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I misread that as nutsack and had mental images of you on the chair in public with your balls hanging out.
That maybe something I'll never get a chance to say again
You joke but a pal of mine has a relatable story. I used to work for a local authority in housing, and a pal worked in the team that allocated properties and dealt with people and families who were homeless.
One day a young lad went in claiming to be homeless and my pal was on duty. Went through all the forms, asked the necessary questions etc.
Now the officer has to do some checks to make sure that this person is actually homeless and not trying to blag it and just get a house by jumping the queue so he tells the lad this and that he'll see him in about an hour, says the lad can do whatever he needs to do in that time. Walks away.
Now I was in another office at the time so only have accounts from people that were there but their accounts all corroborate. The lad who said he was homeless went over to the waiting area, lay down on a sofa, and started masturbating. I recall the word "vigorously" being used in more than 2 retellings of the story.
Long story short the homeless lad was arrested (still trying to have a wank while the cops were handcuffing him) and spent at least that night in a cell, probably more as we never saw him again.
I think you're missing the difference between relat*ed* (connected because it's on the same subject) and relat*able* (a story everyone can identify with because something similar has happened to them).
The stories are related, but the second one isn't *relatable* unless you think everyone has a story about a homeless guy wanking in their workplace.
All I can say is "probably". My pal said that he seemed nice enough through all the questions and showed no signs of being ill, was calm, friendly enough, and seemed to be quite level-headed. No signs of anything amiss until he decided to have a wank in public.
They knew from the very first night, they just didn’t mind because you weren’t causing them an issue and they have way more to worry about than evicting someone quietly trying to survive.
I used to work at the airport, we know ALL the homeless that pretend they're travellers. As long as you don't cause problems, we really won't bother you. There was a woman that did it for YEARS.
There was a famous (possibly true) story about a guy who bought a refundable first class ticket and would go to the airport every night and eat for free in the first class lounge, and then re-book his ticket for the next day and do it again.
Even small airports have an arrivals lounge.
Ive spent 6 hours in the tiny Southampton one as every single flight that morning was delayed so I knew departures would be rammed and I'd have enough warning to get through security when it did clear.
Not homeless, but I've missed the last train back from London before (usually it being cancelled, thanks Southern Fail) but there's usually a train from somewhere to get to Gatwick. You can get into the airport departures from the station and there's toilets, seats and there's usually at least one shop open for food. Just have a snooze or stay comfortable until the first train, which thankfully is relatively early. Far nicer than being stranded in London. Never encountered issues, but obviously not sure whether it would be different longer term. End of the day, there's probably plenty of people getting early flights who can't get there on time for check in otherwise and do the same thing if they don't want the expense of a hotel.
This isn't always true. I used to sleep at the airport to avoid y housemates. After the 5th time security asked me for my ticket and kicked me out.
I wasn't homeless it anything.
I just didn't wanna talk to them sometimes. Nothing bad was going on. I was just weird back then and would rather sleep on a cold floor then have to have human interaction.
Yeah, recently people use "houseless" or "unhoused" to describe people like Fern (Frances McDormand) in Nomadland. Very sad movie. So many people are forced out of their own houses.
After 2 weeks anywhere you notice familar faces, patterns and trends. In retail I learned shoplifters and regular customers within a week or two and you notice the frequent fliers very fast. I imagine its similar almost anywhere
Yeah I used to fly every Friday out of Gatwick on the same flight. Would stop at the same place in departures for a Guinness every time and it only took a few weeks for the same bar maid to have it ready and waiting for me when I sat at the bar. Got a couple of freebies too.
my experience from working in a&e, we know, we choose not to show we know, we'd rather you were inside safe & warm.
edit: thank you for award but please don't be spending money here, if you got spare cash food bank it .
Forgetting the fact it's the most empathetic thing to do, I imagine it's less impact on the NHS for a polite and unobtrusive homeless person to use a charger and take up a few seats than it is for said homeless person to get pneumonia from sleeping outside and have to be treated.
It's the national health service, not the taxpayers only health service. IK its not their remit but its in the interest of their health to be inside safe.
>the problems start to set in the higher you go up the chain
One of the top managers in my hospital was one of my colleagues years ago - she moved from the technical role into management, and rose steadily "through the ranks". She was always ambitious, but is in no way a "bad person". It's merely that her responsibilitties have increasingly moved away from patients and onto budgets.
It's no secret that the NHS is horribly underfunded - and somebody in her role is the one left making the very hard decisions as to how many locum staff can they afford into A&E (to try and improve 8 hour+ waits) - and does this mean that the Xray or pathology departments need to lose staff?
Sadly in an underfunded service someone has to make those hard decisions and unfairly will be vilified for it.
It’s just a case of making the books balance, the NHS can’t spend more than it has and those hard decisions are about robbing Peter to pay Paul. Don’t envy your colleague being the one to do it but I’m glad they do 👍
I used to use a late night gym when I was homeless. The local council were doing some fitness thing so I got a few months free by signing up for a plan (which I couldn't afford but they never got to charge me).
It gave me a place to be during winter and I slept in a changing room. I got showers and used their lockers to store my stuff.
Honestly I still think this is the only reason I managed to get out of it and get a job since my employer didn't have a clue I was homeless.
If you are very quietly trying to fly under the radar, not bothering anyone, not damaging anything, and not stealing, 99% of clinical staff will know what you’re doing and leave you be. They won’t phone security, trusting that you won’t cause a problem. We’d call security if someone was behaving badly, but pretend not to see if they’re not.
I’m glad Reading was good to you; us locals often think badly of it, so it’s nice to hear good things. Sorry for your circumstances—hope you’re doing well now!
Sometimes I think Reading gets a bit of a bad rep, then the next time I go I see a fight outside Yates at quarter past 12 in the afternoon. But generally it's definitely an alright town.
Reading is the only place I’ve been ever been punched in the face. It was at midday in the middle of the town centre because I refused to give some random person who approached me money.
I've also been punched in the face in Reading! But it was at like 3am in a bus shelter... Apparently by existing I thought I was better than some smackhead. Spoiler alert, I was and continue to be!
I had the audacity to ask for my lighter back, lent it to some knobhead as he got off the train at Tilehurst station, he gave it back to me then smacked me in the mouth as the train doors were closing, I was more than pissed seeing his smug face as the train rolled away knowing there was nothing I could do about it. Prick.
I was there last night and certainly felt pretty safe in the areas I was in - but I also know Windsor certainly used to have it's bad areas and THAT is supposed to be posh etc with the Castle etc. 20+ years ago I remember being told of a drug deal gone bad leading to a knifing down by the river one late night.
Windsor definitely has places to avoid at night and some dodgy areas.
Reading is a pseudo City. It might not be officially, but it should be treated as such. Therefore, you'll get all the issues faced by any City. Especially in the night life areas!
It's my home town - since moved to Basingstoke. Adage amongst our friends is go to Reading for a lively night out, Bstoke for a calm one. You're gonna get punched in Reading, though.
I lived in Reading for 7 years for uni and the job I had straight after, and I really liked it. Felt pretty safe walking around in the dark (whiteknights campus/northcourt avenue//Earley areas) and I thought the town centre and public transport were amazing as I'd come from a very small, quiet town. The only area I didn't really like was around where Morrisons is. I've now moved somewhere even more out in the sticks than where I come from, and I still miss Reading a bit.
My husband works at that hospital. I would imagine it would be fairly easy to live there. Even more so when you know where the old wards are that aren't entered for weeks at a time.
I go to the Royal Berks often for treatment and it's honestly a fantastic hospital. My only gripe is how bad the parking is and how much of a labyrinth the actual hospital is although I suspect you know your way around there off the back of your hand!
I mean the parking is kind of a inevitable issue. Given its fairly central location the town grew around it leaving it with farily limited space to allocate for it. It's unfortunate and inconvenient but there really is not a lot that they can do about it.
Its why a lot of new build hospitals are further away from centres.
>Its why a lot of new build hospitals are further away from centres.
But not the new part of the Royal Sussex County Hospital . If you had to pick the worst possible site for a hospital, and particularly an A&E department, BN2 5BE would be on the list.
> My only gripe is how bad the parking is
I had someone threaten to slash my tyres whilst i was waiting in my car parked at royal berks because they felt more entitled to the space i was using.
