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Since I came to Taipei to study at university, my days in Taipei have exceeded my original time in my hometown. But unfortunately I have not achieved anything, so far I still live in a suite on the top floor of an old apartment outside Taipei, a small space without a kitchen.

Because of the three-level alert, the supervisor was quite decisive to ask the employees in the group to work from home, but I only lasted for a week, so I still went to the company. The place is really small and there is a table next to the bed. Although I don’t fall asleep, I don’t like the feeling of mixing my daily life with my work place. In addition to the extreme heat, in the first few days of level 3, there was a sudden shortage of electricity in Taiwan. It was said that the power plant was out of power and the power supply was tight. It was said that everyone was working from home, resulting in a sharp increase in electricity consumption. Unexpectedly, going to work in the company has become a more energy-saving way.

Anyway, because of this, I started looking at home sales sites. But Ruan was shy. Although he worked for several years, he had no savings. When I was an exchange student in Japan for half a year, I basically drained the money I had saved. Although I don't regret it, I really feel the helplessness of having no money. I'm not a person with high material desires, and I once felt that Taiwan's housing prices are abnormally expensive, so I shouldn't carry a large amount of debt to buy a dwelling and tie myself to death. But when I get older, I feel that there is a place where I can live a stable life, and it seems that I have a place to fall back on. But this is just thinking about it. Even if Shuangbei is like a poison cave now, the real estate price is still high. A friend from my hometown in Zhongli urged me to move to Taoyuan, which was cheaper. But my colleague lives in Taoyuan, so long commute is a big hurdle, and I don't have a car, which is even more inconvenient.

Staying in the rental place for a long time, spend more time cleaning. I made a special trip to buy a bottle of hydrogen peroxide to wipe the floor and furniture, which is much cheaper than alcohol. Before, I would buy Dettol to use, but Dettol is not cheap, and hydrogen peroxide is more cost-effective.

However, my room is really small, a basin of water mixed with hydrogen peroxide, after wiping the floor and furniture, there is still no dirt, so I simply wipe it together with the outside of the room. The top floors of old Taiwanese apartments are often made of simple iron sheets, separated into several rooms, with a small corridor in the middle. After I finish cleaning the room, I will even wipe the corridor outside, and disinfect it by the way, to protect myself and others.

The outside hallway is usually not cleaned, so it is always full of dust and dirt when it is first cleaned. But once or twice, it gradually became cleaner, and I felt more comfortable. As a result, I felt a sense of accomplishment in cleaning the outside corridor, and I felt clean. Although no one could see it, I felt at ease.

This old apartment may have been around for forty years, not much different from my hometown. However, my dad once said that the building where my family lived, because it was an architect who wanted to live by himself, the construction was rigorous and the materials were firm. This was confirmed once during the September 21 earthquake. Compared with the huge diagonal cracks in the walls of many apartment buildings, my house only has a slight crack next to the window, which is really not worth mentioning. When I was renting out, I felt that many similar time-built apartments in New Taipei were shoddy. Although it was not obvious from the outside, the details were very casual. This is the case in the building I live in now. Every step of the stairs is different. It is very easy to get tired when climbing. The windows are easy to spray rain in. Water accumulates on the floor of the stairs.

But in the case of no money, looking for cheap accommodation in Shuangbei, you can only choose this kind of old house. I looked at the home sales network, and even the houses that were to be demolished even had prices. I know that most of these are bought by investors to divide the house, but it still makes me speechless. Living in Taipei is not easy, and the most difficult part is living. This is probably a monster created by Taiwanese enjoying relatively cheap prices and low-level wages. The most direct impact is that in the old apartments in Shuangbei, almost none of them have been turned indoors without opening the balcony, and they even have to set up large iron windows outside to steal space. Taipei's people are exhausted, and the result is that the city's appearance is like a backward and poor third world, and there is no beauty at all.