History Main / HorribleHousing

* ''The Last Black Man in San Francisco'': Jimmy shares a room in a garage with his friend Mont, a room that has almost no room to move. The only reason they can live there is that it's Mont's grandfather's place. They also live in a neighborhood contaminated with toxic waste and with a long, unreliable bus ride to get anywhere. This contrasts with the BigFancyHouse that Jimmy claims is rightfully his and frequently visits.

Horrible Housing refers to a living space that is basically a hovel: cramped, messy, possibly pest-infested, and usually in the bad part of town. It may be poorly-maintained government housing, or owned by a CrankyLandlord that refuses to spend on maintenance and repairs. This indicates that the inhabitants are poor and cannot afford to move somewhere better, or are suffering through a bad turn of events. The characters likely will complain about their living conditions and hope for greener pastures, especially if there are wealthier characters in the work or if they used to live somewhere nicer themselves. However, sometimes characters will [[SlummingIt choose to live]] in bad conditions for various reasons, such as the "charm" and the surrounding community, or they may be TooDesperateToBePicky about shelter. TrashyTrailerHome is a subtrope, which treats the wheeled sort as the worst place imaginable to live.

* The Mankanshoku family of ''Anime/KillLaKill'', as well as their houseguest protagonist Ryuko, live in a squalid, one bedroom apartment in a section of town that would have to undergo massive renovation to be considered rundown because their eldest daughter Mako is a "No-Star" student at Honnouji Academy. Played with in that they're shown to be very happy there and, in an episode where they experience upward mobility due to Mako climbing the ranks of the school's hierarchy, they become much more distant and snobbish as their housing situation improves.

* In ''Manga/{{Uzumaki}}'', Kirie and her family have their home destroyed by a storm, and are forced to move into one of the cheapest houses in the town; one of the ancient terraced houses that have no furniture or room separation, where two other poor families were shown living earlier in the story. [[spoiler:When the spirals start to destroy the town, ''everyone'' is forced to move into these terraced houses, as they're the only ones that haven't fallen apart. Kirie and and her family are kicked out of what used to be their house by the people who sought shelter there.]] By that point, things were so dire that [[TooDesperateToBePicky nobody cared how crappy the houses actually were.]]

* At one point, after getting driven out of California, the ComicBook/{{Runaways}} ended up being so hard-up for living quarters that they stayed in an actual tenement in 1900's New York City (it's a long story.) They had one room for all six of them, and had to put of a bedsheet to separate the boys and girls.

* ''Film/TheGreatMuppetCaper'': The Happiness Hotel that Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo stay in is ''extremely'' cheap, but it's also in very poor repair. There's even a full musical number Lampshading how run-down the place is.

* ''Film/{{Joker|2019}}'': Arthur Fleck's apartment building is poorly-lit, badly-maintained and cramped, to the point that his mentally ill mother Penny continuously writes to Thomas Wayne in hopes that he'll move them somewhere better. In contrast, the Wayne estate depicted in the film is incredibly large for a family of three.
* ''The Last Black Man in San Francisco'': Jimmy shares a room in a garage with his friend Mont, a room that has almost no room to move. The only reason they can live there is because it's Mont's grandfather's place. They also live in a neighborhood contaminated with toxic waste and with a long, unreliable bus ride to get anywhere. This contrasts with the BigFancyHouse that Jimmy claims is rightfully his and frequently visits.
* In ''Film/MidnightCowboy'', Rizzo and Joe live together in a condemned building. There's no electricity, a long flight of stairs (which Rizzo struggles with because of his disability), and its facilities are next to nothing. It's cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and there's practically nothing for them to do there except listen to the radio and sleep. The place is generally dingy, dark and cramped. They cook their food on the one stove hob, but without a proper fridge, most of it comes from cans. It's never explicitly said what Rizzo is sick with, but it wouldn't be surprising if black mould or asbestos worsened his condition.

* ''Film/{{Shoplifters}}'': The family lives in a tiny, 2-room traditional Japanese home that's filled to the brim with stuff, reflecting their poverty and desperate situation. Shota doesn't have his own room, but has built himself a fort in the corner that he sleeps in. Osamu and Nobuyo have to wait for everyone else to leave the house in order to have sex, because they ordinarily just sleep in the middle of the dining room and have no privacy.

* ''Literature/EleanorAndPark'': Eleanor, her mother, stepfather and four younger siblings all live in a tiny two bedroom house. The five kids are all crammed in one room, with the girls in a bunk bed and the boys sleeping on the floor. There’s only one bathroom which is attached to the kitchen with no door and they use the bathtub to do laundry.

