A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 20

This is the 15th year in a row I’ve run this series in April.

Today’s story idea: “A homeless Angeleno broke into her old, vacant home and wants to stay.”

Every few months after she left the narrow white cottage on Poplar Boulevard, Maria Merritt would slink back to the tree-lined street in El Sereno, find a secluded spot and stare at her old house.

No one had lived there since 2007 when Merritt gave up trying to pay the monthly rent to her landlord, the California Department of Transportation. The state agency had left the house — one of hundreds that Caltrans had acquired for a contentious, on-again, off-again extension of the 710 Freeway — vacant and deteriorating, covering the windows with plywood and “No Trespassing” signs.

Two weeks before Merritt lost her home, she’d lost her job as a secretary in L.A. County’s Department of Mental Health. Once the house was gone, she lost her four children. On and off the streets, suffering from depression and addicted to methamphetamine, Merritt eventually lost her hair when, she suspects, another homeless person poured Nair into her shampoo.

But even as the years passed, the house in El Sereno continued to remind her of a better life.

When she looked at her former home, she’d envision her Christmas decorations on the windows and her daughters running down the sidewalk. She’d imagine the smell of the albondigas and pozole she’d cooked on Sundays.

“All the big things that I’ve done. With my job. With my citizenship. With me making the right choices and doing the right things,” recalled Merritt, 57. “Everything happened in that house.”

— —

“The home always said, ‘I’m waiting for you,’” Merritt said through tears. “The home said, ‘Come back. Get well. Come back. Get well.’”

So, Maria moved back home. Now she wants to stay. But the California Department of Transportation, which owns the house, wants her out.

Sounds like the sequel to Nomadland.

Fern (Frances McDormand) reclaims the place she and her husband once called home. It’s been vacant for years. Makes no sense! All these houseless people … and here there are empty houses? Follow her transformation from a loner to a leader of a movement.

There’s my 20th story idea this month.

Previous articles in this year’s series:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19

Here are links to previous series:

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2017)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2018)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2019)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2020)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2021)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2022)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2023)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2024)

Note: The articles from 2010–2016 have corrupted URLs. I am in the process of cleaning those up.

Each day in April, I invite you to join me in comments to do some brainstorming. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when we play around with it. These are valuable skills for a writer to develop.

See you in RESPONSES to hear YOUR take on this story idea. And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.