Damn this thread! I keep hoping it'll drop off the bottom, so I won't be tempted to add ONE more memory. Ah well...

When I left Towers street, there was 2 months before I could get a place in the Birmingham (corner Bleury & de Mais.), so I stayed in a co-op on Prospect Street. It had been, once, a grand Westmount house, and it is now, again. But in-between it was a dump. $280/month for the whole place, with 7 folks at $40 apiece. But after a few weeks people started dropping out without finding replacements, leaving me and another guy, total 2. It was hopeless finding paying people, so the other guy, out of boredom and loneliness put up a notice: CRASH HERE (address) FREE. Soon the 2 became 22, with 20 freeloaders! There were sleeping bags everywhere, and one gal started living in the bathroom, the only room with a lock!   They were a surly, ungrateful lot.. ..."Hey man, you gonna make me some breakfast??" It was like Dylan's lines... "Fistfights in the kitchen, it's enough to make me cry!"

The fact that the upstairs toilet started leaking into the downstairs hall didn't help either.

After a few days, my room in the Birm became available. I packed up and left. As I went out the door I surveyed the somnolent bodies, and noticed a large rotting bag of potatoes under the kitchen table, left over from its "commune" days. It was the liveliest thing in the place.