There have been rumors and urban legends of street people climbing into clothing donation boxes during cold months to find clothes and to sleep using the piles of clothes as insulation.  In urban legend fashion the stories have a tragic end as the bum is unable to open the trap door he climbed in and eventually dies in the donation box only to be found later when the organization comes to check on the box.

This was not some urban legend that we where working to prove, or disprove, but while investigating a den of bum activity we stumbled upon this little bum condo hidden behind a strip mall.  It appeared to have been abandoned by the charity and moved to the back of the mall where a bum had turned it into upscale bum housing.  Compared to sleeping under a highway overpass this is a step up. 

It is just a little box but for the inventive bum it could be a home. I mean if Martha Stewart can make a holiday ornaments out of old coffee cans this little shed should be able to provide a bed, and place to store stuff. The resident bum used the limited resources at hand it appears to convert the box to a big bedroom.  I don’t understand where these street people find these mattress and how do the carry them down the street?  I guess that is how they use all those shopping carts they collect.  Somehow this bum found a big mattress, shoved it through the little door, and made a place to sleep. It made me think back to psychology class in high school and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  This bum had achieved the first two levels towards self actualization – his physiological needs had been satisfied as he had air, water, sleep and I will spot him that he has a place to excrete because this is not a scientific website and bum butt splatter is not going to be a smell I want to experience.  His little shed home satisfied the second need of Maslow’s hierarch for a place of safety.   This was a bum well on his way to being well adjusted and self actualized.

Examining the inside of the street person’s residence let us know that his clothing needs where met because they where scattered all across the bed like a teenage girl searching for the perfect outfit as she gets ready for her first day of high school.  Stuffed between the bed and the walls where all the possessions and supplies of this street person from a bible, to a loaf of bread, some items in a plastic bag which I really did not want to touch because it was hard to imaging what might be in the bag especially after our campaign to teach bums not to poop on the street but to use a bag.  I thought it was interesting that the resident bum did not take the opportunity to hang things from the wall so everything he owned was not on the ground.  I know it seems odd to expect him to build a shelf but how about exert the minimal effort to pound a nail or two into the wood and just hang something.  You went to the effort of dragging a damn dirty mattress from somewhere can you not hang some stuff up to keep it clean or your food away from bugs.  I also want to know that if bums can find a free mattress to sleep on why can they not find a sheet, or tarp, to cover it so we don’t have to see all the stains.

I guess this bum had something to offer a female street person. A room even if it is a clothing donation box is a residence.  That plus a few Ice House beers must move you up the ladder if you are a street person. I want to be panhandled by a bum who needs money for condoms. Image as he approaches you,” Hey, man check this out. Can you give me a couple of dollars cause that lady is willing to have sex with me in my clothing donation box if I can scrape up enough change for a rubber.  Help me out man do you know the last time I got laid?”  All I know is this bum now fits three of the five stages of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and is getting more action that the boys at one of those evangelical Christian schools.  Hell it is that Uber Christian Abstinence only garbage that probably caused this person to check out of society and just bang street chicks in a clothing donation box. If you have been taught your eternal soul is damned for premarital sex then living on street, panhandling, and drinking your tithe money is one way to pass your time on this earth while you are waiting to spend eternity burning in Hell’s fire. Next time you throw some old clothes into one of those donation boxes slip a condom in one of the pockets because if we need to promote safe sex amongst anyone it is street people before they breed and little unwashed street urchins are everywhere just like the musical Oliver! Except these kids won’t be able to sing and dance cute little songs about gruel – they will just smell bad. We left the bum jelly to turn to dust and continued on our mission to track the lives of bums, panhandlers and hustlers for street-people.com knowing another gross encounter was just a highway underpass bum camp away.