The starting point of the homeless traveller, a small house on the top floor rented for NT$3500

In the United Kingdom, I moved eight times in three years, I moved three times in Slovakia in five years, and I rented a house in Taiwan and moved twice in three years. These are not considered short-term living in a friend’s house for less than a week, nor Calculate the number of times the dormitory is changed each year in the dormitory of the four-year university.

By now, I will avoid places where the rent is too low (the chance of meeting a roommate who is a drunkard is relatively low), places that are too cluttered (how to live in a mess when looking at the house), and places where roommates are too young (European children love to drink In the middle of the night, find a friend to come to the house with alcohol and drugs), dimly lit roommates are mentally unstable (not to lie to you, there will be perversions or neuropathy...).

I have slept in a room for many years since I was a child, and living in a six-person dormitory when I just went to college is an exciting new thing. Compared to one of the roommates who later told me that there were so many people living together without freedom, I was very much looking forward to being able to live with five roommates. After being put out, I am tired of sharing space with my roommates. I have long wanted to move out and live in an apartment by myself, but I just think of the possessions that I have accumulated over the years, and moving is even more world-weary.

Thinking about the ten years of renting a house, the thing that makes me most uncomfortable is the two roommates under the same roof. Coincidentally, these two houses are stamped houses, one is stamped on the top floor in Taiwan, and the other is stamped with a garage in the UK. Unfortunately, my sample size is not large. I have lived in two places in Taiwan and encountered sexual harassment in one of them. Now I will definitely call the police directly, even if there is no evidence, I will frighten him to death, but then I only left that disappointing family with a bit of contempt. Perhaps my disappointment with that family was even lower than the sexual harassment itself.

When I lived in the top floor, I have many vivid memories. For example, I always walked to work in less than five minutes. The pace of life was so slow that I was not familiar with bicycles since I was a child. I immediately learned to ride a bicycle while holding an umbrella. , the small park opposite the residence once found a body so I never went in, and found a few cheap and delicious snacks around that I loved at the time, and the Morakot typhoon that started to make me realize this nightmare event.

The third floor is covered with a tin house. There are three rooms. I am the middle one. There is a small window on the wall by the corridor. It is the kind of decorative wooden window that can be found in old houses. There are probably some flowers in the window frame. bloom pattern. In the corners of the ceilings of the other two rooms, each has a small rectangular transom. Now I can't imagine why I would live in this room, there is no window to open to breathe the outside air directly, but when my parents accompany me to sign a contract with the landlord who lives downstairs, what attracts me is the possibility of living in a distance The illusion of a home, and the landlord's family is all girls and only rents to girls, there shouldn't be any problems in this house.

Until that summer, a distant relative of the landlord's house came, and the impression was that he was a teenager who had just reached adulthood, and he needed to live for half a year because of the internship. I, who have never had a sense of crisis, should think that it doesn't matter, just stay, who will do bad things at my relatives' house. Sometimes when I meet in the living room, I ask, "Do you want to eat fruit?" "Want to go out?" "What do you eat?". Most of the time, there is no interaction, because now I even have his face round or flat. Can not remember.

In the nights when Typhoon Morakot brought the wind and rain, it rained heavily, and a week or two before, there were also heavy summer thunderstorms. I don't know when it started, the sound of rain and thunder began to penetrate the iron sheets and partitions, making me unable to sleep. At one point, it seemed that something was shaking and the door was closing, but when I was finally woken up by the noise of the rain, when I opened my eyes, it was just me and my room. Sometimes there is too much wind and rain, and with the sound of the wind, a slight vibration can be detected through the room partition wall beside the bed.

A few weeks later, another heavy, late-night thunderstorm came, as if the previous waves of rain had been preparing for the night, and I quickly realized the unusual vibration that was somewhat familiar. I still closed my eyes but my mind was very clear. I wanted to know what the rhythmic rhythm was at the end of the bed. Although my feet were in the quilt, I felt it. It was the feeling of being touched by the temperature of the creature. So in a moment of turning over, I squinted to find the male roommate next door crouching at the end of my bed.

Silent and silent.

what should i do? During the sound training in the theater, I knew that my yelling was very weak, and I was used to being awake when it was dawn, and I didn’t believe that the landlord’s family downstairs would wake up because of my screaming. Come play directly? I didn't even think about it. And my body itself was not hurt, and I froze in the quilt and hesitated for a while. When there was no movement, I opened my eyes, the door was not fully closed, and the decorative window next to the door was not fully closed, but I would lock the door and close the ventilation window every day before going to bed.

It really wasn't a dream.

In those days when there were no smartphones, and no one told me how to react to the pervert in front of me, I texted my good friend and told her that a perverted roommate came in in the middle of the night and had a handjob. I wrote an article to vent my panic, and went to the office to tell my colleagues and friends what happened that night.

In one day, after various debates, the only male friend Y insisted that "Girls should not wear shorts at home to attract boys and end up asking for trouble." Other new women in theaters did not think so, "No one has the right to interfere with what I want to wear. To be comfortable, harassment is something that is not right in the law, and it is not my fault to harass me just because I dress well.” I seem to be sorting out some answers, finding all kinds of support from a lonely woman. strength.

After get off work, I told the landlord and her two daughters what their distant relatives had done in my room late at night. Surprisingly, they just kept stressing that the unresponsiveness was my problem.

"Next time it happens, you have to scream so we can catch someone. Just because you say it now, we can't say anything, and we can't tell him to move out because we didn't see what he did. ”

"But he's still very young. If you don't tell him, what if he thinks he can harass girls like this when he grows up?"

"…"

"Then I'm moving out."

"Well, although this is very temporary, it usually takes a month to tell, but the deposit doesn't matter, we will refund it to you."

"If you can, it's better to tell him, he lives here, and you are all girls too."

"…"

They were quite bothered by my request to talk to my male roommate and were reluctant to take any action. When the night came, Y and a female friend came to my room with me to spend the first restless night with me. The topic of conversation was always the same as last night, and he said aloud to the roommate next door. How uncomfortable the behavior is, even if someone does seductive and provocative behavior, it does not mean that he is allowed to do so!

As if a just counterattack under the table is underway.

But Y's argument lingered in my mind, and while I'm not of this faction, the thought that this is probably what the majority of men think, suddenly deepens the unease. Of course, what I like to wear is my freedom, but if this freedom attracts bees and butterflies like pollen, how do I get rid of them and find a gentleman roommate who understands the line?

I don't have an answer, I don't want to share a room with boys anymore.

Later, the three of us fell asleep on the bed and on the ground respectively. The next day, another friend rode a motorcycle and I searched the bulletin boards commonly used in urban rental housing advertisements, and looked at several rooms. Oh, back then, it wasn't like it is now. The physical community announcement was still very useful. Soon, I signed a contract with the new landlord and couple within a week. My colleagues drove all my belongings, and I rode a lady's bicycle to lead her. car to the new home.