Can you actually live in a motel full time?

34 comments

1. Sure, why not. 

   There are some that are specifically designed for it. 

   Getting mail in a motel, hotel, etc. isn’t new or an American thing. 

2. Depends on the motel, some owners do not like people staying their full time due to the eviction process

3. Absolutely. Many motels essentially let you rent a room month-to-month, and provide a substantial discount compared to the daily rate for doing so.

4. Vulnerable people who have no support can’t buy a home or rent.

   Renting means you need “first last and security”. First months rent, last months and a security deposit. It can add up to a few thousand. If you are poor, an addict, laying low… living at a motel can be slightly more expensive but requires no savings.

   If it was a nicer hotel, it cold be someone from a cold climate wants to be out of the snow for a couple months and is just paying $$ for a short term stay.

   In the old days, it was pretty common to live at a hotel. Wealthy bachelors or “bachelors”, older couples that didn’t want to maintain a house and servants, or a young couple might live in a nice hotel.

5. Yes. The main character of the tv show Goliath does that and real people do actually do that. Howard Hughes is a famous example of this.

   Even just on travel, I have had things mailed to my hotel or motel.

6. Yes.

   Most people who do that are only doing it short term (maybe they are are temporarily in need of housing for reasons like their home burned down and their insurance is covering the motel).

   Or they don’t have the credit/ability to get a landlord to rent to them, so a Motel is their best option (even though it will cost them more).

7. Some states (I know Massachusetts for one) use motels as overflow shelter or subsidized housing for poor people.

8. Many construction workers will live at a hotel for a month while they’re working on a job nearby.

9. In some areas that have no dedicated shelters for families they will use motels for this purpose. The bill is often paid by a combination of donations and grants and the occupant would be working with a social worker to find them affordable housing. Remember that 40-60% of the homeless people are actually employed.

10. Yes, you can do it.

    It’s typically low income or vulnerable individuals. Quite frankly, if a motel seems to have quite a few people living there full-time, you probably don’t want to stay there. There can be a lot of alcohol abuse, drugs, and illegal activity occurring.

    You might have a situation where someone has a house fire or have otherwise been displaced from their home, and they need to stay in a hotel/motel for an extended period of time. Or sometimes people will do it for work, like travelling nurses. There are extended-stay hotels that rent by the week, have full kitchens, etc, but not every town has those.

11. Have you ever watched Schitt’s Creek? 😁

12. Living in a hotel long or medium term used to be not uncommon actually. Helps with moving across country, I guess.

    There are still extended stay hotels that cater to weekly and monthly guests. I wouldn’t call it a ‘regular’ living situation these days – the era of middle class long term hotel residence was more common a hundred years ago or so. But it is still possible in a limited context.

    These days you may have more luck just renting out an AirBNB by the month.

    For what it’s worth, there’s a hotel geared towards more long-term living maybe 4 blocks from where I am right now. It’s very ratty and drug-addled. A slum apartment block in all but name, really. Actually I don’t think they even have a front desk or office.

13. Yes. I’ve known people who have done this due to the fact that their job requires them to travel a lot and it’s just easier for them.

14. The Florida project is a great movie, but it shows this in the movie. There are some hotels called extended stay or home away from home. They are basically apartments, some with full kitchens.

15. The answer is yes.

    Various reasons and circumstances usually occur for it to happen, but its actually common, especially in large cities where the city will help pay for people living there.

16. I’ve had more than a few Amazon packages delivered to hotels in the past.

17. Tho it’s a dying field, there’s still motels which charge by the week, so it’s conceivable to do so.

18. Rarely, depending upon the state if you are in a hotel room more than x number of days you can claim your a resident and then eviction laws apply. Hotels will routinely bounce a “renter” out on the final day.. and or move them to another room to be sure they don’t become a “resident”.

    Today however, states and local municipalities are using low end motels to house the homeless in their area. This may be how a person is receiving mail there and not part of the state’s tenancy laws.

