Winnie the Poop

Warning: This entry is off-color.

So I'm walking around this morning while they are fixing my car down in Pullman, WA.
(By the way...they had to replace the part that I had had replaced in June in Iowa...someone will get a sternly worded note).
Anywho, I'm walking and killing time while I wait. I walk past a trailer court I used to live in once upon a time in my college days. I like the old style trailer parks. Before they were "manufactured homes" or whatever. Back when a trailer was a trailer.

Many of these trailers have been in the park since they were new in the 1950s or 1960s so they've been modified, settled into the swamp they sit on and what not. They've hardened into the landscape and I like them.
A nice old one is for sale for 4500$. It's aqua with white trim, original windows, a porch (added later and at least partly made of old pallets).
There was a sign in the window with a number so, having time to kill, I called it. I asked if it would be open today for a viewing and the guy said, "It should be unlocked from someone seeing it yesterday." I said, "I see it's 4500$." The guys says to me he says, "I've lowered the price to 350o$"

Anyway, I like the shape and the look.
Just cool. Actually, it looks like this:














But aqua with white trim instead of silver. But this is the exact shape, window/door arrangement and everything. The webpage said this is 1958 Spartan "Imperial Villa".

I test the porch for sturdiness (it is sturdy) and go for the door. It's a little jammed but opens (out). I figure the thing has probably settled a bit over the years hence the sticky door. Just inside the metal door, is a "screen" door. Clearly homemade featuring 1/4" hardware cloth rather than screen and possibly reusing the original cabinet type latch. I always appreciate a screen door so the neighbors cat/kid can't wander in.

The door leads into the spacious 6X8 living room. I could touch both side walls at once (but I do have freakishly long monkey arms). There are some built in shelves and it's all paneled. The kitchen is just aft of the living room...and TINY but functional with fridge, gas stove, double sink and a tiny bit of counter space. There is an area, maybe 4'6" or so long and nothing wide where you are probably supposed to put a table and chair or something in the kitchen.

Proceeding through the kitchen you pass through a sliding door (no wasted space for hinged doors!) into what was probably once advertised as a bedroom. It is, like everything else, about 6' wide. There is a slider on the "far" end of the room too. The entire room is barely long enough to stuff a twin mattress in. Not sure you could get a headboard in as well. There is a cupboard partway up that must extend into the kitchen. I did not explore that as an issue was arising. there were two windows One on each outside wall so you would have good ventilation.

Through the far slider and voila! You're in the bathroom and about 3 feet from the next slider. The bathroom had a tub along the outside wall (you are walking along one outside wall already, the same wall that had the main entry door in it). RIGHT next to the non-faucet end of the short tub is the toilet. I flushed it and it worked. Opposite the toilet, next to the faucet and of the tub is the sink/vanity and medicine cabinet. The issue that arose in the bedroom has now become an actual issue. I have to make a number 2. Soon. I start thinking. I'm already IN a bathroom. The guy is not coming to the trailer since he doesn't know I'm there.
...
Still thinking.

OK, must be done thinking now. I totally used the toilet. It looked clean. I had to sit a little sideways to keep my knees from hitting the vanity cupboard (it must not have been original to the trailer. The style and scale were off). About this time it occurs to me that I did not check for toilet paper. I have my bag with some work reports I was going to work on while they were fixing the car and there is usually a napkin from Subway or something in there.
...
looking
...
looking.
NO!!! Nothing but office paper, file folders, a plastic covered spiral bound report, a plastic reusable grocery sac (always have one...in case you stop at the store on the way to/from work), a bamboo spork (hmmm...no), a hair brush, comb, copies of court orders, a broken mechanical pencil, dust, lint....AAAARRRRGGG.

I look frantically around the tiny crapper and into the adjacent rooms (which I could totally reach into). NOTHING in plain sight. Not even a wash cloth or anything. I remember the vanity and open it. On the inside of the door is a roll on a holder and on the shelf is another roll. Disaster averted.
By now I'm laughing thinking about the video I posted a while back.
Here's a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q16Wk1zKRrE

Anyway, I pull my self together, use the sink to wash my hands (note that the toilet flush is effective), and proceed through the next sliding door.

I'm in the palatial master bedroom. This thing must be 6 feet wide! It's HUGE and by "HUGE" I mean minuscule. Larger than the other bedroom, but only because it is not dual purposed as a hallway. You could probably get an old double bed in here, but you'd be hard pressed to pull out the built in drawers along the end wall of the trailer under the window. The drawers are flanked by a pair of closets, with, of course, sliding doors (I forgot to mention another closet...it may have been in the first bedroom or the bathroom...how could I lose a closet in a trailer that small?)

Anyway, it's not a bad bedroom if you are used to the size of the trailer already and don't have any big-r-tall friends.

This room has yet another doorway in it so while it was not originally doubling as a hallway, it is now. This door goes back out the same wall we originally came in when we entered the trailer. There is an addition. This is a real door on hinges and swings "out" into the new room. You go down a couple of steps in to a tiny, but comparatively spacious room with a sliding window in one wall, a stackable washer/dryer built into a nook, some build in shelves, and a door leading outside into the yard. This door is at right angles to the original entrance door and facing it more or less.

You could actually have 2 private bedrooms if you entered each through an outside door and one of them used to be named "living room". Then you could dine in the tiny first bedroom and watch TV or whatever in the original master bedroom. You would not want a very large TV because anything over about 12" is going to feel like you're at the OMNI theater. You can't really get too far away from things.

Still, with the decent roofed porch and extra room that have been added, it's not a bad trailer. There is lots of storage for the size and a small storage shed outside. The trees in the yard have grown up enough to shade the roof and someone managed to shove an air conditioner in one of the tiny windows on the end with the trailer hitch. It's not bad for the price and lot rent (including water, sewer and garbage) is 235$ a month. If I were a student, I'd be all over it.

The trailer I had in the same lot back in the day is still there. It's bigger. Probably 8 feet wide. And not as cool. Angela stayed in it when she visited me for three weeks one balmy palouse summer (and by "balmy" I mean hotter than hades). It was a dump. The trailer for sale is a dump...but a livable dump. And it's a good trailer court as these things go. It's right across the street from the community garden area and only floods in the spring...most years it's only in the spring.