Strangest Places Where People ACTUALLY Live
humans are resilient and can live in all sorts of crazy places for example I live in a windowless padded room with nothing but a microphone the internet and a bottle don't ask what I use the last one for still as bizarre as my home is some are even crazier from minuscule Islands to cities literally brimming with garbage let's take a look at some of the strangest places people actually live oh the big stink the first time you hear about monchiat Naser it might sound like a dream I'm situated in Sunny Cairo Egypt mansiad Naser has low unemployment extremely cheap housing and a populist that self-describes as generally happy the only problem the city is permanently buried in garbage well you can't have it all I guess garbage bags broken bottles tattered newspaper discarded plywood tin cans wrappers all Humanity's Grime flows freely through manchiat Naser the reason this garbage City exists is that Cairo despite being a major city with a population of 20 million people never invested in an advanced waste management system because of this it fell to individual citizens to dispose of their trash as the city grew larger however residents began to run out of places to dump their waste manchiat Naser eventually became The Unofficial Dumping Ground for the city's trash and the people living there took up the mantle it's not uncommon for residents of monshia Naser to go door to door in Cairo collecting trash which they then bring back to their own homes this has led to their nickname the zabaline which translates to the trash people the zabalines sort through the garbage in order to recycle the glass reuse the plastic and collect various other pieces of trash to repurpose despite the unglamorous work the zabaleen are efficient apparently we're cycling up to 85 percent of the garbage they sort if true this makes them more than four times as efficient as conventional waste management companies unsurprisingly though illness and poor living conditions are common here and the zabiline make up some of the poorest people in Cairo this makes moving out difficult if you're born here the idea of looking out your window and seeing anything besides trash might feel like an unattainable dream treat your garbage men with respect everyone see land have you ever wanted to live on a desert island but just hate sand I don't like sand well Anakin allow me to introduce you to the principality of sea land Majestic huh what you're looking at is a metal platform off the eastern coast of the United Kingdom consisting of just one acre of surface area or .0015 square miles the platform formerly known as Fort roughs is one of several constructed during World War II by the British for defensive purposes but was decommissioned in 1956 when it was no longer useful several years later in 1967 the platform was commandeered by Patty Roy Bates a former major in the British royal Army Bates then declared the principality of sea land independent from the United Kingdom if taken seriously Sealand is the smallest nation in the world by a wide margin currently Vatican City is the smallest country consisting of just 110 acres but that's still 110 times bigger than sea land I said if taken seriously because well sea land's Independence isn't actually recognized by Any Nation on Earth right now only Prince Michael Bates son of Roy and his wife call Sealand home and though they admit to spending most of their time in more traditional Nations and I mean who could blame them their country is smaller than a football field and while Sealand is open to visitors you need to be lifted aboard via a pulley and the interior of the fort is pretty modest despite its minuscule size and population Sealand has many things you'd expect from a real Nation a coat of arms a tourism board its own currency of the sea land dollar and even passports which again aren't recognized by Any Nation on Earth Sealand even has its own political turmoil when back in 1978 a band of mercenaries attempted to seize sea land but were fought off by the Bates family yes really when the Invaders were captured a German Diplomat was sent to Sealand to negotiate their release Patty Bates delightedly considered this a de facto admittance that Sealand was in fact a real country now what do you think is Sealand a real country or just a massive chunk of metal in the ocean or perhaps both for real hit that like button for metal hit subscribe all done brilliant where are we going to next an underground scene are you ready to see some houses that rock please enjoy these next few moments before you realize just how lazy that pun was what you're looking at right now is the town of Cooper Petty in Australia it looks pretty Barren right well that's because half of Cooper Petty's population of 2500 live underground houses shops and even churches have been slowly dug into the surrounding Sandstone Bedrock but how did the people of Cooper Petty become real life mulman well it's surprisingly simple over 100 years ago Coober Petty began Life as a mining town the land here has a mineral-rich Bedrock that's full of Opals which miners flocked to trying to make their Fortune sometimes when they found a particularly opal dense chunk of rock they would start sleeping and eating near it to make sure no one else claimed their territory over the years and the further down they dug this slowly led to the rocky underground Society you see today while Opals have dried up a little in recent years the town still produces the occasional beautiful gemstone there's another reason living underground suits the people of Cooper Petty though and that's the weather Cooper Petty can get up to 113 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and dropped to just 33 in the winter underground temperatures are much easier to regulate this is because while the surface of the Earth is subject to weather and the night and day cycle the deeper down you go the less interference there is with