UPDATE: Lived in warehouse without Corporate finding out for half a year
Hello everyone! I wanted to make an update post to thank each and every one of you for the kind words you shared with me about my living situation last year.
TL;DR for those who didn't see the previous post here https://www.reddit.com/r/malelivingspace/comments/1ul7wcj/lived_in_a_warehouse_without_corporate_finding/
My ex of 3 years suddenly left me to be with two other guys, leaving me to pay for our $2,500-a-month apartment by myself for four months. She also left her cats behind for me to take care of until one day she took them back after threatening to call the police on me. By the end of the lease, I was completely broke, had nowhere to go, and came very close to selling everything I owned. I told my boss about my situation, and he offered to let me live in our warehouse for however long I needed until I got back on my feet. I lived there for half a year through blazing summer temperatures of 85–95 degrees and freezing winter temperatures of 15–25.
Now I wanted to make this update to show more pictures of how the room changed over time and to answer some of the questions people had. It became difficult to reply to every comment after the original post blew up.
I began living in the warehouse on May 27, 2025. After I told my boss I had nowhere else to go and was on the brink of selling everything I owned just to get by, he agreed to let me stay there. He even had my coworkers help me move my belongings into the warehouse using the trucks we had on the lot. Pictures 4 and 5 are from that very first day. You can see how the room looked after I spruced it up a few days later in my original post.
That first night, I was still in shock over how quickly everything had changed. While my ex was surrounded by people who only believed her side of the story, living somewhere she didn't have to pay rent, and dating the same guys she cheated on me with, I was broke, alone, had no friends, and felt like I had lost everything and everyone I cared about.
I was scared by all the random noises our broken ventilation system made, and I was paranoid that someone would break into my room or steal my things. The place was so dusty you could practically taste the wood particles floating through the air. There was a single white ceiling light that flickered constantly, and I didn't figure out how to turn it off until weeks later. The constant fluorescent buzzing from the office lights drove me crazy to the point where I'd play rain sounds as loudly as I could just to drown it out. Genuinely felt like the backrooms. On top of that, the water boiler alarm would go off every 24 hours until someone eventually disabled it.
I slept on my futon that first night, wallowing in self-pity and convincing myself that I deserved to be vilified like this. It was hard to get any sleep. Even after I settled in, there were still plenty of rough nights. It wasn't exactly the easiest place to rest.
As time passed and I had more time to organize my things, I realized I needed to make the space better suited to my hobbies if I was going to survive with my mental health intact. The loneliness and the overwhelming amount of work tasked onto me were brutal, and I often fell into deep depression. So I reorganized the room into something much closer to what you see in pics 1-3.
The room I lived in was in a section of the warehouse that only managers could access, so none of my coworkers ever knew I was living there. I'd wake up around 5:00 a.m. and walk 25 minutes to a gym so I could shower, since there wasn't one I could realistically use in the warehouse. After showering, I'd walk back to work, put my bathroom supplies back in my room, and start work at 7:00 a.m.
I worked as a Sales Consultant, so I had a company vehicle that I used to drive to customer estimates throughout the day. Once I finished work, I'd return to the warehouse and enter through a specific entrance that led to the secured section where I lived, accessible only by keypad.
Whenever I had free time, I'd spend it listening to music, playing piano and guitar, watching movies on my theater setup, reading, working out, and doing lots and lots of degenerate gaming. I'd connect my PC to my LG G5 TV, as shown in the third picture, and play games using my wireless keyboard and mouse while blasting everything through my surround sound system. There were definitely moments when I thought it was the peak gaming experience.
But whenever those quieter moments came around, the loneliness would hit hard. I was often deeply depressed and questioned how long I could keep living like that. In many ways, the whole experience felt like prison. I felt like I was living in squalor. My mind constantly wandered back to my ex, the cats, and the friends I had lost. I convinced myself that every miserable moment was something I deserved. I truly believed I was a bad person, and I struggled with suicidal thoughts. The former friends who knew about my situation didn't care enough to offer the help I needed. For as long as I stayed in that warehouse, I felt completely on my own.