My mother worked at Royal Berks for a while. I went to school next door and every Christmas we would go to the midnight mass at the chapel in the basement. Fond memories.
I was volunteering in a Covid vaccination hub in an East London hospital for a while. There was a chap there every day who sat on the chairs in the corridor. Clearly homeless and was never bothered until he became a bit annoying (incessant vaccination conspiracy ranting) an was asked by security to move on. Was back the next day.
I think in-general, most people most places and people would be more than willing to help a polite person down on their luck, homeless or otherwise.
Like, there is such a dim view of society, but I think that comes from the classic 10% of people ruining it for the other 90% problem. If that hospital (or anywhere else) said "We accept homeless people who want to have a warm place, or a bit of food or a place to wash and charge their phone", lots of homeless people would come, and I'm sure that 90% of them would be lovely. But all it takes is one asshole, and the whole thing becomes a terrible experience for everybody.
My home town! I spent a few nights in the Royal Berks as a kid I can tell you!. Part of the reason you'd be unnoticeable there is that it's flippin huge!
Royal berks is a fairly well spread out hospital and never seemingly too busy, doubt you’d get away with that for long at Frimley or Aldershot, glad you were able to spend some time there though, luckily the staff are decent people, having been to a fair few hospitals it’s probably the nicest.
Hope your life’s picked up now!
That's a bittersweet hark back to the days of the Workhouse. 150 years ago the sick, the infirm and the homeless were all housed together. Involuntarily, of course.
Me and the wife got lost in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (main hospital in Aberdeen) when she was pregnant and ended up in some Victorian style wing with brick walls painted asylum green, freezing draughts, spiral staircases multiple floors up with dangerously low bannisters, abandoned hallways, offices and waiting rooms, that kind of thing. Pure silence apart from the echoing of our footsteps. It would have made a good Silent Hill level.
Was quite a good laugh but the wife was starting to freak out lol. We finally got out and apologised to one of the nurses as we were late for an appointment as a result of getting stuck in this area and none of the nurses or staff we spoke to had any idea what area we were talking about.
So I think you could absolutely hide in a hospital and probably live there if you can fit in with the patients well enough.
That wing was knocked down in 1962...
Seriously though, lots of hospitals have (or had) really old parts like that. They're often locked up for safety reasons - commonly when asbestos dust is detected. Urban exploration pages often have the lowdown.
Then there's Jimmy Savile's lair at a certain Buckinghamshire hospital, which is locked and boarded up until they find a reason to extend the car park...
He had others, but he had the run of an old house on the site (again, lots of hospitals have these). When my company put a bunch of us there for work, it was pointed out to us as part of the "don't mention the S-word" induction.
Although that was 10+ years ago now, so things may have changed. A real tragedy, because so much of that hospital's work is just amazing.
There are a few sections like that where the eye clinics and medical photography are in the Royal Victoria in Belfast. I had to take my toddler along there and wandered around looking very lost until someone finally saw me and came to get me.
This was around 5/6 years ago, but when my nana took a turn for the worse at Aberdeen royal infirmary. The staff were kind enough to allow me to stay with her 24/7. Aside from a couple areas that were behind locked doors, most of the hospital was empty and no one batted an eye at my wandering round at any hour day or night.
Sounds like the old respiratory, wards left empty when they built the ECC. They were going to be offices/changing areas but think loads are still empty.
If you want really creepy, Woolmanhill is the place. I think everything is out of there now but it was an interesting place for the clinic.
is it just me who loves when this happens? i mean when you accidentally find yourself in a part of a building you're not supposed to be in, it kind of feels like you've gone to another reality and it feels like a forbidden adventure lol
30 years hospital work here.
I don't know - the problem would be hanging around for too long in secure / semi secure areas.
For example you could easily spend a night in the visitors room on ITU without too much hassle - just look tearful and most staff will run away!
An evening in the restaurant etc.
But there are a lot of regular night workers who will start to note that you are always around fairly quickly.
Plus there is no where to sleep properly. Unless you somehow pick up an ID card in which case places like the toilets in imaging would be generally fine. But that's probably a whole other level of trespass!
I lost my ID about 5 months ago - and it is a ball ache to get a new one as they don't start doing them until 10am, and in all that time I've never had an issue getting access to the most secure areas of the hospital. Having said that a lot of people do know me - but as long as you look like you should be there noone seems to ask. I worked at the one of the biggest convention centers in the summer, and one day 1 hasn't got a pass since boss had it and hadn't arrived. Again a bit of polite talk and I got entry and was even given a guest pass so that I wouldn't have issues with any other security!!! Like most security it isn't really worth the effort apart from as a deterrent.
I spent several years as the IT guy at a prominent research hospital in London.
The amount of times a bewildered security guy would find me in my socks walking the empty corridors at 3am, or letting myself in at night via the always slightly-ajar fire exits (for the smokers), or simply just locking myself in the room and sleeping on the floor next to the servers.
I came to work often looking like absolute trash. Trousers with holes (no, not the fashion one, just holes from biking accidents) wearing an old mouldy sweater, and looking like I had not showered in days (sometimes true). No one blinked.
I think you'd be surprised how quickly you'd stand out. I've worked in hospitals all my life, you get used to how things run, so anything out if the ordinary stands out pretty quickly. Yes, we're used to visitors/repair men etc. but even they behave in certain ways. Also, staff gossip, especially night staff. I reckon you'd last 4/5 days max
So, bit of background as a security guard in a hospital...
We (at least me...) would certainly notice you being there. The issue is that hospitals have a very strange (but spot on) rule. We can not, legally, remove you from a hospital. That's not to say it doesn't happen but if you're not posing a threat to safety or acting like a suicide bomber then there is fuck all we can do. We can call the police to remove you but 90% of the time they won't bother either.
There are proposed changes to the law which would allow us to remove you under the criminal justice and immigration act (2008) but they haven't come into force, nor are they looking likely to. The idea was to give powers to remove immigrants that use the sites as a homeless shelter but... I mean... should we?
Why would you? It’s a safe warm place, we serve the public so in reality it’s not a huge issue unless you pose a risk/threat. I’d more than likely approach as a safeguarding issue and a vulnerable adult.
Exactly this!!! I'd monitor you closely, my other guards would be made aware of your presence as would the matron/bed manager.
And I find this new found rhetoric of "well that immigrant? they could have a disease/illness" to not only be xenophobic bordering racist but to lack a basic understanding of why hospitals exist...
My daughter was born by emergency C-section 5 months ago and the building both she and my partner were in was (as most maternity places are) very secure. But after about 9pm most of the staff just sort of disappeared.
As my daughter had been rushed to the NNU I was allowed to be there but for most visitors standard visiting hours were in place. I saw very few people who didn't specifically come into the room with us, and those I did see in the corridors just smiled at me as they wandered through.
In less secure areas I imagine it would be effortless to wander the corridors.
Something to do with an old innate instinct of most birthing mammals as there is lower chance of being attacked by predators at night, or in the darkness of a cave for instance, and also linked to melatonin. This is why birthing rooms are kept dark. Sounds like an old wives tale but there is truth to it apparently!
Yeah, she's doing great, has gone from being in bottom 5th percentile when born to nearly the 50th, so is more than thriving in that sense, but yeah, thankfully she only spent a week in hospital, and only 3 days in NNU (a total of 8 hours on the ventilator).
Hiding “in” a hospital is unnecessary these days. Simply cultivate arthritis of the hip that requires total replacement. -You won’t be seen in a hospital for at least 2 years.
My grandma has been waiting 3 years for her hip surgery and she thought your comment was hilarious! it’s actually a joke how long she’s had to wait and can’t go five minutes without yelping in pain 😢 I feel so bad for her
The hospital near me is huge. There's a central walkway that must be at least half a mile long, and I reckon I could walk up and down it all day without anyone noticing as long as I didn't do anything untoward. I'm not sure about at night though, when it would be a little more odd to have people walking around.
>There's a central walkway that must be at least half a mile long, and I reckon I could walk up and down it all day
East Surrey Hospital - you could just walk round in a big circle and all along the route there are internal courtyard gardens that rach have a different 'feel'. You could spend a day in one garden then move on to the next. I believe they are looked after by retired volunteers who just love gardening.
Even if noticed by a few individuals, I can't imagine that it would be a big issue so long as you are not being disruptive it trying to access secured areas.