the ground's natural temperature in Cooper Petty underground homes have a nice predictable temperature of around 72 degrees ventilation shafts allow these Subterranean dwellings a steady stream of fresh air too preventing them from running out of oxygen or getting too stuffy residents of Cooper Petty by and large design their own homes if you've got the energy and time to carve yourself out a new guest room there's nothing stopping you from doing it according to locals however this has led to several instances where enterprising residents actually dug into their neighbor's home man I get anxiety just asking my neighbors to turn down their TV imagine digging a tunnel into their bedroom lonely on the rock sometimes I get tired of the hustle and bustle of modern living and just want to escape I need somewhere remote somewhere quiet somewhere isolated ah well this looks perfect I'd like to introduce you to Ellie Day Island sorry that's Ellie die island my Icelandic is a little rusty anyway this minuscule Scenic island is the most Northeastern land mass found in the Westman archipelago which consists of 18 islands off the Icelandic Coast the entire Island measures in at just 110 acres meaning it's about the same size as the previously mentioned smallest recognized Nation on Earth the Vatican City despite all this space Elite island is home to one single solitary residence which some have dubbed the loneliest house in the world dramatic name aside the domicile is not actually a permanent dwelling also it wasn't built by a billionaire as a zombie apocalypse safehouse it isn't the vacation home of musician Bjork or any other wacky internet rumor you might have heard the truth of the Lonely house is that it was constructed in 1953 by a local hunting Association as temporary housing for hunters the island is home to puffins which because they're not a protected bird in Iceland are hunted for their coats meat and even oil not sure how appealing a puffin burger sounds before the era of this lonely Hunter's Lodge however elidai was home to five entire families and these families survived by fishing and raising cattle but the last of them left the island in the 1930s while the lodge has no permanent residence it still contains many rooms and can be rented on a nightly basis you'll have to find out how to actually get there though along with finding anything to do once you are you could always start Puffin hunting if you're a monster that is tomb sweet tomb can you imagine having a bedroom that's the same size as a casket well welcome to the nightmare that is living in one of Hong Kong's shoebox Apartments these are subdivided housing units taken to the extreme where dozens of people live in a single room each tiny apartment can be as small as 15 square feet that's a tenth of a standard parking space even Hong Kong's prisoners live in roomier cells in Stanley prison prisoners live in 80 square foot cells five times the size of some shoebox Apartments oh and they're packed together too floors are as small as 400 square feet about the size of a regular two-bed apartment in New York can house up to 18 people this means these apartments often extend only as far as a mattress which explains why they're sometimes called coffin Apartments to live this way residents of these minuscule Apartments must store their belongings on hooks or shelves sometimes dangling from another bed above their heads in some shoe boxes tenants might be lucky enough to have walls between their units some only have wire mesh like dog crates but what led to these awful Creations well in Hong Kong real estate is a precious commodity this is because only one quarter of Hong Kong is considered fit for development this means there is a huge demand for property and the people who own property in Hong Kong have realized that splitting it up into tiny chunks then renting it out is very profitable after all why charge one family for one apartment when you could charge 12 people to live in the same space and speaking of cost you might think that these tiny units would come cheap however even a shoebox apartment can cost 1300 Hong Kong dollars per month while that only equates to around 166 US Dollars keep in mind that the minimum wage in Hong Kong is roughly 765 dollars per month so almost just a fifth of their earnings go on renting these super small spaces as of 2023 there are some 220 000 residents living in subdivided housing like this the Hong Kong government has declared that it intends to make housing a priority and end shoebox homes by 2049 so just enough time for two more generations of kids to grow up in them great witty living if you don't get out much sometimes the building you live in can feel like the whole world well imagine how the residents of Whittier Alaska must feel because their entire city is located inside a single building this unusual Town began Life as a large U.S naval base in the 1950s but was abandoned in 1966 when it was no longer strategically useful in the years that followed that abandonment Whittier slowly transformed into its own living ecosystem as people moved in it was purchased by residents in 1973 and today has a population of approximately 214 people the 14-story single roofed town has everything you could want from your local community including General Stores a post office a hospital a church a laundromat and even a hotel the school is a separate building across from the main residence and is connected via an underground tunnel and while this may seem like a cruel way to deprive Whittier kids of fresh air is actually for their protection outside Whittier can drop to just 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter I guess you have to make the choice between your air being stuffy or freezing if residents wanted they could move into the nearby Buckner building but considering it's been abandoned since 1966 I imagine it's a lot less homey than what they're working with now some folks even say it's