CONFESSIONS OF A BOTTOM FEEDER
by Anita Sands Hernandez
astrology@earthlink.net

Many modern city dwellers who want to give their life over to painting or writing and who work 8 hours a day at their beloved artform, find that they can survive perfectly well without a 'regular job.'They do the work they adore and pay rent with sales! They live in picturesque, old homes with huge, jungley gardensand pay their way painting portraits, painting junked furniture with faux finishes, doing ceramics, sewing, designing textiles, wall hangings, maybe even painting houses, (again, faux finishes "shabby Chic"-- nothing banal.) 

They are artists and not all of them are starving artists, either. They live in homes because they are esthetically pleasing and provide many large rooms for offices, studios, and a big garage for carpentry work. They provide hugegardens in which they can grow food, --a pursuit that is considered a soul-satisfying art form, not an obligation, although it makes eating really delicious gourmet things like nectarines, artichokes, asparagus, and oranges that have hung a full three years in a tree, and are truly ripe, so it makes a really fine life cheaper!

These jungley homes aren't all rented homes; some of them buy homes. How do they afford to when they don't have 'regular' jobs? Unknown but true, the government helps low income people who have no credit report at all, via the Fannie Mae program. First time home owners who have a bank account, who paid taxes last year, and who have or seem to have savings -- qualify. People paid for freelance work as artists, healers, mystics, organic gardeners or party caterers will qualify for a loan with the Fannie Mae's 'Community Program'. It isn't about altruism. The state hopes that you own property when you're old so they can get paid back for your old age home. The only way your children will inherit property is if they take care of you when you're old and sick! But if you eat nectarines and three year ripe oranges, you'll never BE sick!

To remake my point, these hippies I describe may even own property But one thing is true about these Bohemians: they never work 40-hour-a-week jobs hoeing another person's row, not unless they love that job; then they happily put in 80 hours.

Drudgery-free artists are easy to spot. They drive to mountain and beach on week-days, --in old cars it's true,--but with a proud smile because they're glad to be in the .0005% of the populace of the planet who own cars. They brake for sofas left on sidewalks and garage sales, because that's how they furnish their homes. They know that your second-hand, leftover stuff is as good as their firsthand. With a fresh slipcover that they made, and some serape rugs draped over. So they earned their nickname. We are bottom feeders. And I am one and I confess it.

Bottom feeders don't make a good living but we have a great life! We have the dollars for rent and utility money and the leftover change is for brown rice and tofu. We're into quality abundance in things other than cash. Gardens, sun, creativity, art. All we need is just enough income to get by. Often, we 'get by' with the help of our friends. Friends sleep on our couches and kick in rent and food. And in hard times, friends lend us their couches and we do the kicking in.

BFers don't have savings accounts; we have 'mattress money.' We don't have regular 40 hour a week jobs; we have cottage industries, home businesses. True, we don't make as much as you do in your highly paid drone work, but look on the bright side, our money's all our own. We don't have FICA deductions, pension fund, Social Security deductions and we don't pay taxes. We don't have costly HMO's but not to worry. We don't have high blood pressure either.

We may be forgoing Social Security and Med-I-Care coverage at the end of our lives because we expect --as many government prophets predict, that there will be no Social Security or Med-I-Care by then. Not for you, not for anyone. BFers don't count on Uncle Sam or on pensions. We have learned secret techniques of Surviving on a Nickle that give creativity, earnings and bliss, and bliss is such a super vitamin that we expect to live forever.

Bottom feeders enjoy sunny days at home doing textured wall-painting or digging carrot rows in the yard, or sweating in their ateliers as much as you yuppies enjoy your caffe lattes, Beamers, IRA's and airless, gleaming, monochrome condo-sealed tombs scented with all the formaldehyde in those spanking new plywood boards.

What are the secrets of this mysterious tribe who listens for their own drumbeat and happily live at the bottom of the food chain? What are their methods of achieving a viable lifestyle in Post-Reagan times using advanced Trickle-Down theory?

And who are these people, anyway? Are they just an urban legend? I mean, do you actually know any of them? Let's study their habits, their habitat and decide if BFers might be someone you know or someone you might want to be.

As I mentioned, daytime, BFers are always outdoors. They are a fresh-air lot. They have suntans, smile a lot and have no visible means of support. You'll find them unloading a picnic basket in the parking lot at a public park on a week-day. They carry thrift store tennis rackets, drive old Volvos, VW's or 4 cylinder Japanese cars from the early 80's. Look in the picnic hamper. It's full of SALAD. Bottom feeders are frequently vegetarian, recognizing that cows must know how much good protein is in greens, hence they have ruddy complexions and never NEED medical coverage. Their cuts and gashes actually heal without stitches as they have amazing immune systems.

WHAT, NO HMO? That's RIGHT. Not on a bet! WHY NOT? Because they know that any doctor you see, ever, will want to operate or give you chemicals. And because that care's COST will come out of what you leave your children. So how do they stay healthy? The answer to this is a no brainer. Don't get sick. Bottom feeders stay on the absolute healthfood diet of the planet! No bologna, occasional beef, eggs, chicken, fish, and even gland meats but not often. And always served with piles of greens to balance the acidity..  Catch your own fish, that’s the fun.

In our picnic basket there's a choice of bogus egg salad sandwich, (really tofu salad and tastier than egg salad ever thought of being. 

TOFU EGG SALAD.- Mash l lb tofu with 1 tsp curry powder, chopped olives, 3-4 tbsp mayo, 2 tbsp healthfood store no preservative, sweet pickle relish, 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds, 4-10 drops chile sesame oil, chopped celery/olives. Spread on bread. You know how you can tell it's not egg salad? It tastes better!Plus -- tofu is full of youth preserving natural hormones that soy has so your glands don't wither and YOU never wrinkle!)  Make your own bread, the 99c tofu on sale, toast all slices, mix up relish, some mayo, six people can eat for a dollar!

MINERALS are only found in ORGANIC salad. Grow your own and have a daily Caesar salad with some protein in it, tuna or chicken. Always schedule raw fruit for between meals. Cheaper than low cost is FREE FOOD. See who's giving away what at the temple where you can feast. The Sikh temples give lungar, free lunch. Hindu temples have weekend dinners. Hare Krsnas do, too.

FEASTING AT HOME: Steak and spinach salad is for feasts, and then it's always 99c chuck steak on special. Today, in 2006, our Vallarta Market chain is having a Spring .29c a LB. sale on chicken leg/thigh called quarters. I usually buy 10lbs when they're on .39 but today I bought two bags or 20 lbs and washed them, put them in smaller bags of two lbs each and froze them. One can bag/ foil them before freezing for one portion servings but I have a tribe of cats so I simmer it for a slow hour, then add in all my dandelions, not stems, just leaves. When cool, I mush it into smaller pieces and cats get veggies and meat.. If you grow your own chard and have a peach tree, your pound of chicken dinner will cost you 29c per couple! Not too shabby. I mean...it is shabby! And isn't that WONDERFUL! :>) 

So you get the picture: HOW BOTTOM FEEDERS EAT: There is the cheap meat choice (which I do lately finding fishermen who GIVE their catch away when their yacht comes in) so while you’re fishing for bonito and mackeral by the bait tank, you’re waiting to wave to yachts. Then, there's the totally vegetarian feed bag supplied by TEMPLES by the garden, both the bounty from our own organic gardens and from the neighborhood communal garden! AND from local dumpsters found behind the99c store, the super market and thehealthfood store, our neighbor’s gardens, etc. Both menus can be filled with loss-leader items from super markets and free, giveaway produce that the healthfood store actually gives us if we arrive daily and we’ll haul twenty to fifty pounds of stuff away at closing time. I have a dozen families I feed. (Day old produce/ milk, etc.) So we all eat very well!

Also, there are free meals (lungar) at all Sikh Temples in the world often daily…..and at Hari Krisha temples on SUNDAYS. Not to mention cheese giveaways at churches! There are dumpsters in every city. Inspect the FREEGAN SITE and its many webpages which lists some of the great food giveaways and free street faires. 

Last, there is the bounty of all God's trees overhanging alleys and offered from front lawns by friendly neighbors. Last, every small non-chain market will box up and give you their wilted vegies if they're certain you'll come at the end of the day. Those that won't will see the hardier of us leaning over their dumpsters, picking.

LEAN AND MEAN. BF'ers have learned that one can be a total vegan with ease if one is careful to combine a small amount of vegetarian proteins with full amino acid foods,  either in the meal or in the next meal. Broccoli oddly enough can be a protein if you add a little complementary protein like hummous or dairy so we sprinkle or drizzle bean dip or butter on top. Raw juices, green and gold salads are full of macro-nutrients but it takes sunflower seeds to turn vegies into a rib-sticking protein meal.

With rent so high, some days there is no money for FOOD. When that happens, Bottom feeders don't fret. They eat what's on the shelf. Canned pork and beans are great with a shot of hickory barbecue sauce. A solid poor-day tip given me by one of my nickle-pinching Caesars is to always keep whole grain flour in the freezer. Add water from boiled vegies, yeast, good oil or butter and let that dough rise into crusty bread. Or rub the wheat with water to make Seitan (wheat steak) which I don’t do as GLUTEN IS REAL BAD (clickable url) for 90% of us…. but you can GOOGLE info up on that. Or take soybeans and make tofu.  Or make your own Bible Bread and have a dozen subscribers! Three times a week which is 36! Bread is 3$ a loaf so that’s 108 dollars a week.

Actually recently I found a forty lb bag of Hindu whole wheat flour in a parking lot outside a HINDU café. I used a SEITAN recipe to make crow dumplings daily. No, I don't eat crows! I FEED THEM! I make the dumplings out of flour and water, a little animal fat. Simmer them in the cat meat broth (no I don't eat cats either. I cook for them, vegies and meat together to extend the grub to forty cats) and then I cook the dumplings in that broth and offer them to the crows so they don't plunder songbirds nests! Not in my neighborhood!

CAT FEEDING SECRETS: Every dog owner has kibble his dogs won’t eat. I always race over to pick up a bag as big asI am. I break it into many plastic grocery bags, neck tightly wound and store in my dead dryer (I sun dry so why fix?) for easy handling. ONCE I FOUND POPPY POTATO in there. She’d gone inside maybe an hour before. She’s so fat and languid she was napping on top of all the bags of kibble! I use home made broth on top of the kibble so the big lumps break down or can be bit into by cats. Then I used to goop it up with 33 cents a can CAT FOOD, 13 oz for that price, at 99c store.Don’t like meat BY PRODUCTS anymore, so I use real chicken. 29c an lb a year ago, now it’s 59c an lb but that’s on sales only. Stewing softens bones which I give to possums and Blinky Ramirez the dog next door with the lower jaw like a Buick grill.