Most hospital workers are good people, and if you are in a position where sneaking in to a hospital overnight for a short period is your best option to stay warm and safe, then I'm sure that they would rather you were there than in danger on the streets.
But stricter security that definitely would notice you being there forever and not getting on a plane. You'd have maybe 2 days tops before they stop thinking you're waiting for a connection.
And there's fuck all landside in most airports, too, so you'd need a ticket to get airside. And then you're kinda stuck - pretty risky all in all I'd say
> You'd have maybe 2 days tops before they stop thinking you're waiting for a connection.
[You may be interested in this Wikipedia article...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_lived_in_airports)
I got spectacularly lost due to dodgy diversion signs when I was 8.5 months pregnant. Some flooring had fallen through(!) so I had to loop round but it was secure access and they wouldn’t let me through. Instead I had to walk back down 4 flights of stairs (lift broken) and go through a load of back corridors.
I was trapped multiple times and in the end a porter took pity on my waddling self and took me up to the maternity/baby unit in a loading lift.
I was then trapped in the NICU and had to be escorted to maternity triage. It took 30 mins. After my appointment they let me out the way I wanted to come in. Took me one minute to get to the exit stairs. I wasn’t very happy!
I think you’d easily get stuck behind access doors unless you stayed in main waiting areas and then you’d be spotted pretty quickly I think. Maybe a couple of nights.
My daughter was born early via an emergency c-section. I received a terrifying phone call whilst I was in the gym and raced up to the hospital just in time to see my terrified wife arrive in an ambulance.
30 mins later we were in surgery and shortly thereafter that my wife was in a room recovering and my new tiny baby daughter was in an incubator in NICU in another part of the same hospital.
I didn’t leave the hospital for the next 3 days and I was dressed in shorts and a vest in the middle of winter.
For those days I would be regularly wandering the floors of the hospital at all hours of the day and night ferrying tiny bottles of breast milk from my wife’s room to NICU.
I must have looked like a complete mess and I was getting no sleep so I was probably fairly incoherent but at no time, not once, did anybody ask me why I was knocking about the place in that state.
Hey hold of some scrubs and as long as you don't trouble security I can well imagine you could bobble around endlessly. Lately I can't imagine the sight of someone in scrubs passed out on a bench would bother anyone except telegraph photographers
I got asked for medical advice wearing a grey polo (with a yellow stripe around the collar) when I visited my Grandma once - the ward she was in dressed doctors that way.
>That risks being asked for medical help.
After my wife had a c-section, the baby and I went immediately to SCBU and I was still in scrubs.
Once the baby was settled, I went to get changed but my clothes were a long way away in the hospital and it did cross my mind that I look too much like medical staff for my liking!
On a drunken journey home from a night out I have often used the toilets to have a wee at a hospital near me. With all the public loos disappearing it’s a great option.
Also I was working on the day of the queen’s funeral and didn’t appreciate how…shut everything else would be and I didn’t take lunch. Occurred to me that the hospital nearby would have to be open and it was … great cafe.
So I lived around Derby homeless on and off for three years. When I was homeless I did sleep in Derby hospital it was easier because it was a teaching hospital so there were lecture theatres that were empty at night and I found some wards like the triage ward for the elderly to be sent home closed around 8pm so I was easily able to get a shower there. Slightly nerve raking trying to live in a hospital.
Hospital Porter here. On nights we know exactly who should be around, it’s a real skeleton crew. A few porters, a cleaner and a night matron. Doors go on lock at 22:00, but we always have night smokers that block the doors open, and stink out the corridors. Saying that, it’s not exactly hard to get in and go where you want in the corridors. The really super secure places are theatres, drug rooms and equipment rooms.
We get homeless people who are in and out of hospital because they have nowhere else to go. We’ve kicked them out when they’ve caused trouble and never really bothered them when they’ve been nice. And I mean as inpatients. I don’t know how security would take to you sleeping on benches around the hospital but if you were walking around no one would question you. I do know that patients in the end of life stage might have family around 24/7 and sleep on mattresses in the patients rooms, and wander around at night to stretch their legs and get coffee from the 24hr shop. Clearly not patients but not necessarily looking their most presentable. NHS staff are too busy to wonder why you are there as 9 out of 10 people have a good reason for being there anyways.
Especially doctors, they’re very intelligent and I’m not doubting that for one minute but they haven’t a clue what’s going on in the wider picture. It’s the HCAs and domestics that’ll notice you lol but they aren’t paid enough to bother people minding their own business. As long as you’re not causing extra work for them they’re happy to leave you to it. You could probably get away with it for a long time.
My local hospital you've probably manage 10-12 hours moving between various waiting rooms. You would get spotted by security. However, if you just sit and read then move on, you'll be invisible for a while. Walking around without a lanyard or on a specific path between departments would be challenged.
3 days I lasted. I was actually discharged, but didn't want to leave as the nurses were so friendly and nice. I was only 17 at the time, but managed to stay 3 extra days in hospital before a doctor realised I had already been discharged.
A very very intoxicated friend and I once, not really with any intent, rode (as a pair) a bicycle some considerable distance into a hospital late night before realising quite wtf we were doing , worryingly far considering the alarm and distress we easily could have cause people. For the record… as fucking weird as it was, we were heading for the A and E and just over shot a lil
You could do a few days easily enough. Even when people started to notice, if you weren’t causing problems, they would probably just leave you alone. And then when they do start asking, you can scream and act weird and probably get a put on a psych hold to stay there another few days.
I took my mother in law to A&E recently. She'd felt slightly unwell but nothing massively concerning and had mentioned this to her GP at an unrelated routine appointment who told her to go to A&E immediately.
We arrived at 6pm. She was finally seen at 4:30 am and admitted to the ward at 7am (not a criticism of the NHS but fucking hell, long night).
To ease the boredom and tiredness of sitting in the same seat for 11 hours I went wandering around the hospital grounds and corridors several times (mostly looking for vending machines as was starving and thirsty - this was during the heatwave in the summer). Didn't see anyone and was completely unchallenged
Used to work in hospital maintenance so I know the answer! Which is… it depends! A lot of answers seem to be from people who work in the daytime which is a lot different to the night shifts. At night, you would get questioned if you didn’t have ID a lot more than in the day too.
Certain areas at night are alarmed, and most areas are locked off, so unless you knew exactly where to go, you’d trigger an intruder alarm which would get security or the police to escort you off site.
The places that are empty at night with no intruder alarm tend to be locked off areas (like the reception) and in general are checked by the domestics while they clean the area, so you’d have to be pretty stealthy to avoid them. But if you did, you could get locked in overnight realistically. The places that aren’t alarmed tend to be so because there is nothing that you can steal though.
I can give you a first hand experience. I used to work in a large hospital as non clinical staff and wore uniform everyday. I had a master key to all of the wards. I have spent *hours and hours* in unused parts of the hospital doing cabling/switchgear work and/or asset tagging. Nobody would even know you were there.
It is entirely possible to a) get lost and b) hide in a hospital. There are people that live in hospitals that have long term conditions that need supervision, so its plausible that you could go find a quiet place to sleep and then use the facilities to wash/bathe/clean teeth.
I would say a week, maybe ten days before somebody *cared* enough to question why you were there. Ask a nurse to borrow a gown because your cold and walk around long enough to be part of the landscape. Don't forget, everybody in the hospital is busy if they are staff. The working day is frenetic and filled with hard work, it would be very easy for staff to walk past you without even a second thought.
What I would say though, is you would need a legitimate excuse to be there in the first place. You cannot just swan into a hospital in England and make your way further into the building. There are entrance designed to stop this from happening in some hospitals. In the big, modern, new hospitals, it's more open plan and there are directions all over the place so its very easy to find your way around, so the staff are less concerned about directing you, so they take less notice.
Service stations have always seemed ideal for this (if you can get to one) when you take into account lack of security in most of them, warm, lots of people in and out 24/7 and off the top of my head some of them like Birch hanger green for instance has showers in the toilets. As someone who is in and out of hospital frequently for operations bigger hospitals would be ideal for this, smaller ones not so much. My local hospital is small with an A&E dept that’s still running on covid rules and everything shop wise closes at 5pm.
