History Main / CardboardBoxHome

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''ComicBook/TheMaxx'' used to live in a cardboard box until Julie took him in.
* In ''Comicbook/{{Spawn}}'', the hero of the title was homeless and lived with other homeless bums, some of whom were depicted as living in cardboard boxes.

[[caption-width-right:350:Who lives in a cardboard box under the sea?]]

* ''WebAnimation/RefreshingStories'' At the end of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGw_2d4vS6A&t=12m6s "Showing up at my in-law's place to prove that my wife is cheating on me,"]] Rena is last seen in a box pleading for help after her lover Makoto dumped her following Hiroshi divorcing her and suing them both. In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnaC1d7_X2o&t=11m23s Japanese version]], she pleads for someone to pick her up.

May be a MundaneLuxury. Compare HorribleHousing, which is at least in a ''building'', but is still used to mark its inhabitants as poor. Sleeping in a tent or tarp lean-to is perhaps more common among RealLife homeless people than a cardboard box, but the more desperate cardboard box is more commonly portrayed by writers of fiction.

-->--'''Music/SlyFox''', ''Living in a Box''

If this trope gets PlayedForLaughs, its owner will treat it with the same dignity and respect commanded by an actual home (maybe even a BigFancyHouse), and expect any visitors to do the same. While sleeping in a cardboard box is typically use as shorthand to indicate a long-term homeless person, more rarely a well-off person might sleep in a box due to a psychological condition or due to being on the run from a threat.

While a cardboard box may provide some shelter, homelessness advocates point out that people sleeping in them can get exposure to cold and damp, which can harm their health (or even be fatal in cold climates). As well, sleeping in a cardboard box doesn't provide access to cooking and cleaning facilities, and cardboard box dwellers are vulnerable to the risk of fire from nearby a TrashcanBonfire and getting beaten up.

If this trope gets PlayedForLaughs, its owner will treat it with the same dignity and respect commanded by an actual home (maybe even a BigFancyHouse), and expect any visitors to do the same.

A character who has to improvise a shelter from a cardboard box is still effectively homeless, but technically speaking, it is a "home".Indeed, in some jurisdictions, courts have ruled that police must get a warrant before searching it.

While a cardboard box may provide some shelter, homelessness advocates point out that people sleeping in them can get exposure to cold and damp, which can harm their health (or even be fatal in cold climates). As well, sleeping in a cardboard box doesn't provide access to cooking and cleaning facilities, and cardboard box dwellers are vulnerable to the risk of fire and getting beaten up.

Homes can be made from all kinds of materials, from straw, to wood, to brick. But some people can't afford anything fancy like that and they have to make do with cardboard.

A character who has to improvise a shelter from a cardboard box is still effectively homeless, but technically speaking, it is a "home". If this trope gets PlayedForLaughs, its owner will treat it with the same dignity and respect commanded by an actual home (maybe even a BigFancyHouse), and expect any visitors to do the same.

May be a MundaneLuxury. Compare HorribleHousing, which is at least in a ''building'', but is still used to mark its inhabitants as poor. Sleeping in a tent is perhaps more common among RealLife homeless people than a cardboard box, but the more desperate cardboard box is more commonly portrayed by writers of fiction.

[[folder:Literature]]
* One of Blackletter's first victims in ''Literature/DocSidhe'' lives a refrigerator box. A paragraph or so is devoted to how comfortable it is and he considers himself lucky to have secured it.
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[[folder: Animated Film]]

[[folder:Live Action Film]]

* As part of the HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood Music/WeirdAlYankovic describes in "When I Was Your Age", he claims that "There were seventy three of us living in a cardboard box" when he was a kid. And he had apparently needed to sell his internal organs just to pay the rent on it!

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-647 SCP-647]] is a living cardboard box that [[InvokedTrope invokes this trope]] to lure vagrants inside, after which it closes itself and digests them. If it's gone long enough without eating, it will add blankets, food, and liquor to the disguise to make itself even more attractive to them.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Can You Spare A Dime?", a homeless Squidward is living in a cardboard box. [[UpToEleven That is, until the repo man comes to repossess it.]]

* In ''Comicbook/{{Spawn}}'', the hero of the title was homeless and lived with other homeless bums, some of whom were depicted as living in a cardboard box.

[[/folder]]

* A homeless man is found dead from an overdose in a refrigerator box in ''L.A. Zombie''. It is ''way'' BiggerOnTheInside.

* One artifact of particular power in ''TabletopGames/UnknownArmies'' is the Cardboard Palace, a pocket dimension based out of a series of boxes. It expands and contracts as boxes are linked and destroyed.
* In ''TabletopGames/WerewolfTheApocalypse'' the Bone Gnawers have a rite that turns a cardboard box (or other improvised shelter)into a warm, weatherproof shelter. It can even function as a place of healing on a good enough roll.

May be a MundaneLuxury. Compare HorribleHousing, which is at least in a ''building'', but is still used to mark its inhabitants as poor.