I would even pick up roadkill if it’s squirrels or pidgeons and IF IT smells fresh. Throw it into the yard, see what they do. I cook CAT VEGIES: chard, kale, carrots, mash them, mix it with the cat meat. I can find meat under a dollar a pound all the time. Pork at 99c lb for chops, shoulder. Whole Chicken 59c now in 2007. On sale. Turkey Burger in plastic paper bullet is 99c. At RALPHS chain. Usually the 99c store (NDN on the stock market, 6$ a share right now) has a 33c can of cat meat but as MEAT is not primary ingredients, I don’t buy it anymore. It costs more than real meat from super markets. I add GRAINS in small amt to their stewed meat. Stale tortillas might soak up the juices. They get soft, are very high calcium. Other times, I cook basmati rice in my crockpot, make sure it’s soft, then add the meat, cook it some more. The cats eat it so I know that if there ever is a panic and grocery stores are closed as someone hijacked the trucks at city’s edge, I can make my bags of basmati help out the meats. If I had a huge catch of fish, I’d cook fillets for me and the kids, cook skeletons, heads into mush, pick out the bones carefully, throw that over their KIBBLE which I buy with coupons. (doubled) Market I go to gives me 9$ back when I get to l00$ on cats including litter.

FOODS FOR PENNY-FREE DAYS: Keep track of all the fruit trees in the neighborhood. Ask the neighbor, ‘can I have what falls on lawn?” Usually they say, take it all, but I don’t. I want the fruit truly ripe. The true scoop on fruit tree alley scavenging is that it is 100% legal if it overhangs a fence and is on sidewalk or alley. When I first became a Bottom Feeder, having four, fatherless children, I learned to pick lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruit from my own California garden and juice it. I learned to not throw away the peels; they were the best part. I parboiled them, scraped interior pith off with a sharp spoon, getting rid of all the white rind then boiled the outerskins with its own juice and a ton of sugar to make marmalade, which I kept in the fridge in jars and give away at Xmas and sell the rest of the year. When I first began to grow mulberries and raspberries, I found that the sour juice plus the yellow outer lemon rind, carved off in paper thin strips, boiled with the berries added tangy oomph to the jam that makes head spin. For my kitchen art, I probably COULD earn enough money to pay at least the fone bill, every month. But when I tell my star clients about the jam, show them a jar, stick a spoon of it in their mouth to tell them never to throw away lemon peels, they promptly try to buy a jar but I press the recipe and EZ tech on them instead. Jam simmers while I wash dishes, and in 5 min, two jars! Presto Cheapo! Exquisito!

SO LEARN THIS: ALLEYS ARE USER FRIENDLY-Apricots, nectarines, peaches, lemons, limes grow all over the city. The most prized treasure on trees of course, is avocados, beefsteaks on a tree, like having McDonalds give away Big Macs free on every corner. Avocados are friendly fruit. The ripe ones fall on the ground, making themselves available. I can roll down an alley at five miles an hour with the door open, lean out and pick fruit off the ground. Ripe citrus falls off the tree and is the only citrus to eat. If it's still in a branch, it may not have the requisite three years hanging in the sun! Two year oranges look eatable but they're not. They're sour. Unfortunately, that's all you can buy in a super market!

There is one drawback to poaching in alleys: cops. Police will harass you if they see you, but not to worry; if they don't see you, they can't harass you. So be as invisible as you can. Ask your neighbors if they want their pets walked. (Charge 4$ an hour to do it.) Drive pooch to a suburban neighborhood. Park car on the street and walk your neighbor's dog into an alley with overhanging trees. Carry a long prong-tipped or HOOK-tipped stick (nail in stick bent to catch fruit's stem) and some plastic bags. The aggregate visual effect is of a neat citizen returning from the supermarket and walking his dog. You actually seem to live on that street. No cop asks a dogwalker for ID or to see contents of your POOP BAG! No dog? Do it alone. If police wonder what's up, say sweetly, I was jogging and I saw this lovely fruit. Naturally a jogger has no I.D. Say I’m a tourist from Canada, at my Aunt’s. Give them a phony name and your 'aunt's' address nearby. Booking a misdemeanor takes too much paperwork, too many forms, also, other cops would laugh these cops out of the jail for booking someone who was just picking fruit as it is, technically, legal in alleys. And a Canadian tourist? Wouldn’t touch you.

Afraid of the hassle? Then go to the healthfood store at closing time, tell the owner that you distribute food to the poor. (You must actually do it, too, or your word's no good. Never fritz with your word. It's the most important thing BFers have --next to pluck and chutzpah.) If you promise to show up daily at the same time, invariably, you will get the store's 'garbage concession.' I did this for years, and was given crates of dairy products, fruit, bags of grains that rats had nibbled, every kind of bean and rice.

If you ever become homeless, if you ever loved Charles Dickens novels and are a stickler for realism, there's real garbage. Many BFers "Dumpster Dive" just as the homeless have always done. Super markets throw enormous amounts of food, cosmetics, medicine, flowering plants into those dumpsters. I met Marty, an 80 year old dumpster diver, a kind of hands-on guy, who gets inside the bins, tosses the treasures out into boxes. He fills his van with food from the supers and potted plants, cosmetics and notions from drugstores and gives regular garage sales making thousands of tax-free untraceable dollars on a week-end. He also has a regular route of delivery customers, Bottom Feeders all.

Frizzy Bob (a reference to his hair) another neighbor of mine, works the alleys of Beverlywood and Pico Robertson and gives the produce to single mothers with kids. I know because I was on his route and often he'd take me to watch him do it but I could never lean up against a dumpster. I have cootie-phobia, so I'm a terrible trasher but if I see the bagels come out of the dumpster in bags, I used to eat bread, but no more, only bible bread, grain soaked, sprouted, then ground into dough. So in those days, I’d toast, butter and eat them, after inspecting them carefully for mold. Slight mold means they get soaked in water, chicken broth and thrown to the crows. L.A. used to have crows before WEST NILE VIRUS. Scarse these days. I'm sure mold can't hurt a crow. What do you think? Eating baby songbirds hurts a crow!And it sure hurts the sonbird so I FEED CROWS!

Last year, I noted a prestigious Iranian bakery had a truck unloading bread into the dumpster! l00 loaves! They apparently sent their driver to pick up their famed bread (when outdated) at dozens of stores around town, bring it back to the bakery where they threw it all into the dumpster, neatly bagged. Every Thursday after bakery closed, I was there to get a dozen bags which I'd freeze. I cooked 2 lbs of cheap chicken or frozen BULLETS of turkey burger and 4 carrots and 4 chard leaves in water for dozens of cats. I had to do that work. Always had broth left over. So the frozen bread went into the broth and at dawn, I'd throw it out on the curb strip for the crows. They came in flocks. Cute sassy birds! For months after the bakery closed, the poor crows would come squawk at me. So I one day found a 40lb bag of Canadian flour ground like Hindus like it, for chapatis, discarded outside an Indian store, dragged it home,  I made dough, did dumplings in the broth and they loved that, too!

FOOD RESURRECTION TRICKS:

BREAD-Put on your glasses. If there's any mold, anywhere, reserve for crows or dump it. Humans cannot eat it. The spores are all the way through the loaf. Maybe you could toast it well if you were starving. If there's a little mold, you can give it to crows.

BERRIES-Float berries on water, save and use floaters only. Out of these, toss ones with any visible mold in a quart of water, smush them into mash with fingers, then plant in a flat of good potting soil. You’ll get hundreds of baby berry plants. . Put sugar on your fresh washed berries to preserve them in fridge until needed. The sinkers have lost their oxygen, are no good for eating but don't let the sinkers go down the drain. Gather them together, plant them. You'll get dozens of vines and berries for years afterwards out of a handful of rotten berries. I would go to 99c store DUMPSTER and get tons of berries. Grow the plants, put them on CRAIGS LIST “Trade berry vines for a bag of potting soil.

CARROTS and all root vegies: Soak overnight in a sink of cold water, turnips, beets, ditto. Next morn, they're firm again. Wish we forty plus ladies could do that to our THIGHS! 

WILTED SALAD- Cut across bottom of leaves, soak for several hours. After a few hours your salad is crisp. When we get all salads from store, we should  mix a tbsp. of vinegar into a full sink of water, shake it around. The vinegar kills small parasites not only in wilted salad, in ALL salad. Dry before you bag it, by shaking, toweling, draining.

FRUITS-When you dumpster dive or get rejects from markets, you get fruit with tiny rotten spots. My grandmother used to say about men, "Men are like peaches. The sweetest fruit always has a rotten spot."  You got the damn thing for free, so now you gauge how long it will last with that nick and if it's not long, cut nick out, chop it up, sugar it, leave it in a bowl in fridge with mint leaves and sugar on it. And "push" the fruit to the tenants and kids. Say 'wowie peach salad in there." If you're smart, you will do fruit salad the second all the 'used fruit' gets into the house as on a fruitplate, it's just gonna mold faster! Plus the kids will spot it and say EEEUUU.... So promptly wash, clean, peel, cut up, throw a half cup of sugar or honey on it and sprig with mint and half cup yogurt, so it looks appetizing and teach kids how to add it to cheap white yogurt. Lasts a few days in the fridge, marinating in the liqueurs. Speaking of which, add a few drops of almond essence to the brine, magique!

YOGURT- Why pay a buck a serving? Bring that gallon of day old milk you get for free at healthfood store (every store I ask to save food for the giveaway run gives me a ton of stuff and encourages me to come daily,) bring that milk to just under a simmer, so the SKIN forms on top. Turn off fire. Let sit; Bring entire pan down to body temperature. NOT any WARMER! Take big 4 tbsp whack of yesteday's yogurt from container, pour some warm milk into it, slowly, stirring all the time with fork or chopstick or best is a STEEL whipping cream WHIP, then add that to the big pot of milk, stirring in well, again. Cover tightly so warmth stays in. Leave in warm place or on heating pad (I have them for kittens). Stove pilot may do it...Leave 8 hrs. Or use thrift store yogurt maker, probably the easiest thing to find at a thrift store! Has space for only 4 glass jars. Chez moi, 50 spaces would do!

If kids are not kitchen-friendly, the food-respectful parent will 'push' what just came in by serving it up in a festive fashion. Plop a dish on their lap in front of the t.v, or where they're doing homework. Parents will never, ever tell their kids this is dumpster slime or day-old charity from markets. Their egos cannot handle it. They want to be the same as other kids and you should respect their feelings. Lie like a rug. "Oh, Natural Foods had a special on fruit today." That's true in a way, too.

GREEN POTATO- Plant it. They're no good for anything else. The green ones will give you arthritic joints. Potatos develop a poison (solanine) when they turn green. Sprouting potatoes are fine to use as food if they are not green. Just cut the sprouted tips off with a piece of potato behind it, and plant those tiny pieces. Each one will grow into a plant! Bizarre, no? But you only eat the remaining, gouged up spud. Not eyes or growths. Day you dig potatos, you don’t eat it. You store them in cool dark place to age for a week. Then they’re tasty. They smooth out.