* ''Literature/{{Unforgiven}}'': Lilith lives with her brother Bruce and mother in a derelict house in a poor part of town. The roof is caving in, the garden is abandoned and full of weeds and there are problems with running water because of faulty plumbing. Lilith's mother works in many part-time jobs, which don't bring her much money, and in any case she spends most on Bruce, who is seriously ill. Lilith calls her house at one point "a rusting eyesore". This contrasts with RichBitch Chloe's huge white mansion filled with marble.

* Although the apartment from ''Series/TwoBrokeGirls'' has a fairly large living room and a small yard, it's otherwise not that great -- it's in a bad part of New York, the utilities barely work, the girls have to share a bedroom, and at one point it's got ''a rusty nail pointing up in the middle of the floor.'' (Yes, someone steps on it.) As pointed out by the title, neither Max and Caroline have much money as they're diner waitresses who run a struggling cupcake business.

* ''Series/HillStreetBlues'' had the Hill Street precinct cover whole blocks with housing like this. Pretty much every episode showed the police officers answering a call at one of these. It was explored when a local politician tried to bring attention to the horror of these living conditions by moving into one of them. He showed how bad the building was maintained by taking a group of reporters on a tour, where he pushed against a window to demonstrate the poor installation, and ended up falling through the window to his death.

* In ''Series/UnbreakableKimmySchmidt'', the New York basement Lillian rents Kimmy and Titus definitely falls into this -- it's in a gang-infested area, very cramped for two people, Kimmy lives in what's basically the closet, the floors are just "painted dirt", the shower is in the kitchen, and they have no door that separates their individual spaces. Titus lives there because he's a StarvingArtist, but Kimmy, who was trapped in a bunker for over a decade, doesn't know any better and finds the place charming. The show is a comedy that runs on Kimmy's [[PluckyGirl pluck and perk]], so many of the place's failings (such as "a water stain that looks like a face") are PlayedForLaughs.

Hello, to my walk in closets\\

* ''VideoGame/BlackAndWhite 2'': Hovels are the cheapest, smallest, and nastiest way to house [[AGodIsYou your villagers]]. They're also a deliberate cruelty, since you need to spend [[ExperiencePoints Tribute]] on the ability to build them. The default home has a lower production cost per resident and generates happiness instead of unhappiness, so the point of building hovels is to make people cramped and miserable.

* ''VideoGame/CityBuildingSeries'': All early housing is like this; cramped, ugly (to the point of preventing nearby housing from evolving), unsanitary (as residents scavenge for food and water) and crime-ridden (especially if there's no police presence). It's in the player's best interest to make sure as much housing as possible has access to amenities (food, water, health, religion and entertainment), since this gives more workers for the same amount of space, reduces crime, and pay more in taxes.

* In ''VideoGame/ThePark,'' Lorraine's house is a dingy, filthy, dilapidated-looking wreck with only only three rooms and a decidedly uninviting decor. Lorraine can barely afford to keep the lights on at the best of times, and recalls spending a lot of time reading to Callum whenever the power got shut off; for good measure, it's not uncommon for the kitchen to be littered with [[DrowningMySorrows empty liquor bottles]]. [[spoiler: It's also Lorraine's BlackBugRoom: [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight the Bogeyman]] traps her here as part of her ongoing MindRape, decorating the place with blood, mocking letters, burning dolls, and hanged corpses.]] Of course, [[VideoGame/TheSecretWorld following the events of the game]], Lorraine's housing situation becomes even more depressing: [[spoiler: she most commonly sleeps in war zones, [[GhostCity ghost cities]] and ruins; the one time she's seen renting a nice hotel room, [[DrivenToSuicide it's to commit suicide]].]]

* Kathy from ''VisualNovel/DaughterForDessert'' describes her studio apartment as “crappy,” but it’s mostly an informed attribute, since we don’t really get to see its condition. All we really know about it is that it’s small.

* ''Webcomic/AwfulHospital'': Lady [[FallenPrincess Celia]], ''Bandit Princess!'', tries to [[https://bogleech.com/awfulhospital/264.html pretend]] that her ramshackle shack in the woods is "some wretched vagrant's filthy hovel". Fern isn't fooled, but lets the lie pass.

** In the episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS17E12MyFairLaddy My Fair Laddy]]", Groundskeeper Willie lives in a tiny shack (basically a glorified tool shed) with a leaking roof, indicative of his feral, uncivilized condition. Once Lisa teaches him how to be a gentleman, he moves out of the shack, and sings a song called "I Could be Indoors All Night". After he [[SnapBack becomes dissatisfied with civilized life]], he longs for the shack and moves back in.

Similar tropes include BadBedroomBadLife, where the poor state of a character's bedroom specifically reflects their life struggles; BathOfPoverty, for when the bathroom specifically is rundown; and NeglectedGarden, for when a depressed character isn't taking care of their garden.

