History Main / CardboardBoxHome

* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'': "[[Recap/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteersS5E7NoPlaceLikeHome No Place Like Home]]": While trying to contact Gaia, Ma-Ti gets a vision of a place made of "paper houses". Initially, the Planeteers and Captain Planet think it might have something to do with the local Chinatown, due to Gi telling them of rice paper walls in some Asian countries. Eventually, however, Wheeler spots several homeless people putting new layers of paper and cardboard over their makeshift houses damaged by the rain. This is what sets the team on the right track to find Gaia.

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. Compare CardboardBoxOfUnemployment.

* ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII'': Shelters made from cardboard are frequently found in the New York of [[EldritchLocation the Dark Place]]. Given that the place is shaping itself to be the archetypal noir setting, they appear even without any actual people there besides Alan, let alone homeless people, simply because they're expected.

Homes can be made from all kinds of materials, from straw, to wood, to brick. But impoverished people can't afford anything fancy like that and they have to make do with improvised shelters made from discarded materials. While longstanding homeless encampments and shantytowns may have simple huts made from discarded building materials and tarps, the simplest improvised shelter is a large, sturdy cardboard box. A discarded appliance box provides shelter from rain, snow and wind and a little insulation against the cold. The person is often depicted setting up the box in an alley in TheCityNarrows or under a highway bridge.

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 a nearby TrashcanBonfire or cooking fire and with no locking door, they are at risk of getting beaten up.

* ''Manga/HekikaiNoAion'': Seine lives in a cardboard since she's ReallySevenHundredYearsOld and has no family. Even after Tatsuya took her home, she still insists to sleep inside her beloved cardboard.

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

* ''Series/LawAndOrder'': Multiple episodes deal with the homeless, some of who live in the "traditional" cardboard box.

** As part of the HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood Al 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!

** Furrball lives inside a cardboard box whenever he's not an unfortunate pet of [[Main/AndCallHimGeorge Elmyra Duff]].

* Philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (one of the founders of Cynicism) was said to live in the UsefulNotes/AncientGreece equivalent, that is, a pithos (large ceramic jar), in the streets of Athens.

* ''TabletopGame/UnknownArmies''" One artifact of particular power is the Cardboard Palace, a pocket dimension based out of a series of boxes. It expands and contracts as boxes are linked and destroyed.

->''I've been living in a box\\

I've been living in a cardboard box''
-->-- '''Music/SlyFox''', ''Living in a Box''

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'': "[[Recap/DuckTalesS1E20DownAndOutInDuckburg Down and Out in Duckburg]]: When Uncle Scrooge becomes broke, he imagines a parody of ''Series/LifestylesOfTheRichAndFamous'' which focused on him living on the street and his cardboard house, which his butler tried to maintain spick-span (and an OverlyLongGag of him continuously answering to the reporter, in a somewhat-exasperated tone, that there was nothing else but cardboard involved in the house's construction).

* Mittens tries to entice WesternAnimation/{{Bolt}} into staying in Las Vegas with her by showing him the homes she made for them out of cardboard boxes and some cushions. Unfortunately for her, he's still going home to his person, Penny.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirlsMovie'' it's where the girls discover Jojo, Professor Utonium's lab monkey (who would turn into the villain Mojo Jojo), when they first run into him.

* A homeless man is found dead from an overdose in a refrigerator box in ''Film/LAZombie''. It is ''way'' BiggerOnTheInside.
* In ''[[Film/HomewardBoundTheIncredibleJourney Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco]]'' the lost pets spend their first night in San Francisco sleeping in a cardboard box that Shadow finds.
* In ''Film/{{Darkman}}'', Westlake takes shelter in a cardboard box after escaping from the hospital. When the box blows away during a storm, he is driven to seek out the remains of his old laboratory.
* At the start of ''Film/{{Hummingbird}}'', Joey and Isabel are sharing a cardboard box in an alley in London.

* 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.

* Multiple episodes of ''Series/LawAndOrder'' deal with the homeless, some of who live in the "traditional" cardboard box.
* One episode of ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' saw JD on a date trying to impress a girl. First he ran over an opossum and took it to the vet. As they pulled out of their parking spot at the animal hospital, he ran over a homeless man in a cardboard box. [[FromBadToWorse It got worse from there]].
* A recurring ''Series/InLivingColor'' sketch, "This Old Box" (a parody of the [=DIY=] series ''This Old House''), featured Damon Wayans as a homeless man showing viewers how to renovate one's cardboard box.
* Parodied in an Indonesian [[SketchComedy sketch show]]. it shows a homeless person who lives in a mansion, made out of cardboards.
* ''Series/SpittingImage'': referenced in the 80s House Price Slum song. A parody of The Madness song "Our House", it's about a family who followed UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher's advice and got a "great big loan" to buy a house only for the market to collapse when they attempted to sell it (Our house, didn't work out like we planned/Our house, prices dropped by fifty grand), leaving them with no way to pay the mortgage and subsequently getting their home repossessed by the bank (Our house, threw us out and changed the locks/Our house, it is now a cardboard box).