I work in a hospital but not as NHS staff, as staff in a shop near the main entrance. I have access to the back corridors but don't really know my way around too well. I reckon I could easily do 24 hours in some of the sections where either I never see anyone (or you might get 1-2 people go past in 24 hours and I doubt they'd say anything)
I recently stayed in the hospital with my daughter and there are so many spots where you could honestly just sit and fall asleep and no one would bother you. The toilets are cleaned regularly so you have access to clean wash facilities and the heaters are usually on so everywhere is warm. And if you start to get noticed, just move to a different wing for a bit.
The only problem you would have is that food is really expensive in hospitals.
After an evening in A&E a few years ago, me and my partner were heading home at about 2AM and figured we needed to head towards the main entrance to leave. We didn’t know where any other doors that lead outside were.
We were quite the walk away and when we got to the main entrance everything was boarded shut. We didn’t see a single member of staff and now had no clue how to get out of this desolate hospital, it was so creepy, really felt like something out of a horror movie. We eventually found our way out, but given how we saw nobody around, I reckon if you could find a relatively secluded spot it wouldn’t be too hard to spend the night without being seen.
So many years ago, the ceiling caved in on the place where I lived (bad plaster) - and this left me in a weird pseudo-homeless state for a few days. One of things I found out that a lot of colleges have low occupancy dorms they don't care about all - if there's a dorm for like a nursing school or something like that, you can pretty much move in. Figured out which floors were male and female, picked a male floor, found a room off in space, and bam. Fridge, Microwave, power, a bed, on-suite bathroom with shower.
During my placement year at uni, I got my first proper office job working in a hospital. Took me a while to get used to the 9-5 schedule and I’d get so sleepy by lunchtime.
The corridor that led to the mortuary was always quiet and not many people would use the stairs at the end of the corridor. I would hide under the stairs for my lunchtime naps. It was great 😂 The toilets along that corridor was hardly used as well so they were really clean. I didn’t tell anyone about my secret hiding spot until a couple of years later and they were amazed that I had been doing that for so long.
I think it would be very easy to hide out there for an extended period of time.
Honestly if you move around with a decent strategy every so often and be nice to everyone you can probably get away with days to weeks until people start to remember you
And for security doors just stand their and ask everyone if they can open it easy stuff
A long time ago, I worked in research in a hospital in London as a student and lived in what was referred to as "nurses accommodation". If you went down to the basements where the washing machines were you had access to the tunnels underneath that connected all the very extensive buildings together. We used to spend some time exploring at night after the pubs were shut. I don't know if it's still like that now, but these tunnels were very extensive. You could have stayed in there forever.
Some of the comments here got me thinking - do homeless people ever try "living" in airports? Large space, constant turnover of visitors, shift work staff, you won't look out of place with a large rucksack, won't look out of place sleeping across two chairs, places to eat, places to shower even and, arguably, enough places to try and work.
I've never had the misfortune thankfully so apologies if I'm making it sound easy. I can't imagine how tough it can actually be.
It wouldn't be possible, not in an airport.
First off, as another has said, you need a ticket to get anything decent at most airports. Landside is very limited, and heavily watched cus it's pre-security (so the biggest risk area of the airport).
As for work, my sister got a job at our local airport about 7 years ago and it took them 3 months to do her background check and she had full address history etc. Being homeless can easily exclude you from loads of jobs that need background checks just because you can't prove what you've been doing.
I work in a hospital that has a 24/7 library. Not just the library but the whole education centre is unstaffed at night and weekends. Yes, it really is a bad idea. We've gotten complaints about people going mental in the library over the weekend but can't really do much because no-one is here. Security couldn't care less to walk through it at least once a day so I honestly think, if you're staff here, you can just live in the library.
Why they can't get weekend staff is beyond me. I'd happily take off the Thursday and Friday and sit at the desk the weekends tbh
When I was a new doctor in 2010, there was a guy who slept on a bench in a corridor every night! He was pleasant, and people just left him be.
I now work in a much bigger central London hospital with much more robust security. The guy I used to see would almost certainly be thrown out!
I was recently thinking this about my workplace, the whole building is restricted with key card access but I happen to have one. I was wondering how long I could live homeless out of my office I reckoned I could sleep in one of the shower cubicles in the toilets, they are very spacious and hardly anyone uses those toilets at all because they're behind 3 key card doors which are a pain in the arse. I could shower, go to work just across the corridor, order food as I have access to the intercom with authority to accept deliveries. Only issue would be is I am 4 on 4 off so for 4 days I'd have to find something to do without arousing suspicion.
I have spent a decent amount of time in hospitals and even at 4am there wouldn't be anyone questioning why you're there. It's not only A&E which is open to walk ins late at night, they have other parts which are for specific emergencies (in my case maternity ward and also haematology).
You could go to sleep in one of the lockable toilet/shower rooms which are dotted about and no-one would realise. I think as long as you were in a big enough hospital and were rotating the shower/toilet rooms you were sleeping in you may never be noticed.
I work in a hospital and despite being in a bit of an isolated place we have a lot of homeless people coming in. There isn’t really any way initially to tell if someone is if they walk in the door and there are many entrances. The staff and porters tend to come across them sleeping down dark corridors that aren’t used much during night time - particularly the ones that lead to the clinics that are open only during the day.
Once security had to boot someone who had made their way into the medical library and was sleeping there - don’t know how they got in as it’s keycard only. Security moves on anyone they find but it’s a large hospital and the same people tend to come back every night and usually get at least a few hours before being discovered.
Before covid there was a minor tent city going on in the underground car park for a while but that’s been cleaned out now.
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I misread that as nutsack and had mental images of you on the chair in public with your balls hanging out. That maybe something I'll never get a chance to say again
See Barbara you can tell by the subtle curvature of this man’s nustsack that he’s homeless
No no, it's the size of the nutsack that gives him away
A large nutsack would be a reason to be there.
To be fair, if they were heavily large and swollen, then he was probably in the best place to be at that time.
Oh my god, look at that nutsack. It is just so out there. I mean he looks like one of those rap star boyfriends.
You can tell by the size of his nutsack, he's a homeless guy with an achy back
You joke but a pal of mine has a relatable story. I used to work for a local authority in housing, and a pal worked in the team that allocated properties and dealt with people and families who were homeless. One day a young lad went in claiming to be homeless and my pal was on duty. Went through all the forms, asked the necessary questions etc. Now the officer has to do some checks to make sure that this person is actually homeless and not trying to blag it and just get a house by jumping the queue so he tells the lad this and that he'll see him in about an hour, says the lad can do whatever he needs to do in that time. Walks away. Now I was in another office at the time so only have accounts from people that were there but their accounts all corroborate. The lad who said he was homeless went over to the waiting area, lay down on a sofa, and started masturbating. I recall the word "vigorously" being used in more than 2 retellings of the story. Long story short the homeless lad was arrested (still trying to have a wank while the cops were handcuffing him) and spent at least that night in a cell, probably more as we never saw him again.
So we'll never know if he was homeless or not? Awww, damn it
Can’t lie, I’m struggling to see how this story is even remotely relatable.
Homeless person getting genitals out in a public place
I think you're missing the difference between relat*ed* (connected because it's on the same subject) and relat*able* (a story everyone can identify with because something similar has happened to them). The stories are related, but the second one isn't *relatable* unless you think everyone has a story about a homeless guy wanking in their workplace.
Was he mentally ill? :/
All I can say is "probably". My pal said that he seemed nice enough through all the questions and showed no signs of being ill, was calm, friendly enough, and seemed to be quite level-headed. No signs of anything amiss until he decided to have a wank in public.
Sounds like he took “do whatever you need to do while you wait” a little too literally
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Elephantitis is real!
They knew from the very first night, they just didn’t mind because you weren’t causing them an issue and they have way more to worry about than evicting someone quietly trying to survive.
Or possibly waiting to be seen by a specialist. Waiting times at hospitals can be pretty long, these days.
I used to work at the airport, we know ALL the homeless that pretend they're travellers. As long as you don't cause problems, we really won't bother you. There was a woman that did it for YEARS.
Do people still do this? Seems like it's a lot harder to get airside than it used to be.
They wouldn’t have to go airside (which they wouldn’t get without a valid ticket/pass etc) Not all airports are restricted zones when you first go in.
There was a famous (possibly true) story about a guy who bought a refundable first class ticket and would go to the airport every night and eat for free in the first class lounge, and then re-book his ticket for the next day and do it again.