When it came to washing my clothes, I'd carry a laundry basket and walk about 30 minutes to a laundromat. Occasionally, a family member would stop by and let me do my laundry at their house instead. Every morning, I'd also walk 20 minutes to the gym to shower before heading back to work. There actually was a shower in the warehouse, but it was absolutely disgusting and wasn't worth trying to clean. It also had no hot water. On top of that, it was located too close to where most of my coworkers walked around, so there was no way I wanted someone walking into the bathroom and seeing my wang hanging out.
There was no air conditioning in my room, so the only things I had to keep me comfortable were a portable fan in the summer and a small space heater in the winter. Installing a real AC unit wasn't an option because the only window I could vent it through was out in the hallway. I didn't want Corporate getting suspicious about why there was suddenly an air conditioner sitting outside the only locked room in the warehouse. When winter rolled around, I had a tiny space heater that barely warmed the room. If I turned it up too high, it would trip the electrical breaker and knock out power to nearly half the building.
I bought a mini fridge where I kept fruit, bologna, milk, juice, cheese, energy drinks, and microwaveable meals. Most of my cooking consisted of using a microwave and a toaster. If I wanted something different, I'd usually order takeout.
Part of the agreement for living in the warehouse was that I would work seven days a week throughout the summer. The other Sales Consultant at my company had suffered a seizure and wasn't able to return during our busiest season. My boss asked if I could cover the workload, promising to pay me accordingly. It definitely helped that my commute was basically walking out of bed and into work.
It was brutal though, and eventually it started taking a toll on my health. After a while, I had to negotiate working six days a week instead. Even so, I ended up bringing in a lot of business for the company because I was able to devote so much of my time to work.
Surprisingly, I was never really caught. It helps when you eventually learn all of the camera blind spots around the warehouse.
There was only one time Corporate came close to finding me. One of the corporate managers wanted to inspect every room in the warehouse, and luckily I knew ahead of time when he was coming. I hurriedly stacked a mountain of boxes against my door so that if he opened it, all he'd see was cardboard. When he peeked inside, he couldn't find the light switch, saw nothing but boxes, and decided it wasn't worth investigating any further. Meanwhile, I was standing silently on the other side of the room, sweating bullets the entire time. You can see how it looked in Picture 7.
Eventually, another coworker ended up living in a smaller room farther down the hallway. Unlike me, he got caught. After that, Corporate became much more interested in the warehouse's security, and my boss finally asked me to move out. Fortunately, by that point I had managed to save a decent amount of money, and my family was finally in a position to let me move back in with them.
Even though I was able to move back home, I couldn't bring all of my furniture with me right away. I put everything into a storage unit and left my PC at the warehouse until I could figure out where to put it. Looking back, I regret leaving it there because I barely used it, and it only increased the chances of Corporate discovering my setup. Around that time, all I really did was play VRChat, hang out in the DBD server, and play piano. You can see how everything looked in Pictures 7 and 8.
I officially left the warehouse in December 2025. Last picture was how it looked on the last day I was there before taking all of my things out. Not long afterward, I left the company on good terms to pursue something new that challenged me.
Today I still struggle with a lot of trauma from my previous relationship and the fallout from losing so many of my friendships. But I am in a different environment now - one that challenges me in ways that are helping me grow and rediscover who I want to be as I work toward my dreams. To ANYONE who is going through anything like this, please, you don't have to carry your burdens alone. My boss saved my life and we still meet once a week for beers and cookouts.
Just like I said in my previous post, I'll say it again:
Don't be afraid to ask for help.
You might be surprised by what people are willing to do to help make sure you get through to the other side okay.
If you guys have any more questions I'll do my best to answer them. Thanks for reading.