CAFE "DUMPSTER DIVING"-While upper class DD's and BFer's don't go after any cafe consumer's dinner when it's been trashed, the homeless will. Cat owners might…..occasionally do this. Restaurants throw huge amounts of food into the trashcan. Just for an experiment, go behind a cafe at ll p.m. and check. You'll find complete meals, dozens, nibbled on and discarded, well wrapped.THE FREEGAN (clickable URL)WEBSITE goes into detail about where these great dumpsters are and what techniques are used, and most importantly, the morality of it Restaurants can be great for petfood or feeding starving alley cats, if you rinse the salt off. Myself, I'd prefer to ask the cafe to fill a special bag for me each night, if I had an alley cat route. Realize that all that highly salted food will slowly destroy the kidneys of male cats! But who cares? They live high for a while, check out and pick up another body. Maybe each gourmet year is worth ten ordinary Frisky cat years and pigging out is worth it. 

Except for riding shotgun with Frizzy Bob, and my crow bread route, for the first twenty years of my hard times, I had no experience D-Diving. (I really started in 2005, just before I qualified for Social Security, that last year or so,) When I was a young single mother with four children to feed, I used to drop by the trash bin of elegant Fred's Bakery in Beverlywood and reheat "day's end" (not day-old) corn rye in my oven. Bread never tasted better. So for years afterwards, I went to Jewish bakeries at night, while the Mexicans were baking and asked them for day old loaves. Every visit produced one to ten loaves of the most costly fresh bread in the world, a day old of course and tons of pastries, too. I used to pull up beside people on bus benches and unload carbs on their laps. Once a guy in a Mercedes gave me the high sign for this so I went over to him and said 'let's give this homeless woman a dollar, too, and he did!

DD's and BFers are feeling people. They want to feed their kids abundantly and their friends and make their table a communal one. They want to feed poor mothers in the neighborhood. Many of us are very well educated from fairly upscale families and tend to be elitists on the pride level. We care about our  own feelings just as much as we desire a free meal. Dumpster diving can be a little rough on self image. A BFer concerned about waste might visit the back alley kitchen door of a small cafe and ask the cook when the kitchen closes, and if he could come back with plastic jugs, and distribute that huge vat of rice or mashed potatoes, or any side dish made in large quantities, which will go into the trash, saying he's leftovers to the poor and homeless. He will not ask for the food for himself because he'd get bummed out. But he'll eat probably eat part of it himself, later. My friend Jeffrey goes nightly to the Hare Krishna restaurant, Govinda's, and is given gallon milk jugs or huge plastic bags full of curried dal, rice and yogurt raita which he distributes to his friends or fridges to offer to pals the next day.

A BFer will go to the bakery, determine when the baker throws away the day old unsold bread and promise to pick it up nightly, to distribute to the homeless. One night I drove to Pico/Beverly after coming out of alley behind bakery, saw a baglady asleep on bus bench at midnight. Got out, with motor running, put loaves all around her. Guy in Mercedes saw me. “Give me a dollar I said” He pulled one out! I ran over, got it, stuck it in her pocket. ‘Cuz the woman never woke up for any of this. Great moment.

Merchants are food-artisans, and always glad to NOT have to throw precious delights in the trash and welcome the appearance of a 'distributor.' I know, because I was the unofficial 'distributor' for my 3HO (Sikh) healthfood store, the YOGI BHAJAN group in L.A.. I was given forty to fifty pounds of food a day. They knew that the four kids and I couldn't consume that quantity and that I was distributing to the poor so my cheeks were never red. And I did distribute to poor families, doing so until that store closed.

Some days there would be a dozen huge yogurts, five dozen half gallons of milk, massive bags of rice and lentils with rat bite holes. There'd be pounds of wilted greens that would get their stems cut, so that stuck in water, they'd puff right back up. Carrots get a deep bath overnight and they are crunchy as new.

Always ask the store manager for throwaway stuff for your poor people's route. If the manager says no, come back another day when he's not on duty. (How do you find out? ASK!) Go into the back room, carry an empty box, and say to the youngest employee, 'I'm sent by Father McGuire from the orphanage for the dented cottage cheese?' Try for an Irish brogue if you can. Cottage Cheese is the single item most often destroyed by the market staff, which is always sitting useless and dented in the refrigerator room, scheduled for discarding. You'll be out of the market and over the hills with a lot of other things besides dented cheese, stuff the employee and the produce guy pressed on you and long gone before anyone realizes they don't give cheese to any Catholic orphanage.

Another trick of the collecting trade---that weekly Farmer's Market which the yuppies attend has a lot of unsold produce at sundown. Where do you think it goes? Back to the truck farms? No way. If you help the farmer load his truck, he'll comp you. To him, it's nothing. He has eggplants coming out of his ears. If you tell him you know of some poor families or a halfway house or orphanage and roll up a truck, he'll give you enough to set up your own stand the next day but don't be tempted. Cops harass street vendors. Instead, visit poor pals' homes where you'll win brownie stripes contributing farm-grown vegies.

Need fresh food the other 6 days of the week? No problem, the Farmers market moves to a different burrough of the city each day. Or try Supers. All small, non-chain grocery stores have rats. If you ask the employees, you can get dog and cat kibble, flour, rice---true, sometimes there are tiny teeth marks on the bag, or actual rat droppings inside, but they're easy enough to pick out. Anyway, it won't hurt the dog if you couldn't.

Sometimes, you have a dollar, a quarter, a dime and a nickle. In this case, you have to know what foods are the SUPER CHEAP GOURMET HIGH ENERGY and NUTRITION TREATS:GREENS: Collards, mustard greens and Swiss chard are .33c a bunch at barrio stores and at Iranian markets. They cost .89c in the big chain super markets. The butcher always gives me a piece of pig fat for free. Fry this, discard oil and put those "chitlins" in your greens. When you've got cash, get smoked ham hocks. Cut them up, store in freezer, take a few chunks to boil with the greens. Add a little sugar and chile pepper and you'll sing Baptist hymns. Chards, collards, mustard are the super most easy things to grow, so do it year round, collect your own seeds. I share seeds, year round. Do mail outs with cancelled stamps fixed with liqui-erase but never put your own addie on the envelope. Just recipients'. They'll know who sent it! The big smiley with a star next to it!

TOP RAMEN: FLOUR is the most baddest food you can eat. GLUTEN IN IT (CLICK ON URL, scan those words on gluten,) will totally line your gut, prevent your getting any vitamins out of your food as absorption comes thru walls of the bowel. But occasionally, ramen will help you to down a large amount of broccoli! Buy the .33c cup of shrimp ramen. In the produce section, get 5 oz broccoli floret and stem, they’re delicious if peeled, chopped, a few spinach leaves, cabbage outer leaves and a carrot. Chop your vegies, simmer til almost done, pour the water from vegies over ramen, let sit a minute. Then pour noodles back into the vegies; Add chile sesame oil, seaweed, onion, slice of raw ginger, seaweed, an egg if you've got one. I keep dried mushrooms in the freezer, crunch one up into it. Dashi-moto broth, bonito flakes from Japan, really add to this brew. Top Ramen is really so delicious, often I can't wait for poverty to eat it, so I eat them with bucks in my pocket, rationalizing that I wouldn't eat those vegies were it not for the soup and noodles. The super tasty dried shrimp make this my favorite flavor. I used to give ramen to the homeless until I learned they ate it raw like chips! True, it's not healthfood, but it makes me EAT the greens that ARE so I use it. (I understand the additives give gout so not too often though).

HOLIDAY FOODS: If you get blue on holidays without that turkey or ham, indulge your inner child and have the ham! You can get it by doing shopping for five or six old people. Supermarkets give hams away if you buy enough groceries to qualify so it pays to make lots of geriatric pals in your neighborhood. Get their shopping list and their cash in front. Tell them they'll get an exact to-the-penny itemization. And ask them, do you want part of the ham or turkey? Next, collect coupons on all the staples that your family loves, frozen vegies, wholegrain cereals, canned soup, cooking oils, sugar, etc. If the geriatric has coupons for what he/she likes, be sure to get them in the habit of coupon clipping for when you make their shopping trips for them. Always mark your little notes on their slip. Divide the purchase in to yours and theirs if you can. If not, then give them YOUR slip and say SEE THIS LINE? The stuff below is my groceries.

Remember to Give all discounts to the geriatric. Whatever you can do for them, and point it out and explain it clearly for their fuzzy little brain, later. Now, get the food section from the newspapers on trash night. See which market is giving the ham or turkey away free for a fifty-dollar purchase. In Xmas 2007, I had to spend 15$ to get a ham at 87c. or Spend 15 to get a Turkey at 69c an lb. Not hard to do. One store ran out of the cheap turkeys and had to substitute an organic one on Xmas eve.

Holidays, the big super market chains make these fab offers. Easter it’s hams and roasts. St Paddie’s day it’s Corned beef. The ritzy markets want you to spend 100$ to get a deal but there's always a market that will give these meat premiums if you spend 15$. Find your senior neighbor, volunteer to shop and cut your corned beef in half for her or get her one. Together your groceries will hit the 15$ or 25$ required. Go there, shop in groups, keeping items separate in basket. Then, arrange the foods on the checkout stand so that each geriatric's groceries are scanned together in a group, as you'll be showing this receipt to the geriatric later when you give him or her the change and just showing them their circled items. If you're an angel, you'll divide the ham and share it with the geriatrics!

About coupons. CHECK THE SLICK DEALS FORUM to learn about the good offers; they can train you. Read for a while and print out a few coupons. CVS Pharmacies is a good place to shop. You go in, ask for a MEMBERSHIP CARD, it’s free. And start your coupon career there as well as at your local supermarket.

GIFTS for the HOLIDAYS: - EXPENSIVE DISHES CAN BE MADE INEXPENSIVELY. FOODINDEX! Gifts in a cellophane wrapped basket knock the recipient out! Jar ... At garage sales, you can buy cookie tins, empty for a dime, all sizes of glass jars for jam. And above all big HUGE sized baskets that you can enamel. You maybe bake the cake and give it frosted or use a quart jar and layer the dry ingredients in it (cloves, cinnamon, allspice, raisins, dried cranberries, although you can pcg. the dry fruits in a bag, tied on the side. Next, CALL it something wild, BETHLEHEM FRUIT CAKE, and attach a little card with recipe on how to make it into a cookable batter.  The recipient just adds an egg, some milk, maybe a little butter and voila! They have some awesomely easy cookies or scones or a novel loaf of neat nut bread. The net is packed with recipes for this ... OF COURSE FOOD GIFTS could work as a home subscription business you activate on holidays.