haunted but I a reputable YouTube information Monger would never claim that if you want to visit you're in for a real journey the only way to reach Whittier is through a one lane one track tunnel into the surrounding rock formation which is over 13 000 feet long by day it's a road and by night it it's closed off to allow trains through on top of that the nearest other town to Whittier is Anchorage which is a 63 mile Journey along the seaward Highway while that may sound like a pain it's a journey the General Store Proprietors need to make every week to keep their shops supplied suddenly my 20-minute McDonald's run doesn't seem so bad tight Islands located off the coast of Columbia you'll find a tiny beautiful and cramped Little Getaway Santa Cruz Del islote is one of the world's most densely packed islands with a population of approximately 600 people spread throughout just two and a half acres of land for reference the entire Island could fit inside London's Trafalgar Square and they'd still have room for a few of those giant lion statues at a moderate Pace walking from one end of the island to the other takes just two minutes despite being a tight fit life on the island sounds pretty nice the residents have elected to have no police force dealing with crime as a community on the rare instances it occurs everyone is incredibly close-knit Gathering every Wednesday from music and dancing in the Town Square the one major problem you may have clocked however is is the Island's lack of access to fresh water they are in the middle of the ocean after all this means the townsfolk are reliant on a single seller of bottled water who has a monopoly on the basic human necessity furthermore industry and jobs are fairly limited on the island so if you have big dreams you're gonna have to leave eventually another more Macabre way to escape the island is uh dying the island is so small there's no room for a graveyard so any bodies are shipped over the water to be buried elsewhere now that's what you call a Burial at Sea another tiny densely populated island is that of migingo in Lake Victoria Kenya according to Ugandan police meginko Island houses around 500 people which doesn't sound so bad Until you realize they're working with only half an acre of land about the size of four basketball courts now being situated in a lake the residents of migingo don't have to worry about access to fresh water but do have to worry about political turmoil you see while mcgingo might be tiny it makes for an excellent port and has unique access to Lake Victoria's fish this has led both Uganda and Kenya to claim ownership of migingo with both countries attempting to tax its poor residents for now the island is officially Kenyan if I lived there I'd find this whole situation claustrophobic in more ways than one Life's a gas about 62 miles south of Tokyo Japan in a not at all ominous region of the ocean called The Devil's Sea you'll find the small island of Miyake Jima it enjoys idyllic scenery quiet beaches a close-knit community of around 3 000 people and deadly toxic gases oozing out of the earth sounds lovely so what's with all those creepy masks well Miyaki Jima just so happens to be located near a stratovolcano these volcanoes are serious business Vesuvius and Krakatoa which were responsible for two of the most devastating eruptions in history were also strata volcanoes nearby Mount oyama periodically releases enormous concentrations of sulfur dioxide this gas is heavier than air and while small amounts can be tolerated to a degree prolonged exposure leads to a asphyxiation following a particularly volatile eruption in the year 2000 around 3600 residents which was most of the Island's population at the time evacuated but then five years later some decided to return in fact of the 3600 evacuated residents nearly 2 800 decided to go back to the poison volcano island in the Devil's Sea talk about stubborn as the Island's gassy nature is so unpredictable and dangerous residents of Miyake Jima are required to carry gas masks with them at all times and yes I mean at all times whenever there's even a whiff of something stanky in the air warning sirens start blaring all over the island residents then Don their masks and boom carry on with their lives what do you think the world is going to grind to a halt just because of some deadly toxic gas residents of the Island live relatively normal lives farming going to school getting married they just need to mask up from time to time if you want to visit the island you'll need to buy a gas mask too and it's advised you take a respiratory medical exam prior to your arrival and just to make sure your lungs can take it considering just eating Smoky Barbecue sauce makes me whis I think I'll pass the High Life have you ever gotten to work only to find the elevators out and you have to climb four whole floors to get to the office I still have nightmares well it's a good thing I don't work at Fung Jing Shan I'm getting a nosebleed just looking at it situated amidst China's woolling mountains Fang jingshan or Mount Feng Jing is a distinctive formation of two tall narrow and lush green Peaks at the top of these Peaks sits the enigmatic funjing Temple while the temple is a holy site for Buddhists the date of its construction along with the exact group responsible for it and how long they lived there is unknown Buddhism spread throughout the region during the Tang Dynasty around 639 CE but that doesn't really narrow the construction time frame down that's still hundreds of years around 1100 people live in the lower area around the temple man while it's open to visitors it's mostly occupied by caretaker monks if you want to pay your respects be prepared for a dizzying journey as the temple sits 8 432 feet above sea level making it the highest point in the mountain range to get to the top you need to Traverse a trail consisting of a glute-busting 8 000 steps which would be the equivalent of climbing 381 floors