19. Yes it is possible and happens. Motels will often have weekly or monthly rates for people that are planning on staying there long term. A lot of the times the people that do that are construction workers or such that might be away from home for an extended period of time working on a nearby project.

    I have friends that are linemen located here in the Midwest but a lot of the time they are on the road for six months out of the year down south during hurricane season or if it’s too cold to work up here so they will stay in the same motel for weeks at a time. It’s pretty common for them to have campers that they stay in nowadays instead, though.

20. There’s a motel in my area that does rent out rooms full time and they even come with a mini-kitchen. They are fairly expensive though.

21. My husband is currently working out of town. He’s in a weekly hotel. His crews checks are mailed to that hotel that his company put him up at. My husband stays there Monday night through Friday morning. He’s not going to sleep in his truck, just where do you think out of town workers or people without a residence live? Hotels with weekly rates are usually the last step before many people/families go homeless. You seem uncomfortable with this, why?

22. Sometimes cities or other organizations pay motels to take on semi-permanent/permanent indigent residents instead of spending money on building new infrastructure.

23. I’ve spent 4 months in the same hotel. I don’t think most hotels would be okay with this from just any random person. They place hold on your card, and I had to provide a pretty lengthy explanation and my company information when I booked to stay that long. They ended up charging it on a bi-weekly basis, which worked out better for me tbh. It makes expenses easier to report.

24. This is especially common in Nevada, they are called “weeklies” or “monthlies” and there are entire chains like Siegel Suites that cater to this population. They exist as kind of a grey area between a regular apartment and homelessness. They are usually the same or more expensive as renting a cheap apartment overall, but because they don’t require a lease, security deposit, credit check, background check, etc, they are an option for people who have unpredictable income, bad credit, evictions, things like that.

25. Yeah haven’t you seen The Florida Project?

26. Yes, it’s not ideal because most of the hotels people live in are dirt cheap and not in good condition, but it’s much better than sleeping on the streets.

27. So when I was in high school, there was a state program that put homeless families up in cheap motels. There were several in our catchment area, so the kids from the motels went to my high school. One week per month they’d live in their cars until social services got them a room again. So the answer is yes. People do this. It’s not safe, nor is it ideal, but it’s shelter.

28. My husband (military) had to move bc of orders. He lived in a hotel for 6 weeks while he was waiting to deploy.

    We’ve also lived in a hotel for 3-4 weeks while waiting for military housing. For U.S. Military it’s pretty common 🤷🏼‍♀️

29. I remember a documentary about housing insecurity.. there was an elderly man living at a hotel, it was something like an extended stay america, where you can pay weekly. And it included free breakfast. He said it was cheaper than an apartment or assisted/elderly living. He didn’t have to pay utilities, had free room cleaning, got one free meal and just ate out/had snacks and things the rest of the time. He planned to stay there as long as he could. Made sense, really.

30. https://www.businessinsider.com/mom-moved-kids-hotel-room-because-rent-is-high-2024-8

31. Fresh out of high school I worked a summer job in the middle of nowhere. The money was great so I ended up staying in a motel attached to a truck stop. I had an address I could use, cable, room cleaning, and laundry facilities for relatively cheap. That said I was still basically living in a truck stop and there were some very weird days.

32. I have friends who have been living in the same extended stay motel room for about 6 years now. They negotiated a long term rate, have paid off quite a few debts, and are saving for a better place to live. Housing prices in my area are a bit crazy.

33. I live in the midwest. There is this “hotel” in the next town over. When I was single, it was my back up place if my life evers goes south. It is so damn cheap. Cheaper than renting in the area. You basically pay cash upfront for the week. You get your own room and bathroom. And you are in the relatively busy downtown of 50,000 people. Restaurants, bars, a bowling alley, library, and a movie theater is a short walk away. Plus you are right next to a train stop that will take you 45 minutes to get you to the big city of 2.6 million people. But I see some depressing people hanging out front.

    I just looked it up. It is just under $200 a month. It must have going up in price. Still a great deal for the area.

34. I did. For years. Got a weekly rate and even brought my own furniture in