COFFEE- All supermarket coffee mills have a little drawer full of grinds that will be thrown away. Ask the manager, he'll let you have it for free. Find plastic bag in produce section. Often you'll find bags where someone ground a little coffee, then stopped. This ground coffee will be thrown away, so repackage in plastic produce bag and tuck it in your pocket. When I see the coffee supplier come to the mill to clean up all those bags that people ground then left there, I always tell them, you are throwing away pounds of coffee. Find an orphanage with nuns. Nuns love coffee! He always says, ‘lady, you take it.’

DENTED CANS- Some markets mark them down with a black marker. I seek out such a market, carry such a marker and seek out such bent cans. I buy their dented cans, paying 22c for the small tomato sauce, 33c for beans, 59c for canned ravioli.

THE ART OF THE YEAR ROUND GARDEN, *CLICK ON THIS INDEX

In really hard times, there are always tasty, edible greens (weeds but often not, often things that are cultivated,) growing in front yards. Take a careful look at what you find that is SURPRISINGLY TASTY:

1.) PURSLANE *CLICK ON LIVE LINK HERE…..is highly prized in Middle East and Mexico. It grows everywhere. It's a fat, flat, low-sprawling leafy little octupus like weed with leaves like jade plant, fleshy stems, loaded w. Omega oils that heal the heart. Mexican maids used to bring it into my San Miguel de Allende kitchen in spring as if it were God's gift to man. The way they cooked it, it was. Steam for a minute, add fresh-made garlicky tomato sauce. Scramble in one egg at last minute, if your aorta is not going to be a problem.

2.) DANDELIONS- Enjoy the smallest, tenderest green leaves in your salad. Bigger leaves get juiced.

3. OUR VINES HAVE MORE THAN TENDER GRAPES: Parboil the delicate new leaves of grape vines 'til soft, fill with rice, burger, nuts, roll and steam. Unusually tasty made the Middle Eastern way, in a brine so check any Arabian cookbook!

4.) CACTUS: *LIVE LINK. The tender green baby leaves (or ears) of cactus are de-fanged with a knife, then sliced in ribbons, parboiled, served with raw chopped onion, tomato and cilantro. A delicacy in Mexican cafes. Later in summer, the tuna fruit is grasped with newspapers, bagged, gas-flame toasted at home to remove needles, peeled, sliced. Plant the seeds! Great way to protect the property from canine leapers and get delicious tunas.

5: ESCARGOT: California variety same as French small variety. These were actually brought here from Europe. No need to check garden for SNAROL. If the escargot found any, he'd be slime-tread to the sky, stone cold dead. HOW TO FIND: Spray garden well night before. Wait a few hours, then all night until an hour before dawn, collect les petits slimeballs with flash light. If for human consumption, feed snails cornmeal for a few days, locked in a box, jar or cage. Rinse them clean, drop in salted, simmering water for l0 min. Discard gritty strip, where it's attached to the shell. Heat butter, parsley, drop in snail fillets. Turn off fire, add crushed garlic, raw lemon. Garnish with minced parsley. Serve on toast. Ooo La La! L.A. Times Food/ Nature writer Chris Nygeres says they're better than those available in French cafes. Would you believe it? some writer can make me drool for stuff I wouldn't touch in their habitat without canvas gloves! (this just in. I learned to de-snail a garden without gloves. I use flashlight, bag, can pick up five lbs of snails in ten minutes.)
When they ate my baby cosmos and zinnias, I lost my nausea about touching the shell part! But seriously, for someone who is feeding a few dogs or cats, SNAILS might be something you could do to obtain actual, free meat. Every night I go outside with flashlight and can find l00 or 200 snails easy and do my garden a favor when I remove them. You COULD simmer them, pluck them from shells and add to canned cat food.

Now to feed animals, I find the cheapest meat, I use l0 lb bags of chicken leg quarters at .39c an lb, sometimes even .29c, turkey burger at 89c an lb, simmer a pound bullet with a pound of mixed carrots, collards which reduces cost per lb to twenty five cents and hey, I haven't done it but you could use snails from your yard to get an extra pound or two of calories in there.  There isn't one night a year I can't get 5 lbs of snails out of my yard, using a flash light and bag. If a Frenchman eats it, I'll bet your cat or dog would! But…I have not done that yet!

HOW NOT TO BE HUNGRY - When the food supply's small, or dangerous to procure, the trick is-- don't do anything stupid that will make you get unduly hungry like eat SUGAR. Besides too much cold air or exercise, the prime cause of hunger is eating carbs and sugars; Avoid them entirely. They not only don't stick to the ribs, the insulin reaction to them creates bigtime munchies.

Dense carbs, fruit excepted, often have no nutritional values. To put them in your body is to miss a GOOD meal for a SICK MEAL. Stick to macro-nutrient-dense vegies, high protein whole grains, not high starch, and of course, eat your proteins. Only eat fruits if you know that you have a rib-sticking meal ready, an hour later.

The magic herb that kills hunger in the body and raises blood sugar is licorice or fennel. It grows wild all over the city. Chew any part, the reaction is instant. All hunger departs and for the oddest, longest time. Licorice root or anise (like celery sort of) both work and yet they are not related.

SKINNY FAT FOODS: Most skid row free meals serve white rice, a slightly superfluous carb. It seems like a thin food but it's all starch and will make you eat like a horse an hour later. All Hari Krishna or Sikh temples have a daily 'lungar'...(odd it should rhyme with hunger) comprised of rice and chapati, unfortunately, all super-starchy carbs. You can eat hand-out food but avoid too much of the rice and wheat foods; instead, load up on pulse which are part protein: garbanzos, beans (black or kidney are preferable to starchy pinto). Take all the lentils you can get, and eat them cold rest of day and night. Welcome vegetable and dairy products. Carbs will fast-flame but then you go into low blood sugar and you start to feel blue and will forget what delirious pleasure it is to be a Bottom Feeder.

SOFT DRINKS GALORE-THE SECRET of CHEAP SOFT DRINKS is 1.) SHOP the soft drink SALES at chain stores or super markets. Especially when the newspapers simultaneously offer coupons. You can easily get one litre bottles down to 50C. 2.) Buy only the one litre size, no cans, as it's cheaper and for the reason you are about to see: 3.) Buy only lemon or fruit drink flavors, (like the punch flavored, red ones) as these flavors you can dose with additions of real lemon or lime juice and the kids won't know they're getting huge doses of terrific vitamins slipped to them in their soft drinks.

If the Children complain that there's no Coke, no Dr Pepper, no root beer, tell them you have health concerns. Instead, feature fruit flavor sodas to which you can add real citrus. Show them how THE REAL THING ( Coke ) will melt pennies and ask them to think what it's doing to their bones. Make them watch a HIP REPLACEMENT SURGERY on television one night!

In California, we get fruit hanging over the fences in alleys, POMEGRANATE in AUTUMN, January to December is CITRUIS time, lime time, lemon time grapefruit and orange time all year round and the trees are lushly covered with fruit. Neighbors give the stuff away. Knock on any door and ask. In alleys, your car drives over fruit rolling on the ground. I go at five miles an hour with my door open, picking them up. Or pick the fruit off hanging branches.

NOW JUICE the fruit ADD that TO JUICE JAR YOU BOUGHT WITH COUPON. Wash the fruit, after all, it’s been on someone’s lawn or in an alley. Juice it, as soon as the kids have had a little of the bottle, start adding lemons. Do it daily. Even when the COMMERCIAL JUICE JAR or soft drink is down to the last few cups, dose it with a half cup of citrus juice.

REALLY RIPE LEMONADE! I make certain the lemon fell from the tree. I juice about ten of them, or sometimes equal amts grapefruit juice, orange juice and lemons, as we have all in bounteous amounts in this valley ten minutes to the north of L.A. I add sugar and then fresh water to make CITRUS ADE. Then I go pick about ten sprigs of spearmint or peppermint from garden as it makes all juices taste like pineapple Wash mint lightly, crush it into the ADE. If it's a third year lemon, orange or grapefruit they aren't sour. You could do it with no water required. You can drink even lemons straight if they hung for several years on the tree. I try to only take fruit lying on the ground as I know it's ripe. You can't tell a first year citrus from a third year citrus but RIPE CITRUS makes fabulous lemonade. Lotta flavor and vitamins, yet still enuf sour for a wallop, just not ANY TOOTH MELTING sour POWER. You probably never really had a ripe lemon. Commercial pickers grab half ripe lemons. FIRST year it's yellow they want their money so nobody waits til the second year. Try my "if it falls, it's ready" technique on citrus tree. I juice my pomegranates on a JUICER with a basket and plant all the seeds, trade the trees for potting soil. This fruit ripens only in autumn. I add juice to lemon, water, add some sugar. Or I simmer it for twenty minutes with sugar to make grenadine syrup or jam. A store bought pomegranate will give you a thousand baby trees! Dumpster slightly moldy strawberries or blackberries will give you a hundred vines or plants, too.

TEETH HURTING? Free dentistry is easy. UCLA and SC both have dental schools and need guinea pigs. Call them up and you'll soon be under a student's drill. Whoppee. Most dentists will let you paint their house, clean their gardens, babysit or paint paintings for a trade. So, when you're dumpster diving and pass a dentist's office, leave a letter. Dear Doc, wanna trade for fillings? Here are snaps of my paintings. (resume, etc.) One more thing, use a blower to make popcorn. If you do it in skillet, you will break your fillings in half. VERY EXPENSIVE! Pop Corn Blowers are cheap, especially at thrift stores.

AVOIDING CAVITIES: Forget toothpaste. The Flouride is so toxic it takes your immune system 24 hours to recover from a single brushing. It's inhaled thru gums. WORSE, all commercial tooth paste is 95% inert materials, so it sez on label. It's really 95%  ALUMINUM, I mean real BAUXITE as it grinds well, and there is an article on that fact at THE LEGACY PROJECT, click on this URL above, and go read it. ALZHEIMERS is caused by Commercial American toothpaste!

NOW, to PREVENT PYRHORREA, Mix salt and aluminum free baking soda in a jar. OR Tom's natural toothpaste. Or some other healthfood brand. Dip a truly sterlized (set it in window in sunlight) tooth brush into it, brush under the gumline where pyhorrea starts. Use a soft, thick brush, working it into the gums, trying to make your gums bleed. Change brushes daily, letting them dry in sun between use. When gums no longer bleed when you do this, you've cured the bacteria problem ---for a moment. Brush teeth immediately upon waking, brush tongue, and brush back of tongue provoking a gag which coughs up mucus. Rinse with cold water (also prevents gum disease) after every meal. Floss once a day. While laying around watching TV, use a large sewing needle and tissue to clean plaque off gumline. Then use tissue to rub gumline clean. Do all this, you may never need a dentist.

PAINFUL TOOTH ROOTS- Little known fact. You can back off deep infections in a tooth root. Quit immune-compromising meat, switch to vegie proteins. Avoid mucus producing milk, flour foods. Double down on Vitamin c-rich fruit and salads thick with garlic. Infections depart by magic. If not, avoid root canals which are carcinogenic. Get the teeth pulled out. Painless, fast and not costly at all. You’ll never notice it’s gone! I never took the pain pills or the penicillin, the things just healed! And later, you can chew nuts just as easily as before. Why? GUMS seal up! They’re pretty RUGGED!