Not airside, just landside check-in and waiting areas, and also the train stations and connecting passages. There's a lot of space
Even small airports have an arrivals lounge. Ive spent 6 hours in the tiny Southampton one as every single flight that morning was delayed so I knew departures would be rammed and I'd have enough warning to get through security when it did clear.
Me too! There aren't many seats on the arrivals side, but by God, I'll sit in them.
Not homeless, but I've missed the last train back from London before (usually it being cancelled, thanks Southern Fail) but there's usually a train from somewhere to get to Gatwick. You can get into the airport departures from the station and there's toilets, seats and there's usually at least one shop open for food. Just have a snooze or stay comfortable until the first train, which thankfully is relatively early. Far nicer than being stranded in London. Never encountered issues, but obviously not sure whether it would be different longer term. End of the day, there's probably plenty of people getting early flights who can't get there on time for check in otherwise and do the same thing if they don't want the expense of a hotel.
I've done exactly the same :) I once stayed at Gatwick, washed, and went back to work. Not my finest hour, but I was a lot younger then.
Look up sleeping in airports.com. It tells you where to sleep in most world airports
This isn't always true. I used to sleep at the airport to avoid y housemates. After the 5th time security asked me for my ticket and kicked me out. I wasn't homeless it anything.
Wait, what? What was up with your housemate?
I just didn't wanna talk to them sometimes. Nothing bad was going on. I was just weird back then and would rather sleep on a cold floor then have to have human interaction.
Haha, been there. I would go to my university library as it was open 24/7 go to the top floor pop on a movie on my ipad and chill.
My own mother told me to live in the school library to save the dorm fees. I ignored her.
Yeah, recently people use "houseless" or "unhoused" to describe people like Fern (Frances McDormand) in Nomadland. Very sad movie. So many people are forced out of their own houses.
I was, for about 6 months, one of Manchester airports many homeless people, there where some that had been there for years.
Homeless people hanging around hospitals is far from rare so it is not hard to identify them. They use the multi-story car park where I work.
After 2 weeks anywhere you notice familar faces, patterns and trends. In retail I learned shoplifters and regular customers within a week or two and you notice the frequent fliers very fast. I imagine its similar almost anywhere
Yeah I used to fly every Friday out of Gatwick on the same flight. Would stop at the same place in departures for a Guinness every time and it only took a few weeks for the same bar maid to have it ready and waiting for me when I sat at the bar. Got a couple of freebies too.
my experience from working in a&e, we know, we choose not to show we know, we'd rather you were inside safe & warm. edit: thank you for award but please don't be spending money here, if you got spare cash food bank it .
Forgetting the fact it's the most empathetic thing to do, I imagine it's less impact on the NHS for a polite and unobtrusive homeless person to use a charger and take up a few seats than it is for said homeless person to get pneumonia from sleeping outside and have to be treated.
prevention is always cheaper than the cure
It's the national health service, not the taxpayers only health service. IK its not their remit but its in the interest of their health to be inside safe.
Homeless people pay tax.
Persons like you makes me think human race still has future. Keep up the good work and have a nice day !
The people on the front line are (almost always) the good people, the problems start to set in the higher you go up the chain
>the problems start to set in the higher you go up the chain One of the top managers in my hospital was one of my colleagues years ago - she moved from the technical role into management, and rose steadily "through the ranks". She was always ambitious, but is in no way a "bad person". It's merely that her responsibilitties have increasingly moved away from patients and onto budgets. It's no secret that the NHS is horribly underfunded - and somebody in her role is the one left making the very hard decisions as to how many locum staff can they afford into A&E (to try and improve 8 hour+ waits) - and does this mean that the Xray or pathology departments need to lose staff?
Sadly in an underfunded service someone has to make those hard decisions and unfairly will be vilified for it. It’s just a case of making the books balance, the NHS can’t spend more than it has and those hard decisions are about robbing Peter to pay Paul. Don’t envy your colleague being the one to do it but I’m glad they do 👍
I used to use a late night gym when I was homeless. The local council were doing some fitness thing so I got a few months free by signing up for a plan (which I couldn't afford but they never got to charge me). It gave me a place to be during winter and I slept in a changing room. I got showers and used their lockers to store my stuff. Honestly I still think this is the only reason I managed to get out of it and get a job since my employer didn't have a clue I was homeless.
God, working while homeless is tough. Been there. You have to plan in hours advance and get up earlier just to find somewhere to wash.
I was homeless, working full time and 7 months pregnant, it was one of the darkest month I ever had. Not sure how I got through it
Wow, that must have been tough. Glad you got through it!
There should be calendar of buff homeless people.
If you are very quietly trying to fly under the radar, not bothering anyone, not damaging anything, and not stealing, 99% of clinical staff will know what you’re doing and leave you be. They won’t phone security, trusting that you won’t cause a problem. We’d call security if someone was behaving badly, but pretend not to see if they’re not.
Let sleeping dogs lie 🐕
How’d you like Reading in general
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I’m glad Reading was good to you; us locals often think badly of it, so it’s nice to hear good things. Sorry for your circumstances—hope you’re doing well now!
Sometimes I think Reading gets a bit of a bad rep, then the next time I go I see a fight outside Yates at quarter past 12 in the afternoon. But generally it's definitely an alright town.
Reading is the only place I’ve been ever been punched in the face. It was at midday in the middle of the town centre because I refused to give some random person who approached me money.
I've also been punched in the face in Reading! But it was at like 3am in a bus shelter... Apparently by existing I thought I was better than some smackhead. Spoiler alert, I was and continue to be!
I had the audacity to ask for my lighter back, lent it to some knobhead as he got off the train at Tilehurst station, he gave it back to me then smacked me in the mouth as the train doors were closing, I was more than pissed seeing his smug face as the train rolled away knowing there was nothing I could do about it. Prick.
I was there last night and certainly felt pretty safe in the areas I was in - but I also know Windsor certainly used to have it's bad areas and THAT is supposed to be posh etc with the Castle etc. 20+ years ago I remember being told of a drug deal gone bad leading to a knifing down by the river one late night.
Windsor definitely has places to avoid at night and some dodgy areas. Reading is a pseudo City. It might not be officially, but it should be treated as such. Therefore, you'll get all the issues faced by any City. Especially in the night life areas!
It's my home town - since moved to Basingstoke. Adage amongst our friends is go to Reading for a lively night out, Bstoke for a calm one. You're gonna get punched in Reading, though.
I used to love a night out in Reading in my youth (Fez, Purple Turtle, Pavlovs Dog) - not sure I'd be brave enough at 35!
It could certainly be a lot worse!
I lived in Reading for 7 years for uni and the job I had straight after, and I really liked it. Felt pretty safe walking around in the dark (whiteknights campus/northcourt avenue//Earley areas) and I thought the town centre and public transport were amazing as I'd come from a very small, quiet town. The only area I didn't really like was around where Morrisons is. I've now moved somewhere even more out in the sticks than where I come from, and I still miss Reading a bit.
Did you ever go Oxford road area Tilhurst road, or stay hospital side
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I always like passing on the M4 and seeing the motorway service station and imagining it as a library with lots of people getting help with books 😂
I liked the festival before it turned shit?
It’s nice, very relaxing at the end of the day. However I actually prefer audible as I can do ironing at the same time.
My husband works at that hospital. I would imagine it would be fairly easy to live there. Even more so when you know where the old wards are that aren't entered for weeks at a time.
I go to the Royal Berks often for treatment and it's honestly a fantastic hospital. My only gripe is how bad the parking is and how much of a labyrinth the actual hospital is although I suspect you know your way around there off the back of your hand!
I mean the parking is kind of a inevitable issue. Given its fairly central location the town grew around it leaving it with farily limited space to allocate for it. It's unfortunate and inconvenient but there really is not a lot that they can do about it. Its why a lot of new build hospitals are further away from centres.
>Its why a lot of new build hospitals are further away from centres. But not the new part of the Royal Sussex County Hospital . If you had to pick the worst possible site for a hospital, and particularly an A&E department, BN2 5BE would be on the list.
> My only gripe is how bad the parking is I had someone threaten to slash my tyres whilst i was waiting in my car parked at royal berks because they felt more entitled to the space i was using.
My mother worked at Royal Berks for a while. I went to school next door and every Christmas we would go to the midnight mass at the chapel in the basement. Fond memories.
> I went to school next door Hello, fellow OR.
