Tuesday 11 March 2014

TIPS ON LIVING IN A CAR

When you are living in your car it is really important to keep it in order. Everything has a place and it should become a habit of always returning a item to the same place. Except when you have Gremlins that move things around lol. Quite often you may be looking for things in the dark. You may not be able to turn the interior light on as it will attract attention that you are sleeping in it. It certainly helps when you can retrieve items by feel and not sight.

I have two  bags for cooking. I call them my kitchen bags. They are just cooler bags that you buy from supermarkets. One has my breakfast items in it which include coffee, sugar, uht milk, a  kettle, teaspoon, butter knife, plate, coffee mug, a container that has tea bags and various sugar, jam satchels in it and course my vegemite. I keep a water bottle in it also to clean the bbq after I make toast. I have a bbq metal spatula that I keep mainly in my dinner bag for cleaning. The other my dinner bag has my a knife a steak knife a fork, spoon a plate, chopping board, cutting knife, potato peeler, can opener, a roll of foil and cling wrap, a chux for cleaning and wiping, paper towels, salt and pepper garlic salt, tongs and the spatula and water bottle for cleaning. I find this is sufficient. I keep these on the front seat of my car and place my butane burner on the floor of the car.

In the far back of my car I have a tub that contains one small saucepan and lid one saucepan steamer set a small frypan a cast iron frypan a container of spare cutlery a spare plate and big bowl freezer bags spare chux and empty containers and spare butane gas when I have them.

I carry a spare bag of toiletries containing small items collected from many motel stays over the years in case I run out and when able and toiletries are on special I try to buy a few and place in this bag. I keep this behind my front seat of the car. I also have my shower bag that I use everyday but that lives on the front seat with my kitchen bags. Also behind the back seats on the floor are my food bag than contains my tin packet food etc and a bag that contains spare car items like fuel cap oils when I have them and so forth.

I have 2 suitcases of clothes I have thrown all that don't fit into my car. One contains my everyday clothes and the other winter and workwear. I have all of my boots under my front seats and also have a fire extinguisher a first aid kit and a torch stored there.

There is another tub that contains personal papers so forth in the far back of the car along with my computer monitor and laptops in a washing basket. All my cleaning products are stored in a net next to these. Also a little 3 man tent which I have not used as I feel sleeping in the car is safer.

This is all i have left now i have had to throw all my possessions as they simply didnt fit and are only of materilistic value anyhow.

It is important to keep your windows down a fraction at night when sleeping as condensation builds up and this can cause major problems with the electrical system in a car.

I clean my car everyday with a handbroom and shake mats my quilt pillows. It is suprising how much dust gathers in the car. I also wipe it all down inside. I go around the outside of it with the handbroom and wipe of any bird or bat poo or marks. It is hard for me to wash my car but i find the rain generally does a good job.

And ladies don't forget that roll of toilet paper!

Hopefully anybody will not have to use these tips but for those that do have to I hope this helps a little bit.


2 comments:

  1. Kath all I can say is you are survivor. Thank you for sharing the realities of being homeless in Australia. I wish I could say something more just seems lame. I love sunsets as well.

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  2. I found covering windows a bit creepy but it seemed to stop the 4 am 'refrigerator' shivers. ♥ ty for the 'chin up', if you can get through this, so can I. ♥ blue

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