FREE Q-TIPS. Having many cats, I need to clean a lot of ears, often. And when you see darkness in there, that's MITE poop. I make a toxic to bugs mixture. Grab green walnuts on the tree, the black walnut tree, frondy ferny leaf. Put two or three cut into slices into vodka. Let sit. Beer will do. When you have black walnut liquid, add neem oil if you have it, tea tree oil, lemon juice, cut up smushed garlic. Or you can Use boric acid powder but it's not as potent, on your home made Q-tips. My malia tree gives great twigs, identical to q-tip sticks. Or use hyacinth sticks. Martha Stewart recommends them, from floral supply, to hold up hyacinths in the garden, or florists use it to support weak poppies in sprays. 

Take this stick, I sit watching tv and roll scant little tiny fluffed out wad of cotton on each, (smallest bit of cotton, one single ball can last for four q-tips, ) like a weaver turning a small spindle. Identical to what Thai Six year olds do at the q-tip factory in Malaysia. You could do them all at once and have a hundred q-tips for FREE. It would barely take 20 balls of cotton. But I do three or four cats a day. Wait a day or two, cuz they are clever. They see the sticks come out with cotton, smell the teatree oil, they’re OUT THE DOOR. Sooner or later I sneak up on them and my cats get their ears cleaned and de-mited. Mites drive them crazy, too. Any black residue in ear means you have em and they drive the cat wild. (Wash hands well or mites will get in your own ears! It sounds like water in the ear when they’re in there.)

MEDICAL EMERGENCIES- You think they'll never happen but they do and when you need those sudden stitches, there's no time for comparison shopping, so do that now and be ready.CALL EVERY FRIGGIN' HOSPITAL IN YOUR AREA NOW! EMERGENCY ROOM. Find out the riff! AHEAD OF TIME!

Recently, my son got his hand whizzed around the pulley system of a car. The tendons to one finger on top of hand were severed. He realized he would never work again as a guerilla underground non-licensed electrician /carpenter/plumber if tendon ligature wasn't done. I had to make a lot of phone calls to E.R's in a very panicky ten minute period. Daniel Freeman Hospital, where his pal had driven him, wanted $2,000 in front to even call the hand surgeon in. County General SC wanted l00$ in front but averred the kid would wait five hours in the waiting room before a scalpel was lifted due to the average day's haul of bullet holes. Harbor General already had a hand surgeon there 24 hours a day. No bullets down there so they're never very busy and when the kid sailed in, the doc immediately did the necessary tendon ligature on a local anesthetic without thinking of money and when it was all over, they asked for only 50$. If he doesn't pay within five days time, however, they say they'll dun him for a hefty $1500. They say they're very cheap if you're a fast pay as most people stiff 'em. So, in the LA area, HARBOR GENERAL HOSPITAL in Torrance takes the cake. It's really worth it to do the homework ahead of the disaster. Know exactly which freeway you have to zip over to get to such a heavenly place so that you can do it even when you are semi-hysterical with panic. So, can you pronounce EMERGENCY ROOM? if so, DIAL IT UP!

HEALERS-Holistic healers are bon marche and terrific. YOU CAN LEARN TO BE ONE, *CLICKABLE URL… make $100 an HOUR. Giveaway mags at local healthfood stores have tons of ads. Healthfood stores collect business cards in scrap books, will show to customers. Call Sta Teresita Hospital in Duarte and see Marjorie Ward, the world's best. $45 first visit. She could make Mother Teresa so healthy she'd tapdance out of the grave and start making kids drink milk powder again.

HEALTHY AS A BULL but NO ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD? Don't worry. This is the one case that proves the axiom, 'misery loves company.' There's security in numbers. How many BFers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Zero if one of the five of you has a propertied relative! ‘cuz the house such a group can rent already has lightbulbs on every ceiling!

Five homeless bums on a streetcorner could rent a palace with hanging gardens if they hustle their little assets out onto the street and fone relatives. First, they must all attempt to get a little federal aid. The guy with the lisp and one-eye turned outwards develops catatonia. On him it looks good. The coffee-drinking insomniac finds he has Circadian rhthym disorder. He wakes an hour later, every day, has a 25 hour day, just like on Mars. Those are chump change, 700$ but Mental problems earn you SSI, $900 a month. Fail your physical? You're just too damn healthy? Take those physical problems that don't pass snuff at SSA to Welfare where a doctor's letter is enough to earn you $220 a month and food stamps, plus Med-I-Care benefits. Your mitral murmur becomes 'requires open-heart surgery'; your slipped disc becomes, 'cannot sit for long periods of time.' Unemployable.

SSI and WELFARE are not a lot of money but even at that miserly rate, (700$ a month if you're crazy or disabled, $265$ a month if you go to WELFARE and say you're on the street....) when a group of you pools resources, you can afford to rent a castle and eat chuck steak!

The most presentable one becomes the ostensible landlord. Another member has the relative with the best credit, or himself has good credit, meaning no credit cards in arrears. (TRW sends you your credit record for free). A third member of the group has the relative with the nicest car. A fourth finds the real estate, circling ads in the paper.

The presentable one visits the different houses. He claims to have a mate and a child who are in France for the summer, or a wife who's at Yale installing the kid. The kid is because if the landlord ever comes and sees the other bozo, hey, that's no bozo, it's my kid! Best is, the landlord lives in another city and never comes. Mail your rent to him ahead of time so he won't be tempted.

Always rent houses not apartments, for two reasons. 1.) because you can use their yards to grow food, and 2) you can fit a great many people into a house and end up paying no rent at all. If you're generous, your chums will pay the going rate. That cuts your share of the rent to a fraction of the going rate.

Homes are private. No landlord or next door neigbors right on your neck. Anyway, don't you hate when the phone rings and you run and it's not your phone? So get a large, private space and put several rent-payers in the space. Just put a genuine heavy duty LOCK on your personal closet and hide your silver service in there and lock your bedroom door also, (when you're out of the house). And keep your phone in this locked room, too. We know your pals are cool but your pals' pals are as untested as they are invisible… at least when you're OUT. I've had garden workers come inside and use my PC when I was out buying them their groceries. A dead bolt lot is about l0$ at Home Depot. To get the right one, bring a tracing of the HOLES in your door. Measurements.

Make certain the owner of this home, your landlord, doesn't live near you. ALSO, avoid a young landlord as they are energetic, hence on your ass like white on rice. Best is aging landlords who won't hassle you about your cats, your orchard, tearing out the lawn for the vegetable garden and then fencing the entire front of the house and putting two illegal aliens in a tent on your lawn and another two in the garage. Ideal is a landlord who is wheelchair bound and lives in Bum Fuck, Idaho and can't come by to check how green the grass is or isn't. Or in my case, if the lawn is still there. It won't be. Lawns are a YAWN is my motto. Parterre raised bed in the rain, dizzies my head like champagne.

Apartments are for kiddies who break away from the parents and are glad for a closet as long as it has a nuptial bed. For long term, serene living you need a huge garden to plant with trees and vegetables, roommates you can live with, paint walls with, lay linoleum with, enjoy as friends. It's a myth that living with strangers brings grief. Living with family does. No, I joke. Grief is spread evenly thru the universe. Friends and family will hand it out to you equally. But you can choose your friends. Not your kids. So choose friends based on one thing. HOW LONG CAN YOU STAND LISTENING TO THEM TALK? That is the yard stick. WHOMEVER you choose to live with,

RENT CAREFULLY! HERE'S THE SECRET OF WHICH HOUSES TO AVOID: Avoid houses offered by REALTORS. They're overpriced and the perfectionists who own them have already remodelled everything to within an inch of its life--and in just the banal way you don't want. (Lengthy shudder here.) For years, their owners have done assiduous yard clean-up, hence there's not a drop of humus in the soil. It's barren, and well sprayed with costly chemicals that render birds, bees and your children infertile. Worse, because they're so proud of their neatness and taste, they won't cut you any slack for being a decorator, landscaper--and, in fact, will hold your creative intents against you! And last, they think their digs are worth top dollar. Forget such demented dweebs. They always ask a price tag that represents tomorrow's prices. In addition, they play tricks. Here's what I learned, saw with my own eyes. A really big lady realtor in L.A. owned a dozen homes which she rented.  I met her, leased one. Day we signed lease, she smiled and took the lease I’d just signed. “My copy?” I said “Oh I only have ONE COPY” she smiled. I’ll mail you one! 

I thought it odd, but she said she'd mail it. Well, turns out she didn't send me the promised copy of the signed lease. A year later, she doubled the rent. I paid but fought her in landlord court. She showed judge a lease with added on clauses that I hadn't agreed to. She'd fitted them in somehow, just typed them in. I told judge how she'd refused to give me a copy of lease and the reason WHY must have been that she was planning some clause-changing. How could I prove she didn't give me a copy when she swore in court that she did. (Landlady was LYING by the way, very blatently.) The judge sensed something was off, found me liable for no rent but when a homeowner wants you out, you gotta go. Not apartment, but home.

A year later another client put her in jail for doing precisely this shabby trick, KITTY MURPHY was her name, shamrocks on her biz card, a famed realtor in L.A. and this time (!) she was prosecuted and had to do public service! I wish I'd been the one to do that to her. But I had NOT xeroxed the lease when I signed it, which I should have done. AVOID anything to do with career real estate agents ‘cuz they are so aware of the opps to be crooked, the holes in the law… that they can do illegal things like that. 

So instead, you must find the geriatric owner whose mind recalls the prices of several years before, as this uncounseled person hasn't a clue what yuppies are paying nowadays. Who is grateful for your lovely two copies of a decent lease.

You want some ancient, gem-in-the-rough house with overgrown bushes and trees, owned by a peasant who couldn't afford gardeners, with a lusty garden that the geriatric has been putting his parkeet's POOP and his cat litter on for forty years, a yard that hasn't seen yard clean up in a hundred years. (A sign humus is left under all bushes, hence a sign of very good soil) where birds happily roost in pesticide-free trees and reproduce in happy solitude? And who knows, where fairies may even dwell.

If you want that, you're looking for a landlord who who couldn't pay to keep everything clipped back. You're looking for a landlord who's a little abashed about all this mess, who can't see the gem underneath for shame. A landlord who thinks, apologetically, that he's got a mess on his hands will underprice its rent for just that reason.

You find houses for rent by looking at people dumping garage content on the front lawn. Ask 'who's selling, who died, and 'is there a broker?' ‘cuz if there is, you leave. If not, make an offer.