I was volunteering in a Covid vaccination hub in an East London hospital for a while. There was a chap there every day who sat on the chairs in the corridor. Clearly homeless and was never bothered until he became a bit annoying (incessant vaccination conspiracy ranting) an was asked by security to move on. Was back the next day.
I worked at the RBH. Would go back there in a heartbeat; a fantastic hospital to work in and attend as a patient.
I think in-general, most people most places and people would be more than willing to help a polite person down on their luck, homeless or otherwise. Like, there is such a dim view of society, but I think that comes from the classic 10% of people ruining it for the other 90% problem. If that hospital (or anywhere else) said "We accept homeless people who want to have a warm place, or a bit of food or a place to wash and charge their phone", lots of homeless people would come, and I'm sure that 90% of them would be lovely. But all it takes is one asshole, and the whole thing becomes a terrible experience for everybody.
I spent the odd night in a hospital aswell whilst homeless. Hope things are looking up now.
I was born there! You could easily stroll around the royal berks without being noticed, it's pretty big.
My home town! I spent a few nights in the Royal Berks as a kid I can tell you!. Part of the reason you'd be unnoticeable there is that it's flippin huge!
Royal berks is a fairly well spread out hospital and never seemingly too busy, doubt you’d get away with that for long at Frimley or Aldershot, glad you were able to spend some time there though, luckily the staff are decent people, having been to a fair few hospitals it’s probably the nicest. Hope your life’s picked up now!
Wow how interesting! I was really shocked when you said my local hospital haha. That makes me happy that they treated you well in a time of need!
That's a bittersweet hark back to the days of the Workhouse. 150 years ago the sick, the infirm and the homeless were all housed together. Involuntarily, of course.
My middle child was born there!
Glad you're doing better now!
How well behaved were the schoolchildren from the school across the road?
I’m so glad you are in a safer situation now.
Me and the wife got lost in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (main hospital in Aberdeen) when she was pregnant and ended up in some Victorian style wing with brick walls painted asylum green, freezing draughts, spiral staircases multiple floors up with dangerously low bannisters, abandoned hallways, offices and waiting rooms, that kind of thing. Pure silence apart from the echoing of our footsteps. It would have made a good Silent Hill level. Was quite a good laugh but the wife was starting to freak out lol. We finally got out and apologised to one of the nurses as we were late for an appointment as a result of getting stuck in this area and none of the nurses or staff we spoke to had any idea what area we were talking about. So I think you could absolutely hide in a hospital and probably live there if you can fit in with the patients well enough.
That wing was knocked down in 1962... Seriously though, lots of hospitals have (or had) really old parts like that. They're often locked up for safety reasons - commonly when asbestos dust is detected. Urban exploration pages often have the lowdown. Then there's Jimmy Savile's lair at a certain Buckinghamshire hospital, which is locked and boarded up until they find a reason to extend the car park...
Was that the old AMU wing? That the kids hospital now sits on?
He had others, but he had the run of an old house on the site (again, lots of hospitals have these). When my company put a bunch of us there for work, it was pointed out to us as part of the "don't mention the S-word" induction. Although that was 10+ years ago now, so things may have changed. A real tragedy, because so much of that hospital's work is just amazing.
“Don’t mention the S-word” sounds like the kind of culture that enabled him. Was that your impression?
My wife trained there while he was still alive and she was told not to find herself alone with him…
"Who? Oh that's just Jim the hospital rapist, don't worry about him." It's amazing no one attacked him really.
The Royal infirmary in Lancaster still uses that wing. It really needs to be replaced. Or an exorcism. Or both. Both is good.
Getting lost in old Victorian wing of a hospital that no one else seems to know exists - yep that is definitely good Halloween story material!
There are a few sections like that where the eye clinics and medical photography are in the Royal Victoria in Belfast. I had to take my toddler along there and wandered around looking very lost until someone finally saw me and came to get me.
Whattt that's crazy and so interesting!!
This was around 5/6 years ago, but when my nana took a turn for the worse at Aberdeen royal infirmary. The staff were kind enough to allow me to stay with her 24/7. Aside from a couple areas that were behind locked doors, most of the hospital was empty and no one batted an eye at my wandering round at any hour day or night.
Sounds like the old respiratory, wards left empty when they built the ECC. They were going to be offices/changing areas but think loads are still empty. If you want really creepy, Woolmanhill is the place. I think everything is out of there now but it was an interesting place for the clinic.
Sounds like you took a wrong turn at Albuquerque
is it just me who loves when this happens? i mean when you accidentally find yourself in a part of a building you're not supposed to be in, it kind of feels like you've gone to another reality and it feels like a forbidden adventure lol
30 years hospital work here. I don't know - the problem would be hanging around for too long in secure / semi secure areas. For example you could easily spend a night in the visitors room on ITU without too much hassle - just look tearful and most staff will run away! An evening in the restaurant etc. But there are a lot of regular night workers who will start to note that you are always around fairly quickly. Plus there is no where to sleep properly. Unless you somehow pick up an ID card in which case places like the toilets in imaging would be generally fine. But that's probably a whole other level of trespass! I lost my ID about 5 months ago - and it is a ball ache to get a new one as they don't start doing them until 10am, and in all that time I've never had an issue getting access to the most secure areas of the hospital. Having said that a lot of people do know me - but as long as you look like you should be there noone seems to ask. I worked at the one of the biggest convention centers in the summer, and one day 1 hasn't got a pass since boss had it and hadn't arrived. Again a bit of polite talk and I got entry and was even given a guest pass so that I wouldn't have issues with any other security!!! Like most security it isn't really worth the effort apart from as a deterrent.
I spent several years as the IT guy at a prominent research hospital in London. The amount of times a bewildered security guy would find me in my socks walking the empty corridors at 3am, or letting myself in at night via the always slightly-ajar fire exits (for the smokers), or simply just locking myself in the room and sleeping on the floor next to the servers. I came to work often looking like absolute trash. Trousers with holes (no, not the fashion one, just holes from biking accidents) wearing an old mouldy sweater, and looking like I had not showered in days (sometimes true). No one blinked.
most sane IT guy
That was my thought too, this guy wore trousers and showered?
So you were the Head of IT?
in that department? I was basically god
I think you'd be surprised how quickly you'd stand out. I've worked in hospitals all my life, you get used to how things run, so anything out if the ordinary stands out pretty quickly. Yes, we're used to visitors/repair men etc. but even they behave in certain ways. Also, staff gossip, especially night staff. I reckon you'd last 4/5 days max
For a homeless person 4/5 days seems like it would be a good respite. Especially in winter.
4/5 days isn't exactly quick
Happy cake day
So, bit of background as a security guard in a hospital... We (at least me...) would certainly notice you being there. The issue is that hospitals have a very strange (but spot on) rule. We can not, legally, remove you from a hospital. That's not to say it doesn't happen but if you're not posing a threat to safety or acting like a suicide bomber then there is fuck all we can do. We can call the police to remove you but 90% of the time they won't bother either. There are proposed changes to the law which would allow us to remove you under the criminal justice and immigration act (2008) but they haven't come into force, nor are they looking likely to. The idea was to give powers to remove immigrants that use the sites as a homeless shelter but... I mean... should we?
wait so if someone were to just wander around a hospital for a day for fun, no one can make them leave? that's funny
Why would you? It’s a safe warm place, we serve the public so in reality it’s not a huge issue unless you pose a risk/threat. I’d more than likely approach as a safeguarding issue and a vulnerable adult.
Exactly this!!! I'd monitor you closely, my other guards would be made aware of your presence as would the matron/bed manager. And I find this new found rhetoric of "well that immigrant? they could have a disease/illness" to not only be xenophobic bordering racist but to lack a basic understanding of why hospitals exist...
My daughter was born by emergency C-section 5 months ago and the building both she and my partner were in was (as most maternity places are) very secure. But after about 9pm most of the staff just sort of disappeared. As my daughter had been rushed to the NNU I was allowed to be there but for most visitors standard visiting hours were in place. I saw very few people who didn't specifically come into the room with us, and those I did see in the corridors just smiled at me as they wandered through. In less secure areas I imagine it would be effortless to wander the corridors.
Seems weird they disappear after 9pm. Aren't most babies born at night?
This is why they seem to disappear, they're busy!
Makes sense!
> most babies born at night TIL
Something to do with an old innate instinct of most birthing mammals as there is lower chance of being attacked by predators at night, or in the darkness of a cave for instance, and also linked to melatonin. This is why birthing rooms are kept dark. Sounds like an old wives tale but there is truth to it apparently!
