Oh, i've had the roach-infested apartment experience! It was in one of those places where they didn't bomb all at once, so the roaches would just run from one apartment to the next. We used to joke that we had 40,000 pets all named Scooby, and we'd try to dab them with a spot of paint (we had tons of paints for doing D&D miniatures) to see if we could keep track of them. It didn't work, although one that got painted pink did get sighted a few times. [shudder] That was long ago when i was 18 and just happy to have an apartment. There is no way i'd deal with it now.
That particular apartment was one of four units in a house. The day we called to have the gas turned on, the gas company's rep instead looked at the furnace and hung enough red tags on it that it could have doubled as a Christmas tree. Somebody eventually bypassed everything so we could have heat but that doesn't mean anything on the furnace was fixed.
The kitchen floor was subfloor with many holes. We rigged a bell to a string that went down two floors as a doorbell (pull string to say "hi!"). No bulb in the outer stairs we could've handled, but there was no socket to give us light there. The thermostat was two wires sticking out of the wall, so when you wanted heat you put them together. When it got so hot you were sweating you took them apart.
Oh yeah, that was the summer my BF at the time was trying to make a living selling vacuum cleaners. He drove a '73 Malibu wagon with no floor (we added plywood) and no power steering. We nicknamed it "Sherman" for the tank. It leaked so much exhaust into the cab that you had to stop and get out to breathe every half hour or you'd die of carbon monoxide poisoning.
A little money is a good thing. Enough money to feel a little safer is even better.