When I see such houses, (oh, I'm renting. I don't have a down payment saved nor do I have a job on paper, so I don't qualify even for the minimal rules of the Fannie Mae.) But when I'm looking to rent, which I've done various times, I'm on the one hand tempted to screw the owner to the wall of his own shame saying, "I wouldn't pay your high asking price for this mess, I'll only offer X" but the candid side of my nature always wins and I find myself saying, "this is really beautiful and charming. I'll take it." I currently have four bedrooms and huge front and back yards, 8000 sq. feet for 995$ a month rent. Landlord who brings Sees chocolates Easters and Xmas and has not raised rent on his other 21 tenants ever. And when they get fired, he waits a year for rent! So I am in heaven. PRAY for the health of DICK DELANEY!

THE LEASE- SECRETS OF---- The lease is done with the help of the roomie that has the family member with best credit. That roomie becomes the 'on paper landlord.' The person who has the relative and the same last name or a name that resembles a relative with good credit, and who signs the lease --- need not be the person who is the most presentable and charming. As in life, the condition of being the most presentable and the condition of being the most well-fixed with family credit and the condition of being the one with the best car never coincide in the same person. SO SHARE THE THREE!

In real life, gifts are always dispersed by God. They are spread thinly. So, too, with our rental team, but the conglomerate effect, which the landlord sees coming toward him, is of a single, well fixed person with a nice car, lots of credit history, and beaucoup references and the phone numbers of a prior landlord who adores him. Naturally, your references are all your friends from high school. In my case, I use my movie star astrology clients. A list handed over in a blasé manner, with famous names for references works miracles. I can just see this Valley landlord saying 'Mr. Carlos Castaneda?' Courtney Love? Yogi Bhajan? And not knowing who the hell these folks are. What a waste.

WRITING YOUR OWN LEASE- This is important, no matter what landlord throws at you, you have your version signed to show in court. It states five years, not one, because (have the lease state it,) 'as tenant is a gifted landscaper, tenant does not wish to be thrown out in one year after having done a $25,000 garden without a pre-determined value to the garden affixed at $20,000 for each year of labor'. Little throwaway codicils like that. You are not doing it to stiff the landlord but to protect yourself from the hubris of landowners. From their arrogance and profiteering.

WHERE TO FIND HOUSES: I always go to the place where there was the worst earthquake, and all the chimneys fell down. Rent is CHEAP, there. Yep! I currently live in the infamous Northridge. This place was a disaster in l994. Landlords here remember it. True, we are not all so lucky as to live in cities with major earthquakes. (sigh.)

Find a borough of your city that needs gentrifying. Racially mixed. Gangland shootings. Drive bys. Subscribe to the local throwaways for a month, the Recycler free ad type papers, and get Sunday dailies. AND USE CRAIGS LIST for your city, RENTALS page! Forget about using Real Estate agents as their properties have super high rents. Forget about subscribing to a Rent Finder Agent and ignore any ad that says 'agent/fee'. Sometimes a loose-wallet pal will have subscribed to one of these home finders and you can get lists for free but don't worry, there are plenty of homes for rent and ads in the newspapers.

LEASING TECHNIQUE: Get a large COMPOSITIONS notebook or copybook. Glue tabs to the right side of pages saying 'this borough' 'that borough' leaving space for 5 or 6 Burroughs of the city, to confine driving each section of city to one day each burb. Each listing goes in a two or three line blank space. You need the space to make directions/maps. Left hand column is the price. It has to be first as when you scan classifieds, you'll search for the price to see if you have this listing already. Next comes 3+2, bedroom bath. Next comes features: garden, 2 car garage, water paid, den, garage office/ large yard. Last Phone #. THEN A ONE INCH SPACE left blank. As you answer them, affix a code. One dot next to price means you left messages. Two dots means you talked to a human and you have map. Map is filled into a space immed. below this.

Day you visit the burrough, you draw map for all streets, keep on car dash next to your TRW credit report, all the credit cards you can borrow from your family, in a wallet holder, a sheaf of cash, a letter from your pal at the bank, letter from former landlord, cancelled checks to former landlord and a pre-filled out application to rent with every question they can think of, answered. And one more thing, as you drive around and see nice areas, you'll frequently see nice vacant homes for sale. Bring a pre-fab letter in an envelope to be given to people selling houses that you'd like to live in/rent, saying I could show the house and find you a buyer plus pay you rent. This always brings a much reduced rent. That's great if you don't have 14 truckloads of stuff moving day.

CO-SIGNERS? Always be kind and polite to your relatives. Their good will is crucial. You often need co-signers on leases, utilities, and as co-signers when you need kitchen/laundry appliances. (or for variety, sometimes let them buy the washer and give them a dozen post-dated checks.) The co-signer is in no ways in line for legal problems IF HE DOES NOT LIVE IN THE HOUSE. I got it from the judge, found that out in court while landlady was screaming at my 90 yr old Dad who sat blithely in front row. She was saying that he had signed the lease, so she should have a judgment against him. Judge said 'never happen, no matter what he signed if he didn't live there.'. So they should be aware that a co-signature has no rattlesnake recoil. Kitty Murphy didn’t know that part of the code, somehow. I was lucky.

ROOMIES? REMEMBER THIS. If they are on the lease, you cannot evict them. That privilege would fall to the landlord, who isn’t going to do that for you. So you’re better off signing your own lease, with grandpa, who has credit, won’t live there, and can’t be sued as he does NOT live there. Use Grampa’s credit statement, but present the roomie. And if you ever want to evict the roommate, you can. Legally. 

To get a utility turned on, you need to make it look as if it's the property owner-relative's second home. A propertied relative can be the number one asset of a BFer. Your interest on a truck or washer may even be lower for having a solid co-signer. And most important is to use relatives' credit histories for signing leases.But also very nice is cable companies. They require no driver's license or bank account. Just say it's your brother or uncle. Only ....on Thanksgiving, don't have your bills out on the desk! Put them in a drawer! I asked my Dad to sign for my cable. He used my Brother's credit profile and name. My bro came for turkey, saw it and goodbye cable.

Years before I'd convinced my super square, propertied, many bank accounts older brother to give me all his credit history for my lease. He said he'd do everything but SIGN my actual application to lease a house. He wouldn't go that far ---as he said I'd end up in some awful litigation with the landlord and the judgement would land on him. Actually, that doesn't happen if he doesn't live there. The judge forgives the co-signer all responsibility. You may quote me on that when you screw your relative to the wall as a judge told it to me personally.

Having my brother's permission to use data on his credit report, I took numbers of his Shearson accounts, his Paine Webber, practically his DOW JONES report and I hit the streets. Landlords love such a voluminous credit and job history. Then the day they ask for a lease signing, I wheel in my father who has the same name as my brother on his driver's license. Dad signed the lease, (my dad owns very little) and nobody even asked him for the driver's license. They saw the big fancy new Honda Acura and figured we were a pretty spiffy couple. The young woman and the old man.Guy must be rich, right?

For years Dick Delaney thought my father was my husband. Then one day after two years of the whole rent sum on the first, perfect like clock work, I just told him the truth "no, Dick, I just wanted Dad's credit report." He was ok with that as I am a good tenant. I always landscape houses to the max so no landlord would ever try to sue me. Nonetheless, many PREVIOUS landlords have evicted me for reasons that run the gamut: being stunned when I removed their back lawn and created Victorian, parterre, raised beds for fruit trees, vegies and flowers, tulips my pals in Holland sent me, etc..This million dollar WLA style garden offended them. Heck, the SPRINKLER HEADS were in a basket in garage!

Then there was revenge over my 'fix the damn plumbing' demands. Also Irritation, because when my demands weren't dealt with, I called the health department and cited them. (After trying this once, trust me, you never want to do this. Eviction is no fun. A momentary pique, and the momentary pleasure of zapping a landlord with the health fuzz can never tip a scale in favor of this reporting to Health Dept act. It is well weighted with the leaden pain of the eviction process.So do Good Cop threatening about the health dept, but never actually do it.

I have suspected landlords of evicting for even lesser reasons. Carol on Sherbourne did it because she'd only rented to me to get redwood fences built. (I promised in my Fantasia Contract to have my co-tenant son build fences). She went to see other fences he'd built in our burb, which were amazing and wanted him. When her brother nixed my cocky kid (the world's BEST fence builder) spotting my kid's  meshugenah spacecase aura, Carol thought, 'oh well, now we don't need YOU guys! In fact this house is harder to sell with you in it," and the moronic judge supported this demon whim.

Judges are as bad as codebooks, landlords and the law itself. All equally bad as the entire process supports the landlord who frivolously wants OUT on the contract. I've also wondered if my Jabba the Hut landlady in the Valley really didn't evict all her tenants to collect the fat security deposits she demanded, though some feel she just want to get the garden back from me so she could go on to rent or sell the house at higher price due to the new orchard and all the hollyhock, iris, tulips and Cantrbury bells. I thrashed that by leaving the yard a lunar landscape. Packed the soil itself
into huge trash cans and in the 14 truckloads, two a day, carried soil to new house.

If, for the case of argument, a landlord evicted, and I wanted to do the high penalty eviction tango, screwing the landlord to the cross of his own avarice, fighting him in eviction court, being untouchable on the judgment part by taking all my cash out of my own bank account and putting it into an account I share with my kid, and then going bankrupt and making the critter wait 6 rent-free months to even get her house back, (which you can do to a landlord in an eviction if you do legal bankruptcy) and if that landlord then sued me for 6 mos. of unpaid rent, which they can do to a tenant in an eviction) the landlord could not legally land a judgment or lein on my brother or place liens on his Paine Webber account for two reasons. 1.) he never signed the lease in her presence, or was present for the signing. And b.) the big one, he never lived there. That's the law. But here's the catch. The brother would have to show up in court and say 'I didn't sign any lease. I wasn't there.' How much does your brother love YOU? ‘cuz if he's not in court, then the eye of the state falls on YOU. False credit reports are illegal. You'd have to say either, ' but he was my co-signer' that's all, or 'but my brother was going to live with me and at last minute he changed his mind so I gave that credit report without ill motive.' Either would work. Scofflaws are the anathema of the entire court/judge / legal process. You can be a scofflaw; just don't get CAUGHT being one!

THE FINE TRICKS OF WORDING HOUSE LEASES - The BFer trick is to write your own lease with the MAIN THING you want hidden somewhere in the lease. For me, that's the privilege of staying at least 5 years, maybe ten, as I landscape gardens, and make jam only from the fruit of MATURE trees. Hell, no other kind HAS fruit.

Most landlords will NOT give that kind of time to you and there are no leases that give it to you. ALL leases are ONE year and one year only. So your job is to create this fantastically generous lease that gets in the word OPTION TO RENEW is at disposition of tenant. That secures you a multi-year lease without so stating. You get an option to rent at the close of every year of lease time.

Next, get your new landlord to sign one copy. You do not have to give him the other as he might throw a rod when he reads it carefully later. Just say that you'll mail him a copy and don't. See, Jabba, you hennaed frog, you witch, I learned puh-lenty from YOU, you captain of larceny named KAT!

