What Happened To Boarding Houses?

[Meerkat]

Have you ever watched "The Twilight Zone"? There are a few episodes where Boarding Houses were the settings. Many times boarding houses were big homes where maybe the husband died and the wife/children consolidated and took in a couple of "boarders". They had their rooms, ate at the family dinner table with family and all became somewhat a family.
Here's the wiki explanation of boarding houses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_house

Kinda like Bates Hotel?

 

[Cnsper]

Weedy yes there was those too but I'm talking about the 'Dry Cleaners and Laundry's'. We used them at times too. Most people took clothes to them one time or another. Every town had one, big cities had many.
You dropped off your dirty clothes and picked them up in a day or so some advertised ' One Day Service' . Most ran by Chinese and your laundry would be wrapped in brown paper tied with string. And somehow amazingly it was folded in a perfect way that was ready to wear with no wrinkles at all. Business suits 'Dry Cleaned' and pressed and hung on wire hangers.

Those were not hangars, it was welding rod and muffler repair wire. How people ever got the idea that they were for hanging clothes is beyond me.

You are going to confuse the youngins by calling them hangars and we will have another generation that loses the original use and intent...

 

[Meerkat]

Those were not hangars, it was welding rod and muffler repair wire. How people ever got the idea that they were for hanging clothes is beyond me.

You are going to confuse the youngins by calling them hangars and we will have another generation that loses the original use and intent...

Oh thats right, and since Joan Crawford is no longer here to stop the deluge of the wire hanger we need to inform people.

 

[backlash]

Hostels are about as close as it gets today.
They are for people traveling around the world and not really for working people to live.
I had a friend that lived in a rooming house.
It was cheap and he could have a hot plate in his room to cook.
It was also full of drunks and druggies.
He was a life long drunk.
It was not a place I would like to be in.

 

[Meerkat]

Hostels are about as close as it gets today.
They are for people traveling around the world and not really for working people to live.
I had a friend that lived in a rooming house.
It was cheap and he could have a hot plate in his room to cook.
It was also full of drunks and druggies.
He was a life long drunk.
It was not a place I would like to be in.

In the old days that would have been a flop house aka dive, boarding houses didn't allow those kind things.

 

[JAC]

Keep in mind that in the old days families were very large. I would think that it wasn't much of a transition for a mother of 12 kids to move right over to renting rooms and board after the kids were grown and moved out. Same job only now it comes with pay.

 

[Meerkat]

Keep in mind that in the old days families were very large. I would think that it wasn't much of a transition for a mother of 12 kids to move right over to renting rooms and board after the kids were grown and moved out. Same job only now it comes with pay.

Good point Jac.

 

[backlash]

In the old days that would have been a flop house aka dive, boarding houses didn't allow those kind things.

It was a flop house then also.
I felt like I needed a shower after I stopped in to see him once.

 

[tiffanysgallery]

Hostels are common near the great smokey mountains for the hikers walking the appalachian trail.

Wonder why Miss Kitty's saloon had an upstairs... surely her only income wasn't from beer...

 

[Star_Chick]

Oh thats right, and since Joan Crawford is no longer here to stop the deluge of the wire hanger we need to inform people.

Wire hangers? I’ve only had plastic ones. I’m sure I have seen wire hangers, but never had them in my house. We also had wooden ones. My husband is partially correct. Millennials are so screwed! LOL

 

[Terri9630]

ABQ is getting stranger by the day. My uncle still lives there. He complains about some art installation all the time. I think the best thing they did was create a way for the homeless to have jobs. I think ABQ is trying to do the right thing, but I think im some ways they are misdirected. I used to live in the war zone. Now that place should be bulldozed, cleaned up, and perhaps use that space for the mini homes. It is close to a lot of work places. I used to take the bus from there to the old Winrock mall for my job.

Its the A.R.T., Albuquerque Rapid Transit. Its been a traffic nightmare for the people/businesses along the construction route.

 

[Weedygarden]

Keep in mind that in the old days families were very large. I would think that it wasn't much of a transition for a mother of 12 kids to move right over to renting rooms and board after the kids were grown and moved out. Same job only now it comes with pay.

I think that a mother with many children made the most of the children by the help they provided in cleaning and cooking and other needs. Each of the families that had boarding houses in my family had many children.

 

[dademoss]

Those were not hangars, it was welding rod and muffler repair wire.

Grandpa would only use the black coat hangers for gas welding, the brown weren't as good in his opinion

 

[JAC]

Grandpa would only use the black coat hangers for gas welding, the brown weren't as good in his opinion

Brazing. I watched a service manager weld motor mounts on a drag bike frame by Brazing with coat hangers.

 

[Peanut]

Decades ago I stayed in what had been a rooming house beside Bayou Lafourche in backwater LA (have to say it in Cajun French). The rooms were cheap, only $4 a night, considering I only had $15 until I picked up my paycheck the next day… in my price range.

The roaches weren’t the problem, it was the plaster dust drifting off the ceilings. The next morning I woke up looking like I had on “white face” for a Broadway play. At least I could rinse off in the common bathroom, a deep sink at the end of the hall.

There was one high point. The check in desk… which was the bar down stairs, they had a good hamburger and entertainment. The bar was a very wide and shallow “U”. I was at one end enjoying my burger after I checked in, it came with the room, fries and beer was extra.

Opposite me at the far end of the bar was a young kissy face couple enjoying a pitcher of beer. Halfway through my burger came the entertainment. Another young man entered the bar, walked to the young couple and put a gun to young man #1’s head. It was a Smith “Chiefs Special”. The other folks at the bar, who I discerned to be locals, and the bartender, didn’t seem concerned by this development, as if it happened every day, nothing to get excited about.

The problem seemed to be that young man #1 was playing kissy face with the wife of young man #2.

There was much cursing and name calling and threats of imminent demise. The funny part… in the middle of this spectacle…

A local got up from the bar, walked to the jukebox and played “Gimme Three Steps" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, a popular song at the time… I choked on my burger… sorry, but it funny!

Eventually the young married couple left, no one got shot and young man #1 went upstairs, I assume to change his pants.

Later I asked the bartender if that happened every day. He said “No, not every day, maybe 2 or 3 times a week, it’s a thing with them” (meaning the young couple).

To this day I remember every moment of the entertainment.




Edited to add... 3 months later I passed by that place and it had been condemned, shame, they had a good burger. Sad to say I'm sure the young couple ended up with someone badly hurt.

 

[The Lazy L]

Anyone remember the boarding house?...

I'd figure federal, state and local regulations ran them out of business.

 

[Meerkat]

It was a flop house then also.
I felt like I needed a shower after I stopped in to see him once.

 

[Weedygarden]

I'd figure federal, state and local regulations ran them out of business.

In a way, by providing welfare and housing to low lifes, and women getting jobs.

One of the boarding houses in my family was in California. One of my dad's cousins was a welder during WW II. Sometime along the way, she began to run a boarding house. Her father had had sleeping sickness and was no longer able to run the farm. So her parents left South Dakota and went to California to help run the boarding house. After a short period of time, they moved to Oregon with most of their 8 children. They ran a cafe, a motel, and the men working as lumberjacks. The life in Oregon suited them more than city life.