Do you remember your first apartment?

I remember mine.

It was a tiny one bedroom place in Pontiac, and it sat about 100 feet from Telegraph Road,

and it was maybe a mile or so south of what was done, a great big shopping center called

Summit Place Mall, in Waterford, which they just tore down.

Having in that apartment was beige, except for the Mexican blanket that I threw over the

old sofa to make it look a little brighter.

I had used furniture, a television I bought on layaway at Kmart, and a brand new bed to

sleep on.

I was 19 years old, and while I didn't have much, I was happy there.

And I'd like to thank that the subject of today's episode, 19-year-old Carmen Van Huss,

well I'd like to think she felt the same way about her apartment, at Turtle Creek in

Indianapolis.

Instead of sharing a two bedroom apartment with three girls, as she'd done previously,

she was sharing a studio apartment with her boyfriend.

It was a modest space located on the third floor of the apartment building.

The studio was just over 400 square feet, and the entrance went through the tiny kitchen

leading to the living room.

And one side was a closet, and next to that the entrance to the bathroom.

A modest place, but it had air conditioning and a dishwasher, and it was a place to call

home.

Now Carmen did have to walk up a couple flights of stairs to get to her third floor unit,

...