Be like Jabba. Write a lease that has landmines hidden in it. A seemingly generous lease. If you bring your new landlord a well typed lease, (in ten point or less font)  he'll be glad to scan it and be pleasantly surprised. Point out the many features, rent amount to be filled in by him, security deposit amount to be filled in by him. Penalties have been pre-filled in by you: i.e. ANY DAMAGE and they get to keep security deposit. You promise to pay promptly. You will never seek relocation fees no matter how long you live there. Promise the world. Here are some surefire lures: TENANT promises to take care of all drain clogs not involving ingrown roots, at personal cost. (Better have a plumber's snake if you want to promise that one).Tenant will pay all utilities. Tenant will mow lawn if he decides to keep lawn in the planned landscaping. Which you do not plan.  Tenant will fix thermostat on gas water heater if it breaks (5$) but not buy the entire new water heater if it explodes due to old age. Tenant will take care of garden, mowing, vine cliping, topping off trees so they don't create rot in the house's eaves, doing garden clean-up in autumn, tree pruning. Get a real long list of chores here. Pad it vigorously.

Announce in this lease that you will be responsible for all ROOM painting, walls, ceilings, with top quality paint from Home Depot. But not exterior paint, although you might want a new color, so if you do, say you will paint the exterior once if landlord provides paint. I once did a four room house exterior in a day. One helper. A broom handle extension, a pal, a boom box, a single day of sunshine. Not a problem!

For clues on how to write a lease, get the usual dunce lease at a stationery store, or from a library book or online. Rewrite it to fit your profile. For instance, always write in a paragraph to cover your ambitious landscaping plans. "In no way will the landlord penalize the tenant if he turns the yard into a vegetable garden and orchard. Tenant will be allowed to install as many fruit bearing trees, vines and vegetable producing plants as he wishes. He will not be prevented from landscaping or installing boulder or brick borders and walls, low-voltage lighting, water sprays, fountains and waterfalls."

This advertises to the landlord that you're serious about landscaping, which they love as they reap the bounties when they sell the house out from under you, later.

Announce your intentions about laying linoleum, installing valuable lighting fixtures, sanding and poly-urethaning floors and carpeting the back rooms.

If you don't do all these projects later, they can't legally get you for breach of promise. That's not what the lease stated. It only stated that you were to be allowed to do these things.

But most important, get a phrase in there that's key to any future possibile litigation, the fact that landlord may not evict you for any reason in the next ten years if you are current with rent, and landlord may not raise rent, nor sell house out from under you without reimbursing you from sale money for all betterments you installed.

Put that 3/4 of the way down as people only scan the first half of a small print document.

Bring your customized lease with you when you look at houses. The trick with renting houses is to know this fact: underpriced houses are RENTED the first hour the newspaper comes out, so you or friends who subscribe, have to be no top of three newspapers every morning. Noon won't do. Every paper has new ads daily. You've got to spot their first appearance. Sunday papers come out Saturday afternoon. You've got to be on the curb waiting.

Then, you must show up at the house, story in place, your gorgeous lease in hand, credit application filled out and a few thousand in your checking account and checkbook in hand or forget it. The tidal wave of applicants will be right behind you.

KNOW YOUR OWN CREDIT PROFILE: Call TRW 800 682-7654 or write them: PO Box 8030 Layton UT 84041. Ask to have your free, once a year credit profile mailed you. If there's something you don't like, take it out this way. Call the robot automaton employee, say: "Line number 9 says I didn't pay my Student Loan. That's not true." TRW will write college, asking for the true scoop. A week or two later, they'll have the info that you indeed owe it. BUT as you're in a dispute, you'll get a second profile from TRW for free. If line 9 is still there, insist that they call the college again. These people are total robot automatons and will dutifully do it. The second time, however, the college will note that they've sent the information a week before and IGNORE the request. Within a short time, line 9 will magically erase. So always insist a few times until any distasteful item erases. Disputes get you free print-outs every time.

Another tip. Don't go looking for credit at the local Discount Store because each time you're turned down, it shows up on your TRW. Inquiries stay on for 2 yrs. So think back. When were you last begging for credit? You can only be the master of the TRW report if it's more than 2 yrs ago. Don't go asking for credit. You don't want it, it destroys you in so many ways, don't go asking for it! Got it?

WANT TO BUY NOT RENT? BFers don't have downpayments and they get gooseflesh if you mention loans or some bank getting interest. They don't pay taxes and don't need deductions thank you very much. They like to make homebuying a person to person thing. They look for a house which has been on the market for more than a year, something a real estate agent can spot on the computer. They ask the owner if they can buy the place with a 'land contract.' It's a kind of installment plan only the bank is left out of it. And so are all those piles of interest that double the price of every house. The old owner retains title to the house until you've paid every drop. His property taxes stay the same (and that's nice as you're paying them). You see, there's been no transfer. You, the new owner, get a quit claim deed which will become valid when you pay off a given sum, say his asking price. (You don't lowball a man who's going to give you his home, friend.)

There's no transfer of title until it's paid off, so the old owner doesn't get a huge lump sum of capital gains on which he must pay income taxes. You pay whatever monthly sum you can afford, maybe in cash that he doesn't even have to declare. You do this on a monthly basis. If he were to die while you were paying the house off, you wouldn't have anything so what you do is, buy a term policy life insurance payable to his heirs. If he dies, it pays a huge amount to his heirs and you get the house because that's stipulated in a contract he signed to you. But here's the so hot bonus for him; his heirs do not have to pay any taxes on life insurance. They would have to pay it on any house they inherited. But not on this trade. So you see, as is true throughout nature, the most beautiful is the most economic and vice versa. A paralegal with brain impairment could make up the deal memo contract on one page. Wheel this baby out on the streets, you'll see it flies.

WRITE THAT LEASE WRONG, you're going to need a pro-bono LAWYER later. FOR an EVICTION. There are pro-bono legal angels all over the city and there are Legal Aid Societies, (they all demand you have a super low income, like 900$ a month total.) But you won't need legal advice if you remember this one word. When given an eviction notice, ANSWER. Not the first 30 day eviction notice but the summons that the CITY sends. Answer the day after it is served you.

Get a good ballpoint pen, take the summons that was 'served' you, go downtown to the City Housing Department, Rent Stabilization division either in the downtown court building. In my case it was downtown L.A. where the first, infamous OJ trail went on. (Low cost parking was found on the block immediately south.) If you're in the VALLEY, you'd go to Van Nuys City hall. West L.A. would be to West L.A.'s Purdue's Municipal Court, Room 102.

There you will ask for the proper FORMS TO do your ANSWER. They consist of a FORM TO WAIVE FEE (so you won't have to pay for the answer) and the ANSWER FORM ITSELF. To file an indigency petition you will need to have a driver's license with your photo on it or some other photo I.D., passport. And to fill out the waiver form, describing how low your income is. So there's no high (87$) answering fee. Regulations state that you must be dirt poor, earning under 1025$ a month, so if rent you're paying on paper is high, admit that there are three or four of you, and you also have a tenant leasing the sofa so you only pay $300. Claim your usual, modest traceable income not the untraceable. They used to ask what you spent on food, laundry. Latest forms I've seen do not.

Bfers spend 30$ a month for food, as they grow their own produce and eat brown rice. And they spend zero on laundry. After you get the waiver, which takes 30 seconds, you will file an 'Answer.' This is something more lengthy, times four, so you might want to take the FORM HOME and get it back the next day.

THE ANSWER is literally that. You ANSWER whatever the landlord put in his complaint. He says you don't mow lawn, say you did and say that Exhibit A will be photos of what you allege. Exhibit B will be letters from witnesses or neighbors who are not party to the action. Letters aren't good unless these witnesses come to court. Then they can be entered into evidence.

If LANDLORD put two names in the eviction notice and complaint, BOTH MUST ANSWER. Even if one is your co-signer who lives in a mansion, He must answer. If your co-signer wants to waive fees due to indigency, and he's a millionaire, you may end up paying his 87$ just so you don't have to drag him down to the court house to make this answer. Then, you can fill out his papers for him, his answer, and just have him sign it and file it yourself.

In your legal Answer, state which laws landlord broke, how landlord is a cheating rat and why you deserve to be in that house. The judge will read this document and this one only so write it SHORT AND CAREFUL AND PRINT OR TYPE it BEAUTIFULLY!. Clearly state how you did not do the offenses landlord alleges, how landlord is seeking to rent the place for more money. How landlord is retaliating as you called the Health Department. Your answer must be neatly typed, not on legal paper, not required. Xerox it four times and go back to City Hall and file it with the forms you've filled out.

Next, whatever photographic evidence you promised the court in your Answer must be shot and developed. Photograph the dump; INSIDE, use Black and white and flash to catch all the unfunctioning, broken things. Get letters from APPLIANCE REPAIR MEN citing what it will cost to fix it. Have someone come out to the house and look at the damage, get their estimates. BUT better than all of this is one report from the Health Department, BUILDING AND SAFETY Department or the FAIR HOUSING Council. Get them to come out and look at the place, get some form or paper from them. THE GAS company will come if it's gas related. These are free ways of getting evidence. The DWP will also come out and cite and condemn non-working electrical things. To find more people to report landlord to, call the Consummer Affairs Guide to tenants. All these bureaus' reports are worth GOLD. PAPERWORK is GOD in a court.

Collect your graphic evidence. Or, you might get reputable witnesses. The actual presence of friends in court, who say 'Poor Bottomfeeder has no heat, the dishwasher waters the floors, the pipes leak into the yard. " etc. Affidavits will not do. Only their presence as witnesses in court will work.

In L.A., if landlord is asking you to relocate after years of living there, they have to pay you $2,000. If you have a doctor's letter saying you're invalid, or have a dependent relative, it's $5,000. Maybe even $5k for both disabled tenants, a fiver for each sad invalid. Investigate with your local Dept. of Housing.

If you'd like to request this payment, state this in your written 'answer.' The court will give you a copy for the landlord's lawyer and ask that you have someone who is NOT PARTY TO THE ACTION mail this and fill out a form so stating. KEEP THAT FORM. Get a friend to sign it. You can actually do the mailing. You should have some stamps as you must mail landlord's lawyer that copy within 24 hours. I'd do it as soon as you leave the building. It does not have to be mailed registered or special delivery. Court demands that a disinterested friend does the mailing to 'witness' that it was sent, and that friend fills out a simple form which court gives you. Never send anything registered assuming it helps your legal validity. It won't. Give the extra money to Mother Teresa if you want to throw money away. Courts assume that the mail gets through. If landlord claims he never got it, it won't hurt your case because you'll have that form that friend gave you with his signature stating that he mailed it and it makes your landlord look like a lying jerk.

Now, the city will write you in a few weeks, give you your day in court within a month so get your exhibits, letters, photos ready to prove all your allegations.