* ''VideoGame/BlackAndWhite 2'': Hovels are the cheapest, smallest, and nastiest way to house [[AGodIsYou your villagers]]. They're also a deliberate cruelty, since you need to spend [[ExperiencePoints Tribute]] on the ability to build them. The default home has a lower production cost per resident and generates happiness instead of unhappiness, so the point of building hovels is to make people cramped and miserable.
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'': The two cheapest houses you can buy are squalid one-room shacks on the Imperial City waterfront and over a canal in the WretchedHive of Bravil. The seller of the former reacts with a surprised "Why?" when you express interest, while that of the latter bluntly says that "the smell will soon make you forget how ugly it is."

* ''VideoGame/BadMojo'' is set within ''Eddie's On the Waterfront'', a run-down San Francisco bar with an apartment overhead. The bar's owner, Eddie Batitto is an alcoholic slob who's stopped caring for the place since [[spoiler: his wife's death]]. When Eddie's tenant, [[PlayerCharacter Roger Samms]] has his soul made into a cockroach by a [[OrphansPlotTrinket mysterious locket]], the bar's infrastructure becomes several times more dangerous. [[spoiler: At one point, Roger even has to ''disable the pilot light'' on a gas stove to cross an obstacle, which eventually leads to the bar [[StuffBlowingUp exploding]] when the water heater ignites.]]

* ''VideoGame/BadMojo'' is set within ''Eddie's On the Waterfront'', a run-down San Francisco bar with an apartment overhead. The bar's owner, Eddie Patitto is an alcoholic slob who can't afford repairs. When Eddie's tenant, [[PlayerCharacter Roger Samms]] has his soul made into a cockroach by a [[OrphansPlotTrinket mysterious locket]], the bar's infrastructure becomes several times more dangerous. [[spoiler: At one point, Roger even has to ''disable the pilot light'' on a gas stove to cross an obstacle, which eventually leads to the bar [[StuffBlowingUp exploding]] when the water heater ignites.]]

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 5[[superscript:th]] Edition: Living conditions at the "squalid" level, such as a vermin-infested boarding house, expose a character to violence, disease, and deprivation with little hope of aid or legal recourse.

* In ''Film/MidnightCowboy'', Rizzo and Joe live together in a condemned building. There's no electricity, a long flight of stairs (which Rizzo struggles with because of his disability), and it's facilities are sub-par. It's cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and doesn't help Rizzo's health at all. The place is generally dingy, dark and cramped, and they have fold out mattresses with barely any integrity. They cook their food on the one stove hob, but without a proper fridge, most of it comes from cans. It's never explicitly said what Rizzo is sick with, but it wouldn't be surprising if black mould or asbestos worsened his condition.

Another similar trope is BadBedroomBadLife, where the poor state of a character's bedroom specifically reflects their life struggles, and BathOfPoverty, for when the bathroom specifically is rundown.

* In ''Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'', Charlie's family's poverty is exaggerated with their house being a run-down, wooden dump in the middle of an otherwise normal city. It's so shabby that there aren't even any actual rooms, and his grandparents all sleep in the middle of the house.
* In ''Film/DasepoSonyo'', Poor Girl lives with her mother and little brother in a tiny one-room apartment. There's no bathroom indoors, so when her mother gets bedridden, she resorts to relieving herself in a bottle.
* In ''Film/TheGreatMuppetCaper'', the Happiness Hotel that Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo stay in is extremely cheap, but it's also in very poor repair. There's even a full musical number Lampshading how run-down the place is.

* ''Film/Joker2019'': Arthur Fleck's apartment building is poorly-lit, badly-maintained, and cramped, to the point that his mentally ill mother Penny continuously writes to Thomas Wayne in hopes that he'll move them somewhere better. In contrast, the Wayne estate in the film is incredibly large for a family of three.
* In ''Film/TheLastBlackManInSanFrancisco'', protagonist Jimmy shares a room in a garage with his friend Mont, a room that has almost no room to move. The only reason they can live there is because it's Mont's grandfather's place. They also live in a neighborhood contaminated with toxic waste and with a long, unreliable bus ride to get anywhere. This contrasts with the BigFancyHouse that Jimmy claims is rightfully his and frequently visits.
* ''Film/Parasite2019'': The poor Kim family lives in a cramped, smelly semi-basement in a street that easily floods. This is contrasted with the rich Park family's lovely, spacious home.
* In ''Film/QueenOfKatwe'', Phiona and her family live in a shack with no running water. Before joining the Young Pioneers, she'd hardly ever taken a bath.
* In ''Film/{{Shoplifters}}'', the family lives in a tiny, 2-room traditional Japanese home that's filled to the brim with stuff, reflecting their poverty and desperate situation. Shota doesn't have his own room, but has built himself a fort in the corner that he sleeps in. Osamu and Nobuyo have to wait for everyone else to leave the house in order to have sex, because they ordinarily just sleep in the middle of the dining room and have no privacy.
* Peter Parker's apartment in ''Film/SpiderMan2'' and ''Film/SpiderMan3'' is one of these. It's small, it's ugly, and the door sticks. Presumably this is because he went with the cheapest option, being stuck in PerpetualPoverty (not that it stops [[CrankyLandlord Mr. Ditkovich]] from taking what little money he can get).

