Sending your garbage to landfills and expensive trash fees suck. I hate sending my check every month to some distant utility, where they burn large quantities of natural gas, coal, and nuclear material to keep the lights on. I do pay a surcharge for so-called green energy like wind and small-scale hydro, but ultimately I recognize it all comes from the same big industrial pool known as the grid. I do support greening the grid and fixing urban problems like increasing recycling – but in the mean time, I’m all for making my own life more sustainable and less reliant on the urban systems.

My apartment is just a cheap place to stay when I’m making money in the city. I rarely spend time there except to sleep at night. I keep investing and saving money that will ultimately be used for buying land, and an inexpensive cabin or micro-home, somewhere that is low tax and regulation. I really prefer to spend my weekends in the wilderness, camping by a fire, listening to the birds and the wind. I like the colorful lights and music, and just enjoying those long summer nights – or the cold winter nights which seem to be eight months out of the year. I look at camping as my temporary home, a place where I can practice for my future to be.