The Car Sleepers

How does a person end up sleeping in his or her car? As many more sadly
realize in this broken economy and housing market, there are a number of
ways.

In my case, months of secondhand apartment smoke exposure came to a
head, affected my health, and made me run screaming from the building (so
to speak – dramatic imagery in any case). Property management would do
nothing but deny. I was unable to move to a new place. I would not pay for
hotels in addition to paying my apartment rent. (Well, occasionally! . . .)

Waves and walls of thick secondhand cigarette smoke would drift from the
next door neighbor’s apartment through vents and insulation and electrical
outlets, commencing our coughing, gagging and nausea. My partner and I
never knew when it might happen or how long it would last if it did occur.
7 AM. 10 AM. 5 PM. 3 AM. Goodbye to breathing clean air. Goodbye sleep.
Hello anxiety. My system was toxic. It would take me days to clear my lungs,
throat and mouth after blasts of secondhand smoke - especially if I’d 
breathed the smoke for a long time as I occasionally deeply slept.

The chemical assault worsened when the smoker tried to mask the smoke
with tons of spray ‘air freshener’ – the combination causing vomiting.

I needed space and air and a level of physical and psychological protection:
a car provided this in a pinch. A discreet place to park was a gift. A shady
spot was a blessing. I became obsessed with air: clean, cool, moving air!
I had nightmares that I couldn’t breathe. (Who, me, a candidate for The
Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very VERY Nervous? Nevah.)

In California it is illegal to sleep in one’s car on a public street. The politics of
parking: my apartment complex cul de sac parking spot worked for a while,
until fights, yelling and speeding cars in an adjacent parking lot became a
nuisance to me. The police eventually asked me to leave one morning at
3 AM, after patronizingly treating me like a domestic abuse victim
(Secondhand smoke? Duh. Can’t be.).

In supermarket parking lots where I parked and slept at night, I began to
identify the other car sleepers. The middle-aged lady with the wool cap and
the sunburned face, seemingly ashamed to make eye contact, who had a
camper shell on her small pickup truck; the discreet, quiet older man in
his old Ford Falcon with his small, well-trained, mostly quiet black dog; the
occasional RVs that would park overnight; the families with their belongings
stuffed into cars, cruising for spare change and recyclables, likely terrified of
running out of gas. Move on, you people.

At about eleven PM skate-boarders would show up in cars and get out their
boards to use the lot. Teenagers would drive their large trucks, speeding
through the parking lot sounding their horns. One group of teens parked
beside the older man in the Ford Falcon. I couldn’t hear what was being said
but soon noticed that the Ford Falcon was gone. I was concerned about the
man’s safety but have since seen him. If you are perceived as homeless,
some people will want to kill you. Or at least make you move on. Don’t be
human or needy around here, people. Move on.

Daily panic ensued; I’d need to formulate a plan: where would I park that
night? Might I sleep at home, or would it be toxic? What if I manage to go
to sleep there and wake up choking on smoke, then have to drive and find
a spot at 3 AM? Oh the complexities . . . I googled and found a twenty-four
hour truck stop off the I-5 that had (surprise) twenty-four hour parking
(truck stops used to freak me out, especially one off the I-40 in Oklahoma,
but that’s another story). It turned out that the location was near the
river, with a view and strong cool breezes. They also had a so-called family
restaurant with gingham tablecloths and chicken-fried steak, so they must be
safe, right? It was disconcerting however when the truck stop convenience
store clerk rented towels and showers to truckers as I paid for my protein bar. The towels were not fluffy.

I saw no fellow car sleepers, though there was a weirdly dynamic couple in
a seeming serial killer van parked near me. She was a tiny thing, walking a
large dog on the grass and smoking a cigarette. He was big and tall with a
booming voice, and his staring unnerved me. Lookee lookee. A lone woman.
I hesitated to tell them: “Put out those frickin’ cigarettes!”

The smoke issue at home now seems under control after much
communication with – and humiliation by – property management. I found it
difficult to segue back into the apartment life after sleeping in the car. I was
very anxious being there, as my brain and body were primed for blasts of
smoke, as if on cue. I couldn’t relax at first and still find it difficult at times.
But my time semi-displaced was clearly easy compared to those who have
nothing but a car to exist in – for those who have nothing but a shopping
cart for their stuff – for those who have children to care for.

I didn’t realize how vulnerable I’d feel alone in my car at night, sleep-
deprived, noises waking me up under the curious gazes of judgmental
strangers. Intellectually I’d understood homelessness. Now, emotionally,
I was having a learning experience.
 

The Wandering Disgruntled pt 2
Ordeal by Smoke
Legislature Approves Rental Unit Smoking Ban