* In ''Film/SeasonOfMiracles'', Rafer and his dad live in a run-down, dirty, badly-lit house.
* Elwood Blues, of ''Film/TheBluesBrothers'', lives in a ramshackle Chicago flophouse right next to the subway line. The train, in his own words, goes by "so often you won't even notice it."

* In ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', the homes of the Outer Party members and the Proles are all filthy, dilapidated, and in a very poor state of repair. In particular, the Victory Mansion apartment block where Winston lives is in a constant state of breakdown: the lifts are always out of order, repairs around the apartments are strictly DIY, and the only thing that works are [[BigBrotherIsWatchingYou the omnipresent telescreens used to spy on the residents]]. Not that the Inner Party residences are much of an improvement...
* In ''Literature/TheBigOverEasy'', Humpty Dumpty is found dead near his home in Grimm's Row, where he lived in a dingy, tiny room in a boardinghouse run by the world's meanest landlady in a bad part of town. The police are shocked by this fall from grace, as he was once a well-respected local luminary who recently publicly claimed to have a whole lot of money. [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Prometheus]] also lives there, due to his poverty and political persecution that resulted from his long imprisonment by Zeus. It turns out that that room wasn't Humpty's actual apartment, just his office, but one of his other residencies was just as bad- a nearly-abandoned row of flats filled with mold and about to be demolished. [[spoiler: The reason for these poor living conditions was that Humpty was involved in all sorts of illegal money-laundering and suspected people were out to kill him.]]
* In ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'', as in its adaptations, Charlie's family lives in a one-room shack that is so small that his four grandparents are all forced to sleep in the same bed.

* In ''Literature/{{Pachinko}}'', after Sunja and Isak move to Japan, they live in a very small apartment with a tin roof and thin walls that allow everything to be heard, and located in a bad part of town with untrustworthy, criminal neighbors. Eventually they have two households with six people living there. Despite the crappy conditions, they are relatively well-off because they own the place, a fact they are encouraged to conceal to avoid inspiring jealousy. While some of this is due to the family's low income (Isak is a poorly-paid minister), it's also because, as Koreans, they aren't allowed to live anywhere nicer.
* In ''Literature/RedDwarf: Last Human,'' Lister is sentenced to a long stay in a MindPrison for crimes against the GELF State, and though the VR scenario allows him civilian housing, his virtual home is easily the most disgusting place he could have ended up in: the bedroom is putrid even by [[ThePigPen Lister]]'s standards, the kitchen is befouled with dirty dishes and cooking fat, [[ItCameFromTheFridge the fridge is overflowing with putrescent gunk]], and the neighbors are unconscionably noisy. Everything here is tailor-made to make Lister feel as uncomfortable and disgusted as possible, and it's so bad that Lister does everything he can to avoid staying at home... [[CrapsackWorld not that it's any better outside]].
* In ''Literature/{{Unforgiven}}'' by Creator/LaurenKate, Lilith lives with her brother Bruce and mother in a derelict house in a poor part of town. The roof is caving in, the garden is abandoned and full of weeds and there are problems with running water because of faulty plumbing. Lilith's mother works in many part-time jobs, which don't bring her much money, and in any case she spends most on Bruce, who is seriously ill. Lilith calls her house at one point "a rusting eyesore". This contrasts with RichBitch Chloe's huge white mansion filled with marble.
* In ''Literature/EleanorAndPark'' Eleanor, her mother, stepfather and four younger siblings all live in a tiny two bedroom house. The five kids are all crammed in one room, with the girls in a bunk bed and the boys sleeping on the floor. There’s only one bathroom which is attached to the kitchen with no door and they use the bathtub to do laundry.
* ''Literature/TheKingstonCycle'' by C.L. Polk: [[IntrepidReporter Avia]] lives in a small apartment in a run-down tenement building since her wealthy family [[RichesToRags cut her off]]. [[UptownGirl Grace]] is taken aback when she learns that the building is owned by a company owned by her ex-fiancé's family.

* ''Saturday Night Live'': Motivational speaker Matt Foley lives in a van down by the river.

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* ''Saturday Night Live'': Motivational speaker Matt Foley claims to live in a van down by the river.

* ''Saturday Night Live'' Motivational speaker Matt Foley claims to live in a van down by the river.

* ''Saturday Night Live'': Motivational speaker Matt Foley claims to live in a van down by the river.

* ''Saturday Night Live'': Motivational speaker Matt Foley claims to live in a van down by the river.