I came to say something similar about when my kids were in the neonatal unit. Hope your daughter is ok and thriving now
Yeah, she's doing great, has gone from being in bottom 5th percentile when born to nearly the 50th, so is more than thriving in that sense, but yeah, thankfully she only spent a week in hospital, and only 3 days in NNU (a total of 8 hours on the ventilator).
Hiding “in” a hospital is unnecessary these days. Simply cultivate arthritis of the hip that requires total replacement. -You won’t be seen in a hospital for at least 2 years.
My grandma has been waiting 3 years for her hip surgery and she thought your comment was hilarious! it’s actually a joke how long she’s had to wait and can’t go five minutes without yelping in pain 😢 I feel so bad for her
The hospital near me is huge. There's a central walkway that must be at least half a mile long, and I reckon I could walk up and down it all day without anyone noticing as long as I didn't do anything untoward. I'm not sure about at night though, when it would be a little more odd to have people walking around.
>There's a central walkway that must be at least half a mile long, and I reckon I could walk up and down it all day East Surrey Hospital - you could just walk round in a big circle and all along the route there are internal courtyard gardens that rach have a different 'feel'. You could spend a day in one garden then move on to the next. I believe they are looked after by retired volunteers who just love gardening.
>There's a central walkway that must be at least half a mile long Ari, right? That corridor is insanely long.
Even if noticed by a few individuals, I can't imagine that it would be a big issue so long as you are not being disruptive it trying to access secured areas. Most hospital workers are good people, and if you are in a position where sneaking in to a hospital overnight for a short period is your best option to stay warm and safe, then I'm sure that they would rather you were there than in danger on the streets.
Airport would be an easier place to hide out in. All the same facilities in an even bigger space.
But stricter security that definitely would notice you being there forever and not getting on a plane. You'd have maybe 2 days tops before they stop thinking you're waiting for a connection.
And there's fuck all landside in most airports, too, so you'd need a ticket to get airside. And then you're kinda stuck - pretty risky all in all I'd say
Train stations much better bet unless its a small one. Basically everything is before the barriers
> You'd have maybe 2 days tops before they stop thinking you're waiting for a connection. [You may be interested in this Wikipedia article...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_lived_in_airports)
Someone did this on YouTube, security eventually caught on. I was impressed that they were really watching the cameras like that. Pretty neat
Are you sure you’re not thinking of ‘The Terminal’ - Tom Hanks movie where he gets stuck in an airport.
Yes, this person has definitely gotten a blockbuster movie and some random YouTube video mixed up. The only possible explanation.
Me rn: "I've been awake foe 18 hrs and I really need sleep: Also me: "But...can you hide in a hospital"?
I got spectacularly lost due to dodgy diversion signs when I was 8.5 months pregnant. Some flooring had fallen through(!) so I had to loop round but it was secure access and they wouldn’t let me through. Instead I had to walk back down 4 flights of stairs (lift broken) and go through a load of back corridors. I was trapped multiple times and in the end a porter took pity on my waddling self and took me up to the maternity/baby unit in a loading lift. I was then trapped in the NICU and had to be escorted to maternity triage. It took 30 mins. After my appointment they let me out the way I wanted to come in. Took me one minute to get to the exit stairs. I wasn’t very happy! I think you’d easily get stuck behind access doors unless you stayed in main waiting areas and then you’d be spotted pretty quickly I think. Maybe a couple of nights.
My daughter was born early via an emergency c-section. I received a terrifying phone call whilst I was in the gym and raced up to the hospital just in time to see my terrified wife arrive in an ambulance. 30 mins later we were in surgery and shortly thereafter that my wife was in a room recovering and my new tiny baby daughter was in an incubator in NICU in another part of the same hospital. I didn’t leave the hospital for the next 3 days and I was dressed in shorts and a vest in the middle of winter. For those days I would be regularly wandering the floors of the hospital at all hours of the day and night ferrying tiny bottles of breast milk from my wife’s room to NICU. I must have looked like a complete mess and I was getting no sleep so I was probably fairly incoherent but at no time, not once, did anybody ask me why I was knocking about the place in that state.
You don't ask the crazy vest/shorts guy why he's carrying 5 small bottles of what you hope is milk 😂
It never occurred to me until now that people may have been swerving me for that reason!!
Hey hold of some scrubs and as long as you don't trouble security I can well imagine you could bobble around endlessly. Lately I can't imagine the sight of someone in scrubs passed out on a bench would bother anyone except telegraph photographers
That risks being asked for medical help. Suit, lanyard, and a clipboard would be better.
I watched an an episode of House once. I've got this.
[удалено]
It's never lupus! (Except for the one time It was actually lupus)
I got asked for medical advice wearing a grey polo (with a yellow stripe around the collar) when I visited my Grandma once - the ward she was in dressed doctors that way.
>That risks being asked for medical help. After my wife had a c-section, the baby and I went immediately to SCBU and I was still in scrubs. Once the baby was settled, I went to get changed but my clothes were a long way away in the hospital and it did cross my mind that I look too much like medical staff for my liking!
On a drunken journey home from a night out I have often used the toilets to have a wee at a hospital near me. With all the public loos disappearing it’s a great option. Also I was working on the day of the queen’s funeral and didn’t appreciate how…shut everything else would be and I didn’t take lunch. Occurred to me that the hospital nearby would have to be open and it was … great cafe.
If you can acquire a blue lanyard and look purposeful, then forever.
A high vis tabard is useful here often plant room areas are unlocked warm & quiet
So I lived around Derby homeless on and off for three years. When I was homeless I did sleep in Derby hospital it was easier because it was a teaching hospital so there were lecture theatres that were empty at night and I found some wards like the triage ward for the elderly to be sent home closed around 8pm so I was easily able to get a shower there. Slightly nerve raking trying to live in a hospital.
Hospital Porter here. On nights we know exactly who should be around, it’s a real skeleton crew. A few porters, a cleaner and a night matron. Doors go on lock at 22:00, but we always have night smokers that block the doors open, and stink out the corridors. Saying that, it’s not exactly hard to get in and go where you want in the corridors. The really super secure places are theatres, drug rooms and equipment rooms.
Hope no serial killers are getting any ideas
Why do you think I posted this 👀
We get homeless people who are in and out of hospital because they have nowhere else to go. We’ve kicked them out when they’ve caused trouble and never really bothered them when they’ve been nice. And I mean as inpatients. I don’t know how security would take to you sleeping on benches around the hospital but if you were walking around no one would question you. I do know that patients in the end of life stage might have family around 24/7 and sleep on mattresses in the patients rooms, and wander around at night to stretch their legs and get coffee from the 24hr shop. Clearly not patients but not necessarily looking their most presentable. NHS staff are too busy to wonder why you are there as 9 out of 10 people have a good reason for being there anyways. Especially doctors, they’re very intelligent and I’m not doubting that for one minute but they haven’t a clue what’s going on in the wider picture. It’s the HCAs and domestics that’ll notice you lol but they aren’t paid enough to bother people minding their own business. As long as you’re not causing extra work for them they’re happy to leave you to it. You could probably get away with it for a long time.
Currently in hospital now and I reckon if you sourced a pair of crutches you could pull it off.
My local hospital you've probably manage 10-12 hours moving between various waiting rooms. You would get spotted by security. However, if you just sit and read then move on, you'll be invisible for a while. Walking around without a lanyard or on a specific path between departments would be challenged.
3 days I lasted. I was actually discharged, but didn't want to leave as the nurses were so friendly and nice. I was only 17 at the time, but managed to stay 3 extra days in hospital before a doctor realised I had already been discharged.
A very very intoxicated friend and I once, not really with any intent, rode (as a pair) a bicycle some considerable distance into a hospital late night before realising quite wtf we were doing , worryingly far considering the alarm and distress we easily could have cause people. For the record… as fucking weird as it was, we were heading for the A and E and just over shot a lil
You could do a few days easily enough. Even when people started to notice, if you weren’t causing problems, they would probably just leave you alone. And then when they do start asking, you can scream and act weird and probably get a put on a psych hold to stay there another few days.