YOUR HOMEWORK- To create a total verbal inquisition of the landlord which you will do in the court room, before the judge. You may not realize this salient legal fact: you are not allowed to talk, not to address the plaintiff landlord or the judge. You can't ask judge to give you time to live there longer, or decide in your favor or give you any concessions. COURT IS like slamming into a brick wall, once a second for an hour.

You may do one thing only --- question witness in the manner judge instructs you to do, either relative to his original complaint (always super thin) or his statement as court opens.

This questioning process you must do effectively, backing them into verbal corners. As you do it, observe RULE # ONE: Never ask a question of witness or plaintiff to which you don't know the answer that he'll give. RULE #2, show nothing but dispassionate interest, no anger. And RULE #3, double up on the info in a question so you get it ALL IN AT ONCE, i.e. build your entire case with one question because JUDGE will not give you more than one or two questions!

EXAMPLE: "when I first met you at the house, did you tell me security deposit was only $1,000 and take this check for that sum, and then later write lease to reflect another sum entirely, one we had NOT agreed upon??? (Hand bailiff the cancelled check to give to judge as proof, doing so in same second.) See, one single question and you ruined their case!

The landlord will stammer and lie like a rug here, and allege it was this absolutely huge, larger sum of $2500. Persist in questioning. How do you explain fact that that day, when I first met you, I gave you THIS check for security deposit and it was only l000$ security deposit and you accepted it. "Well, YES," landlady prevaricates: "but that was only partial payment. On the lease I clearly state $2500 security deposit and you signed that lease." "But I didn't have eyeglasses that day. Do you remember that?  I signed it because you said it was a thousand only. Then, Your honor I have a witness here in court who will testify that this landlady assured me that the contract reflected the verbal agreement of 4 days earlier, when she took my cash. In truth, it did not."

ONLY THEN, when it is LINEAR AND SEQUENTIAL --will you be allowed to bring in a witness. Judges don't know what they're called but they hate 'non sequiteurs.

Now, bring in your witness. And keep it linear. "So, after you swore to this witness and me that your contract reflected your verbal agreement, you added that weird codicil at the bottom only I didn't initial it, did I?' So maybe you added it later? As you never sent me a copy of the lease and didn't give me one that day?" STUFF a single question with four damning facts. That's the trick. STUFF THE STUFF IN FAST and HAVE papers to back it up and witnesses too.

LANDLADY will say, " SO what? You signed the lease." Then you're allowed to answer that. "Yes, but that codicil wasn't on there. "How would you know if you didn't have glasses?" I don't know it. but there, your honor, she's just admitted that I didn’t' have my glasses."

You've got her THERE! So stay sequential and see if you can't be a Perry Mason. Go for the awe-inspiring parry and feint as judges are so hateful and bored. ANYTHING banal and USUAL to them, they will squelch. But this kind of pyrotechnics they'll watched in stunned delight.

And as a final fillip, you hold up the endorsed check that indicates security deposit was only $1000 and landlord cashed it 4 days before you signed the lease. Then you can address the court. Your honor, this proves fraudulent intent. She knew I couldn't see the lease. She gave me no copies of the lease after I signed. Here's my check showing what our true, verbal agreement was. Only $1,000 was to be security deposit. The other 3 thousand was RENT. A first and last month is what she told me!

Then, here's the final fillip. Bring out the landlady's email. (it can be doctored to any degree you wish by using a text editor to enter browser's email collection.) "You see, your Honor, she told me to cut the vines, cut the trees as they'd rot the roof, but see here your honor where she told me 'fix the plumbing yourself, you broke it? This proves she knew on this date about the broken toilet and would not fix it."

You will win even if you get evicted because usually the judge can give you perks. Like not make you beholden for the three months rent since you've been fighting eviction, or give you credit for landscaping, or give you lots of time to get out. Rent-free time. You might even get relocation money. If you're lucky, they'll give you value for the garden you installed. That happened to me.

But only if you have friends in heaven will an eviction court judge let you live out that money, meaning if garden is worth 5k, stay 4 mos. That is not really going to happen, gang. The only way you can get more than a few weeks is BANKRUPTCY COURT.

Yes, that's the court of last recourse. If something goes wrong and the Sheriff gives you a 5 day warning that he's coming, relax for three days, then take 160$ to Federal building's Bankruptcy Court office (In L.a. it's down at Spring and Temple ) get the forms and fill out a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

MANY CHOICES HERE: it's up to you which creditors you want to list. You can do it with no creditors but the landlord and his judgment and rent you think you MIGHT owe. You can throw in a few magazines you never paid for, or a credit card or the utility bills, cable bills that you can't pay due to this eviction and while you're at it, throw in a few pals. But go up to twenty thousand owed and the IRS, which reviews these filings, is going to say 'how did you get this kind of money?' Because they are never exempt from money owed, no matter how bankrupt you are.

If you don't want to go bankrupt, which one of the tenants on the summons do you want to declare legally bankrupt? It doesn't have to be you. ANY tenant on the original summons who lives in house will do.

As far as actually completing your bankruptcy, wait until this is about to go to court and dismiss the bankruptcy. When landlord hears about it, and reactivates her eviction and you get that sheriff's warning, declare bankruptcy again. Do this for a year until landlord goes legally insane. That will give you puhlenty of time to look for great digs and to earn the money to pay for it and you can dance on landlord's grave to boot so it's a real win-win situation.

ONLY WAY YOU CAN LOSE on a bankruptcy. The papers they give you are all about payback. They're very interested in how much money you make a year, and how you're going to pay back what you owe. Now, get this. THE IRS reads all the bankruptcy papers in the land. If you say you earn 30k and they never saw the W-2's, the IRS will come looking for you. So tell the court you only earn 3k a year and yet you intend to pay back this debt. All these debts. ‘cuz you don't want the IRS looking for you.

As for how lousy a bankruptcy looks on your future life? Bottom feeders are not going to go through with the entire bankruptcy. They file but they never show up for the final hearing. They are just buying time. Those three months are rent free. And what if you did go thru with it? Next time you buy a house, do it in a relative's name, with their credit. JUST LIVE in it until you die and then it reverts to them. Again, you gotta have relatives you love, trust, or vice versa. Who love and trust YOU.

THE FUTURE SCOOP ON TOTALLY FREE HOUSING: In California, there's a trend toward what is called "housing takeovers." Hank Aguilar, a UCLA biz grad and ex-con read about an old California squatter's law called "adverse possession" which allows anyone to move into an abandoned home. You can find this article on the Internet as LA Times lets you into their files. Aguilar found lists of foreclosures, put new locks on the buildings and rented them to tenants without informing the banks that he had done so. As 90,000 homes went into foreclosure in California last year there were abundant homes to pick from. It's a well known fact that eviction courts are gentle with the poor and loathe to move them onto the street, so many tenants found they could stay in their posh new homes for years. Unfortunately, Aguilar got greedy and filed fraudulent quit claims and was prosecuted but another company, Windsor Pacific, continues to operate legally, finding vacant houses in foreclosure and renting them 'as is.' The California law states that the new tenant must improve the vacant property, pay taxes on it and live in it for five years. Then, they get to keep the house. If someone comes to court with a superior title, before the end of five years, the possessor is out of luck. Even if that's the case, worst case scenario is, an empty house is lived in for a while until the bank sells it. Seems to me that everybody wins.

CHEAP URBAN LIVING ALSO IS GOOD. You can live in the urban center of your city which once was the ‘downtown’, but which now is decayed and needs gentrification. Generally a downtown has theatres, city hall, courts, and nearby warehouses and train rails. This area is the real estate FUTURE of the city. These areas gentrify real well. And you and your chums can be in on the bigtime real-estate in the future, if your finger is on the pulse of the DOWNTOWN! Read the URBAN RESIDENTIAL HOTEL FILE!

DECORATING ON A DIME: You've got the house. However you got it, now that you've got this gem, use every trick I'm going to give you for achieving FREE DECOR. Decor is very important for high morale. The main trick of the Nouveau Goodwill Impovero-Deco design is to swim life's river the way it's pointed. Let everything funky be restored to its original funk. Don't remodel one bit. Use the "This Old House" Bob Villa method of leaving the antique just as it was.

GRUNGEY WALLS? USE that buckled wallpaper and grungey walls as 'texture' under mixed paint ends. (I brake for paint cans on the curb). Always put the textured, sandy, gritty outdoor paint on first, slaphazardly, doesn't have to be everywhere. Just in places. As it's slow to dry, wallpaper comes loose, and you tear random pieces out of it. READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE “HOW TO DO WALLS”.

When wall is dry, you're going to put a good thick layer of the DARKEST COLOR first. I like a copen blue, myself. This is the only coat with complete coverage. The rest will be 'kissed on.' The dark coat takes a gallon, the rest quarts. So, second coat is pale blue, 'kissed' on with light, brushy layers of different pale lavendar and another kiss from pale pink. We light-brush and dry-brush the lighter layers onto the rich texture to show the copen blue off as background. Your third coat is medium color, fourth coat is lighter still, fourth is very pale, fifth is white, dry brushed on like white 'snow,' catching just the highest points of the texture.

The wall ends up looking like Pompeii in the light of a Mediterranean sunset. Spectacular. And all the torn or wrinkled wallpaper areas are the best part of all. No, the best part is this: the fact that you realize that you can live anywhere. Life can not throw you any more curves. No matter how delapidated the building, it's better than the best brand-spanking new house a rich guy has. You cannot be challenged by grungey architcture. The weirder it is, the better it will look when you finish with it!

ICKY CARPETS? The mattress where you lay your face and the carpet are two places where grunge isn't appreciated. TRY HOME SHAMPOOING: Only do this on a dry day. Any humidity in the air and you'll buckle your floors, put mold in your lungs. First, use PUMP spray carpet cleaner on all bad spots. This stuff is a miracle. Next, rent a steam cleaner. Avoid those expensive carpet cleaners and costly laundry detergents. Get a bottle of discount detergent, strengthened with a little ammonia. Costs one fiftieth of the other chemicals. Move every bit of furniture out of the room. Start at back end of room, farthest from bathrooms where you leave the dirty water. Go over every area twice, dumping the muck down the toilet at regular intervals. NOW go thru the entire room a second time with acid water, like vinegar and water. Buy a gallon of vinegar at the S&H cheap place. One cup to each vat of hot water in the shampooer. That cuts the detergent alkalis and rinses. Turn on a space heater and toast the room overnight. (Never mix bleach with ammonia or use them same day)

If that carpet is not gorgeous and wonderful, tear it out, install it out in the garage where you'll put your computer room or carpentry workshop. Install it on top of plastic tarps, so no grease gets on bottom side. Sure, sawdust gets in it, but when you saw, put tarps over area. Anyway, sawdust vacuums up easily. The comfort of carpets in a garage makes you paint, spray, saw, wri