April Bartle, 19, a student at the University of Michigan-Flint, tried to live with her parents in her childhood home in Sandusky, Michigan when their college switched to distance learning last spring. "It was difficult to find privacy, especially at the end of the day when I like to decompress on my own," she said. "They really wanted me to hang out with them in the living room."
They stopped their classes and asked them to do the washing up or other chores around the house. She was also very aware that when she was talking to friends on the phone or making social media videos, they could hear every word. "My room shares a wall with the living room," she said.
When her sophomore year began in September, she decided to live in another city with her sister and brother-in-law. "You live on two levels, so my room is upstairs and you and her husband are downstairs," said Ms. Bartle. “My sister respects my boundaries and I respect hers. She understands what it is like to be younger and want your place. "
Some Americans find quirky, previously overlooked rooms in the house to call themselves.
Heather Christle, 40, a writer and creative writing professor who lives in Decatur, Georgia, said her happy space is now a closet. "My closet is protected by a multiple door situation," she said. “There's the bedroom and then the bathroom, and the closet is on the other side. It is the furthest point that anyone else can give you. "
It's not that she doesn't want to see her partner, a poet and professor at Wright State University, and her 6-year-old daughter. When her daughter tucked a note under the door of her closet the other day, she thought it was cute and adorable. But she needs a private cave to be creative.
The closet – "I don't know how big it is, but I'm 5-foot-6 and when I lie down there are two feet of me," she said – has no furniture; She prefers to sit on the carpet. It also still has her clothes hanging.