in a standard building and at that height the view is certifiably magnificent and that's probably why the temple was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1986 as impressive as that is is anyone else out of breath just looking at it nightmare Central Centralia Pennsylvania is a humble little town nestled amidst the state's Great Hills it's quiet Serene but its most interesting Quirk is that it's constantly on fire it all started back in 1962 when Centralia was an unremarkable town with a trash problem residents were using abandoned mine pits as garbage dumps and trash was still piling up the city council proposed removing all this garbage by burning it unfortunately this trash fire burned down into an abandoned coal mine as it turns out Centralia was built atop an enormous deposit of natural coal seams which the spreading fire ignited and has been burning ever since if you're thinking hey there's fire underground no big deal you're dead wrong also you should never be in charge of health and safety in any form the underground fire is still burning to the extent that smoke literally seeps out of the ground which contains high levels of carbon monoxide an odorless gas that's deadly to humans as you can imagine being above a fiery hellscape did not prove advantageous for centralia's infrastructure or its residents roads and buildings sank into the ground or outright collapsed and as the years rolled by more people moved away eventually barricades were placed around the town to discourage anyone from visiting or driving through Centralia as entire sections of Road sometimes vanish into Smoky sinkholes astonishingly however not everyone has abandoned Centralia when the fire began in 1962 the town boasted a population of some 3 000 people as of the most recent census just five people main living in Centralia making it almost but not a complete ghost town so why do these people stay maybe they enjoy the isolation or are just too old and stubborn to leave maybe the census accidentally pulled a bunch of ghosts whatever the reason it seems Centralia will eventually become a shell of its former self before disappearing into the ground entirely so not exactly a seller's market the whole city never heard of a small town being called the pits well this town with a giant hole in the middle is quite literally the pit a Russian pit to be specific the story of how it came to be takes us back to 1955. in the heart of what was then the Soviet Union three Soviet geologists were out here hunting for kimberlight which is a blue tinged rock that sometimes contains Trace Amounts of diamonds instead of a few rocks they discovered one of the largest natural diamond deposits in the Soviet Union news quickly spread about the diamond-rich soil which led to a small settlement called mirni forming in the area that eventually grew into an entire town the giant hole in the center of the town is the result of the diamond mine expanding outwards over the years by the 1960s mierni was producing 10 mL million carrots or 4 409 pounds of diamonds per year unfortunately this diamond mine dried up in 2011. leaving the locals with a great big hole to navigate it's the second largest man-made hole in the world measuring in at a staggering 1722 feet deep and 3 900 feet wide that makes it three Washington monuments deep and 11 football fields wide that's one serious sink in fact the Marini hole is so big that there's actually some worry it's a Flight Risk this is because if a hole is deep enough and the mersey mine is certainly deep enough the Earth begins to warm the air inside it as warm air rises the hot earthy air displaces the cooler air above the hole it's theorized this air movement could potentially interfere with or or even suck small aircraft like helicopters into the hole but it's never been proven so remember kids next time you think your town sucks just remember me Ernie house clinging it may surprise you to learn I'm an avid rock climber yeah turns out years of playing World of Warcraft and surfing the web have given me pretty incredible grip strength still even with my impressive skills I can't imagine living here the Hanging Temple of hangshan in Shang TSI China no your eyes don't deceive you this really is an enormous Temple clinging to the edge of a cliff face approximately 246 feet above the ground the structure is held Aloft by hundreds of bars and poles that have been dug into the side of the cliff winding passages carved into the Rock itself lead to different rooms and areas of the temple structure this is both a stylistic and functional design decision the height of the temple protects it from flooding while the cave-like interior protects it from harsh wind and sunlight the exterior of the temple is mostly wooden with some Stone work these rudimentary materials along with the general signs of aging Place its construction somewhere between 386 and 534 CE and is said to have been built by one lone monk named Liao ran uh if that's true just imagine that dude's upper body strength interestingly rather than being dedicated to a single Faith three separate religions are represented within the temple Confucianism Buddhism and taoism it's unclear whether the temple was originally constructed to be multi-denominational or whether it changed to accommodate additional faiths over time even today monks of each Faith call the temple home and practice their beliefs there the temple was in a state of disrepair for centuries however in 1900 a collective effort was made on behalf of the Chinese people to restore lower it to its former glory which is why it's open to visitors today imagine convincing a group of people to spend their time and money restoring an ancient Chinese temple I can't even get my roommates to pitch in for pizza well there you have it a collection of truly crazy places to live could you ever call any of them home let me know down in the comments below and thanks for watching [Music]
2023-08-03 21:35