* Referenced by ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' in the episode "[[Recap/TheBigBangTheoryS2E14TheFinancialPermeability The Financial Permeability]]." Penny is in dire financial straits, so Sheldon offers to lend her some money. She at first refuses, saying she doesn't want things to be "weird" between them. Sheldon replies, "Won't it also be weird if I have to say hello to you every morning on my way to work, and you're living in a refrigerator box and washing your hair with rain water?"

* This is parodied by ''Music/TheAustinLoungeLizards'' in the song "Love In a Refrigerator Box".

* One artifact of particular power in ''TabletopGame/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 ''TabletopGame/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.

* If you fail to meet a payment deadline in ''VideoGame/{{Recettear}}'', you will be shown a scene where [[ItsAWonderfulFailure Recette gets kicked out of her home]], and the next screen shows a cardboard box labeled "Recette's House". Then she wakes up and realizes it was AllJustADream, and you can try again.
* Your spaceship hub of ''VideoGame/LittleBigPlanet'' is made of cardboard.
* In ''VideoGame/CrushCrush'', CatGirl Quill lives in a cardboard box until [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the player character crushes it underfoot]].

--> Loafer comes here to sleep in a little cardboard fort she built. It's got a phone, and TV and everything.
* In ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSecurityBreach'', [[spoiler:the worst ending has Gregory flee the [=PizzaPlex=] and fall asleep in a cardboard box in an alley, using a newspaper reporting on missing children as a blanket. Then Vanny shows up, implying he'll be the next missing kid.]]
* Shelters made from cardboard are frequently found in the New York of [[EldritchLocation the Dark Place]] in ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''. Given that the place is shaping itself to be the archetypal noir setting, they appear even without any actual people there besides Alan, let alone homeless people, simply because they're expected.

* ''Webcomic/NanasEverydayLife'' has Nana living in a cardboard box.
* One strip of ''Webcomic/RoosterTeethComics'' had two of the guys wondering why they had never seen the inside of Jason's home. The last panel shows his house is really a flat front and he lives in a cardboard box in the yard.

* Used by Creator/CleolindaJones in her [[http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/314893.html Mary Sue meme fill,]] when creating a Sue that parodies as many ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' Mary Sues as possible. "Cleo Sue", as she's known, is introduced as a poor orphan who is living in a cardboard box until "some weird guy with a long beard" stops by to tell her she's a witch.

* In ''WebVideo/ThereWillBeBrawl,'' Solid Snake of ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' is an insane hobo living in a cardboard box. This is a MythologyGag, in reference to both the games (where a silly mechanic allows you to hide in a box) and ''Film/EscapeFromNewYork''.
* Chester A. Bum of ''WebVideo/BumReviews'' lives in a box, and once sued someone for a better box.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' is a parody of ''Film/CitizenKane'', which has a scene where Montana Max is shown to live in a cardboard box until his family wins the lottery.
** Furrball lives inside a cardboard box whenever he's not an unfortunate pet of [[Main/AndCallHimGeorge Elmyra Duff]].
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MissionHill'' episode "Happy Birthday, Kevin (or Happy Birthday, Douchebag)", Kevin accidentally bumps into a cardboard box on the sidewalk and a homeless man jumps out of it.

* In the BadFuture Dot sees in the ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'' episode "Identity Crisis, Part 2," future Phong lives in a cardboard box in an alley.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Can You Spare A Dime?", Squidward is homeless (after quitting his job and being unable to find another one) and living in a cardboard box. That is, until the repo man comes to repossess it.
* Taken up to eleven in ''WesternAnimation/{{Frisky Dingo}}'', where Xander Crews runs a *homeless outreach centre* out of a couple of cardboard boxes in one episode...until he shoots his employee of the month with a flare gun and almost kills her. ("How's THAT for snacktime?!")
* On ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Fry asks if fridges still come in cardboard boxes (after being thrown out of the Planet Express office, where he'd been living since being unfrozen). Bender says yes, "but the rents are outrageous."
* An ImagineSpot that happens during an episode of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' ([[Recap/DuckTalesS1E20DownAndOutInDuckburg "Down and Out in Duckburg"]]) where, long story short, Uncle Scrooge was broke, he imagines a parody of ''Series/LifestylesOfTheRichAndFamous'' which focused on him living on the street and his cardboard house, which his butler tried to maintain spick-span (and an OverlyLongGag of him continuously answering to the reporter, in a somewhat-exasperated tone, that there was nothing else but cardboard involved in the house's construction).
* The kids' two-story, multi-room fort in ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'' episode "Fort Night".
* Hamilton from ''WesternAnimation/MaggieAndTheFerociousBeast'' lives inside a cardboard box, though it's apparently [[HammerSpace big enough on the inside]] to serve as his entire house. He has a bed in there, at least.

* At the start of ''Film/{{Hummingbird}}'', Joey and Isobel are sharing a cardboard box in an alley in London.