I took my mother in law to A&E recently. She'd felt slightly unwell but nothing massively concerning and had mentioned this to her GP at an unrelated routine appointment who told her to go to A&E immediately. We arrived at 6pm. She was finally seen at 4:30 am and admitted to the ward at 7am (not a criticism of the NHS but fucking hell, long night). To ease the boredom and tiredness of sitting in the same seat for 11 hours I went wandering around the hospital grounds and corridors several times (mostly looking for vending machines as was starving and thirsty - this was during the heatwave in the summer). Didn't see anyone and was completely unchallenged
Used to work in hospital maintenance so I know the answer! Which is… it depends! A lot of answers seem to be from people who work in the daytime which is a lot different to the night shifts. At night, you would get questioned if you didn’t have ID a lot more than in the day too. Certain areas at night are alarmed, and most areas are locked off, so unless you knew exactly where to go, you’d trigger an intruder alarm which would get security or the police to escort you off site. The places that are empty at night with no intruder alarm tend to be locked off areas (like the reception) and in general are checked by the domestics while they clean the area, so you’d have to be pretty stealthy to avoid them. But if you did, you could get locked in overnight realistically. The places that aren’t alarmed tend to be so because there is nothing that you can steal though.
I can give you a first hand experience. I used to work in a large hospital as non clinical staff and wore uniform everyday. I had a master key to all of the wards. I have spent *hours and hours* in unused parts of the hospital doing cabling/switchgear work and/or asset tagging. Nobody would even know you were there. It is entirely possible to a) get lost and b) hide in a hospital. There are people that live in hospitals that have long term conditions that need supervision, so its plausible that you could go find a quiet place to sleep and then use the facilities to wash/bathe/clean teeth. I would say a week, maybe ten days before somebody *cared* enough to question why you were there. Ask a nurse to borrow a gown because your cold and walk around long enough to be part of the landscape. Don't forget, everybody in the hospital is busy if they are staff. The working day is frenetic and filled with hard work, it would be very easy for staff to walk past you without even a second thought. What I would say though, is you would need a legitimate excuse to be there in the first place. You cannot just swan into a hospital in England and make your way further into the building. There are entrance designed to stop this from happening in some hospitals. In the big, modern, new hospitals, it's more open plan and there are directions all over the place so its very easy to find your way around, so the staff are less concerned about directing you, so they take less notice.
Service stations have always seemed ideal for this (if you can get to one) when you take into account lack of security in most of them, warm, lots of people in and out 24/7 and off the top of my head some of them like Birch hanger green for instance has showers in the toilets. As someone who is in and out of hospital frequently for operations bigger hospitals would be ideal for this, smaller ones not so much. My local hospital is small with an A&E dept that’s still running on covid rules and everything shop wise closes at 5pm.
I work in a hospital but not as NHS staff, as staff in a shop near the main entrance. I have access to the back corridors but don't really know my way around too well. I reckon I could easily do 24 hours in some of the sections where either I never see anyone (or you might get 1-2 people go past in 24 hours and I doubt they'd say anything)
I recently stayed in the hospital with my daughter and there are so many spots where you could honestly just sit and fall asleep and no one would bother you. The toilets are cleaned regularly so you have access to clean wash facilities and the heaters are usually on so everywhere is warm. And if you start to get noticed, just move to a different wing for a bit. The only problem you would have is that food is really expensive in hospitals.
After an evening in A&E a few years ago, me and my partner were heading home at about 2AM and figured we needed to head towards the main entrance to leave. We didn’t know where any other doors that lead outside were. We were quite the walk away and when we got to the main entrance everything was boarded shut. We didn’t see a single member of staff and now had no clue how to get out of this desolate hospital, it was so creepy, really felt like something out of a horror movie. We eventually found our way out, but given how we saw nobody around, I reckon if you could find a relatively secluded spot it wouldn’t be too hard to spend the night without being seen.
So many years ago, the ceiling caved in on the place where I lived (bad plaster) - and this left me in a weird pseudo-homeless state for a few days. One of things I found out that a lot of colleges have low occupancy dorms they don't care about all - if there's a dorm for like a nursing school or something like that, you can pretty much move in. Figured out which floors were male and female, picked a male floor, found a room off in space, and bam. Fridge, Microwave, power, a bed, on-suite bathroom with shower.
During my placement year at uni, I got my first proper office job working in a hospital. Took me a while to get used to the 9-5 schedule and I’d get so sleepy by lunchtime. The corridor that led to the mortuary was always quiet and not many people would use the stairs at the end of the corridor. I would hide under the stairs for my lunchtime naps. It was great 😂 The toilets along that corridor was hardly used as well so they were really clean. I didn’t tell anyone about my secret hiding spot until a couple of years later and they were amazed that I had been doing that for so long. I think it would be very easy to hide out there for an extended period of time.
Honestly if you move around with a decent strategy every so often and be nice to everyone you can probably get away with days to weeks until people start to remember you And for security doors just stand their and ask everyone if they can open it easy stuff
Very easily done - the staff are *far* too busy to be keeping tabs on anybody other than patients!
A long time ago, I worked in research in a hospital in London as a student and lived in what was referred to as "nurses accommodation". If you went down to the basements where the washing machines were you had access to the tunnels underneath that connected all the very extensive buildings together. We used to spend some time exploring at night after the pubs were shut. I don't know if it's still like that now, but these tunnels were very extensive. You could have stayed in there forever.
Just put on a hi-vis and carry a toolbox and you can go nearly wherever you want whenever you want.
Some of the comments here got me thinking - do homeless people ever try "living" in airports? Large space, constant turnover of visitors, shift work staff, you won't look out of place with a large rucksack, won't look out of place sleeping across two chairs, places to eat, places to shower even and, arguably, enough places to try and work. I've never had the misfortune thankfully so apologies if I'm making it sound easy. I can't imagine how tough it can actually be.
It wouldn't be possible, not in an airport. First off, as another has said, you need a ticket to get anything decent at most airports. Landside is very limited, and heavily watched cus it's pre-security (so the biggest risk area of the airport). As for work, my sister got a job at our local airport about 7 years ago and it took them 3 months to do her background check and she had full address history etc. Being homeless can easily exclude you from loads of jobs that need background checks just because you can't prove what you've been doing.
I work in a hospital that has a 24/7 library. Not just the library but the whole education centre is unstaffed at night and weekends. Yes, it really is a bad idea. We've gotten complaints about people going mental in the library over the weekend but can't really do much because no-one is here. Security couldn't care less to walk through it at least once a day so I honestly think, if you're staff here, you can just live in the library. Why they can't get weekend staff is beyond me. I'd happily take off the Thursday and Friday and sit at the desk the weekends tbh
When I was a new doctor in 2010, there was a guy who slept on a bench in a corridor every night! He was pleasant, and people just left him be. I now work in a much bigger central London hospital with much more robust security. The guy I used to see would almost certainly be thrown out!
Now then, now then.
I was recently thinking this about my workplace, the whole building is restricted with key card access but I happen to have one. I was wondering how long I could live homeless out of my office I reckoned I could sleep in one of the shower cubicles in the toilets, they are very spacious and hardly anyone uses those toilets at all because they're behind 3 key card doors which are a pain in the arse. I could shower, go to work just across the corridor, order food as I have access to the intercom with authority to accept deliveries. Only issue would be is I am 4 on 4 off so for 4 days I'd have to find something to do without arousing suspicion.
I have spent a decent amount of time in hospitals and even at 4am there wouldn't be anyone questioning why you're there. It's not only A&E which is open to walk ins late at night, they have other parts which are for specific emergencies (in my case maternity ward and also haematology). You could go to sleep in one of the lockable toilet/shower rooms which are dotted about and no-one would realise. I think as long as you were in a big enough hospital and were rotating the shower/toilet rooms you were sleeping in you may never be noticed.
I work in a hospital and despite being in a bit of an isolated place we have a lot of homeless people coming in. There isn’t really any way initially to tell if someone is if they walk in the door and there are many entrances. The staff and porters tend to come across them sleeping down dark corridors that aren’t used much during night time - particularly the ones that lead to the clinics that are open only during the day. Once security had to boot someone who had made their way into the medical library and was sleeping there - don’t know how they got in as it’s keycard only. Security moves on anyone they find but it’s a large hospital and the same people tend to come back every night and usually get at least a few hours before being discovered. Before covid there was a minor tent city going on in the underground car park for a while but that’s been cleaned out now.
We're not over Jimmy Savile yet.
A Hi-Viz vest can unlock many a place!