The landlord called it a "crawlspace" but it's actually the SudoRoom Attic. And by "attic", picture a wide four-foot-tall football stadium full of death traps. Some hazards include:

  • knob & tube wiring: Bare exposed circuits. Touch the wrong thing and get electrocuted.
  • hot water pipes: I burned my arm on one, in my first minute up there.
  • rusty nails: They poke out everywhere, at eye level. I learned to duck my head, so it only caught my hair instead of blinding me.
  • maintenance shaft: Four story drop with no barrier, no warning. It's one of the first things you pass by. I almost rested my phone "on" it
  • thin ceiling panels: Do not walk on these. They cannot hold your weight. Walk on the beams only. Remember the floor is 10 feet below you - or if you're above the stairwell, more like 20 feet.
  • darkness: Bring a flashlight, preferably a biker light that straps to your head. If you stumble, a free hand could save your life.
  • misleading lightbulb: right away you will see a promising light fixture - don't trust it! Its switch doesn't work. It is permanently set to "on". If a lightbulb is screwed in, it will get too hot to remove easily - with no lightbulb, you have a bare circuit and another electrocution hazard. The solution? A lightbulb screwed in halfway. That's how we found it. So it shall remain.
  • metallic dust: It will get all over you, and in your lungs. Don't wear nice clothes!
  • elevator: Just don't even go NEAR this. Just don't.
  • gas, cold water, exhaust lines: they picked every possible place and angle to confound your movements. You'll be playing limbo and you'll get very sweaty and tired.
  • loneliness: You're probably up there to lay wiring from one part of the building to another (I was), so you will need help! You'll need someone to feed wire from inside SudoRoom, and possibly someone else to receive it on the other end. You can't just pull on the wire because it will get kinked and caught on [all of the above]

The plus side: in order to access this delightful crawlspace, you only need to ask our landlord to unlock a single door to a single closet - this closet is located:

  • behind our common area sink/kitchen
  • to the right of the women's bathroom
  • if you're standing at the circuit box, it's behind your right shoulder

Climb the ladder and let the adventure begin.