“You won’t believe the amount of work Brutha did before everyone was over for the new year. We tried requesting a rat catcher for weeks but they didn’t show up until the morning of. And to think our city taxes go to them. They came in and started leaving out all this cheese everywhere and it had such a terrible odor. They didn’t come for several hours later when they had to try and find all the rats that died in some of the crawl spaces. We think they missed one because there is a smell coming from the storage room. By brother Gravis’ little daughter nearly tried eating the cheese, same with my son, and also I think old papa Kurv wasn’t sure what he was about to grab. But Brutha managed to get the room ready. All the food was heated up and laid out; She sent me on several trips to throw out empty cans. Just a few days before the pips burst and everything was flooded. It’s a good thing we were on the tenth floor and the water started seeping into all the other rooms. If you're on the first floor and start complaining it’s not the same as if the whole building was complaining. The maintenance guys showed up for two days. Of course, she yelled at me every time I tried going on the porch at night. She wanted it closed so the smog doesn’t come in and leave a chard smell. The smith factory is just down the street. She said last night I forget to close the sliding door. She made me wash the walls 3 times. The first time to remove the soot that built up, the second time to try and remove the stench, the last time out of spit. Of course during the celebration, several of the lights went out. I guess the stream works didn't purposely prepare for everyone being up all night and didn't reroute things to the residential areas instead of the factories. It was just after my cousin passed out from drinking with my father. I had Gravis’ son and his new wife go tell the maintenance workers. The kitchen isn’t going to be lit for a few weeks until all these parties end.”
~ Mard Namde, greenhouse worker
The buildings in the Darwin Empire are tall towering skyscrapers. They come in two types, The oldest ones that were carved directly into the mountains then hallowed when the cities were first established, and those that are new and have quarried stone stacked together with metal rods hammered for the purpose of keeping them together. The walls also have vents that bring in warm fresh air (compared to outside) from hot springs deep within the ground. Often in the center of a building, there are large hallways for people to walk through, people’s dwelling places, and smaller stores are built along the outer walls of the building. The doors are often thick sheets of metal with a lock built-in. There are no opening windows on newer buildings because no one wants the smog from outside to enter their homes. The residential buildings people live in are often small and cramped with one bathroom, five to seven small bedrooms, a common area, a kitchen, and a storage room. The inner walls are normally hollow with pipes running behind them. Little thought goes into the buildings' aesthetics and they are just square structures with rounded edges. Between buildings, large bridges connect floors so one can walk from one side of the city to the other without having to go to ground level. Often, a house will have one porch area attached so that it can be accessed by many homes on a single floor. The buildings are connected with a series of arching and suspended bridges taking a person from one building and level to another.
Many people who live in these houses are forced to keep everything clean. This is because of how many people living in a home together in such small spaces. The walls have metal cabinets and shelves covering every inch to store items. Scented candles can be found around each corner trying to keep the house from smelling like the smog that covers the city. Often, houses are muggy and warm because of the warm moist air coming in from the vents. Many people in the empire prefer this because outside is a bitter cold year around.
You can often find generations live within one home. A family of 20 living in a single place is rather common. Although the home is crowded and most people prefer to be out in the city, it is generally forbidden by many of the landlords to have pets but the empire itself does not have any laws against it. Many of the buildings have a rat and cockroach problem that is persistent. It is common to find mouse traps in houses, bars, and even restaurants.
Homes have dim blue or orange lights inside of them. They normally have small levers on the walls to turn them on and off. In the Kitchen areas, their metal ranges are at all times of the day. The heat comes from hot steam that is pumped through pipes. The pumping of the city has either boiling hot water or lukewarm water that has been pipped long enough outside to cool. Much of the furniture is made of metal with heavy cotton. Drapes and coverings are used everywhere to help give a sense of home and belonging to the furniture along with making the chair more comfortable. If a covering is dirty, they are just throughout and a trip to a store is bad because of the variability that textile factories provide.
The food, cleaning supplies, important papers, and other items that are shared and are important to everyone are stored in a single storage closet. Everything else that one might consider their own is in their rooms. Legally everything in a house belongs to the renter but many try to have a feeling of control over themselves by keeping their secret belongings in their room.
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