It’s one of the questions I get a lot. “How can you sleep there with the lights and all the people around.” Honestly, it’s the sort of thing you get used to. When I first “lived” in my car it was because I was commuting once a week from San Diego to LA and staying there for three nights before coming back. I used to drive each night 35 miles from Burbank out to Malibu to stay at the only campground in LA that stayed open after 10:00, (which is when I got off work). Really I got used to sleeping in the van in public places because I was so sick of making that drive when all I wanted to do was go to sleep. And really if you want to get comfortable sleeping in your car the only thing you can do is sleep in your car. Even if that first night you stay up the whole time worried then at least you’ve gotten through that first night. Staying up all night won’t kill you. Then the second night will be easier. After those first couple nights, after nothing’s happened, and you’ve had no problems, then it gets easier and easier, till it’s no big deal.

The way I look at it,  three unlikely things have to happen for me to have “trouble” with people bothering me.

First the person has to notice that I’m there in the van sleeping. This is unlikely because my windows are tinted dark enough that it’s hard to see in. You can see in right now, (and that’s something I’m working on and will post about soon), but it’s pretty dark and just walking by you’re not going to see in.

Once someone notices me sleeping in there the second unlikely thing that has to happen for me to have “trouble” is they have to actually be bothered by it. If they notice me sleeping and don’t care, then I don’t care that they’ve noticed me. Honestly I don’t think most of the people who might notice me will care. Overnight grocery store workers or shoppers have other things on their mind. They are the center of their own lives and to actually think that they care what someone is doing sleeping in their car is to presume too much of my own importance. And honestly, I’m the center of my own universe. If some random guy passes me in the parking lot when I’m sleeping and thinks down on me or takes pity on me that’s ok. ‘Cause I don’t care what random-guy-in-the-parking-lot thinks of me.

If they’ve noticed me and they’re bothered then the third unlikely thing that has to happen is they have to actually go to the trouble of making trouble for me. This particular point is perhaps a silly thing for me to be relying on, since I seem to be finding out more and more often that people don’t think like me, but I still believe it’s fairly universal that people are lazy. And I think I’m pretty well covered by the first two unlikely events.

So there it is. They have to notice me, they have to be troubled by it, and they have to actually take the time and effort to do something that would bother me. And that’s why I’m not up nights worrying about random people noticing I’m sleeping in my van.

Course that’s just covers being intentionally bothered by “random people.” Random people being loud as they walk has occasionally woken me up, but no big deal. I’ll roll over and go back to sleep. Bight lights and loud noises are a whole different category, as are cops.

Cops, I imagine are more likely to notice, just because they’re a little more in tune to what a van or car that looks like someone’s living in it, and (theoritcally at least) they’re more in tune to what’s going on around them in the first place. But I’m careful about where I park, (and I assume the likelihood of me randomly choosing to park in front of an FBI safe-house and looking like I’m staking it out is pretty small,) and so as long as I’m not breaking any laws they’re not going to care. I have been woken up by the police a number of times, but always when I was in my car rather than the van and driving between San Diego and LA. I explain that I got tired while driving and sometimes they let me go back to sleep and sometimes they tell me to move on.

Bright lights and loud noises are another beast all together. For those you just have to be careful about where you park. I like parking directly under lampposts, actually. Then I’m usually at such an angle that the light doesn’t really shine through the back windows directly. Plus, that way I can sit up in the front seat and read for a while before going into the back of the van, closing the black curtain that blocks off the front and the light. That curtain, by the way, also does a very good job of blocking off the view of those random people who walk by. It’s black and if you pass by all you see is darkness.

I still get bright lights, and even with the tinted windows, depending on how I’m parked and the angle of the light people could see in and see me sleeping there. So whenever I have a couple minutes here during the few slow periods of work I’m sewing up some curtains for the back windows. I did add some extra tinting to a couple of the windows as an experiment and it does really block off the light very well, but I can’t put it on the back window because that makes it too hard to see out when driving. And it’s hard to put on the back windows that roll down because that came peel off when you roll them down.

So I headed over to the fabric store on Tuesday night and picked up some dark fabric. I’m currently spending 13+ hour days at work during our pledge drive this week so I haven’t had much time in the van for measuring and cutting, but I’ve put velcro up on the windows and I’m sewing the other half on to the fabric itself. Soon I’ll have something that blocks out the light but I’ll still be able to take it off when I’m driving.

Soon as it’s done, (like I said though, it might take a while since we’re so busy at work this week), I’ll have pictures for you.

Categories: Car Living
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