Editor’s note: Three years ago, 28-year-old Qi Qi (pseudonym) purchased a home in the Star Mall apartment complex in Chengdu, the capital of China’s southwestern Sichuan province. To this day, the construction project remains unfinished. However, in her desperation, Qi decided to move into her new home, despite at the time having no gas, electricity, or running water, and relatively little security. This is her story.

Whenever it rains in Chengdu, the sky gets very dark; there’s almost no light. When I moved into my apartment in the unfinished building in May last year, the whole building was pitch black. The elevator still wasn’t in use, and the plastic film covering the ground had not been removed and was covered in dust. It was raining heavily outside, but I managed to get all my things out of the moving truck and drag them to my apartment on the third floor. There were no lights in the hallway, so I had to use a flashlight to find my way. I felt a little scared.

I’d earlier painted and decorated my new home in light colors, to make it feel warm, which stood in stark contrast to the dark, unfinished corridor outside. Once I wiped away all the dust in the wardrobe and unpacked my things, I felt complete. It was the first time that I’d ever felt I was “home.”

That beautiful moment was soon marred by a power cut. As the building had no electricity, during the decoration phase I had hired an electrician to help wire my apartment to a temporary power box in the hallway. The developer’s workers would disconnect the wire every night. I didn’t know how to connect it myself, so on that first night in my new home I remained in near darkness.

For the first few nights, I’d turn on a tiny light. The developer had issued a statement saying that, as the site was still under construction, people were not allowed to live there. Security guards patrolled with flashlights at night, so I didn’t dare make my room too bright. But no matter how small the light, because the whole building was pitch black, I think it could still have been seen from outside.

Sometimes the security guard would knock on my door and ask why I hadn’t left yet, thinking I was just working on the place. I said I’d leave immediately after installing something. He didn’t think I actually lived there. But sometimes I would think, “This is my apartment. Why should I act like a thief and hide every day?”

There were a lot of uncertainties. Because there was no security system, anyone could come and go as they pleased. Around 10 p.m. one night, someone started knocking on my door. I didn’t know who it was, and I couldn’t see outside because there was no peephole. I asked, “Who’s there?” Whoever it was then began knocking even harder. I hadn’t ordered takeout, and it surely wasn’t the security guard. I was terrified. Numerous bad scenarios crossed my mind, so I double-locked the door and rushed to close and lock all the windows. When the knocking finally stopped, I crouched against the door and sobbed. It was the most scared I’ve ever been in my life.

I shared the experience in a group chat for apartment owners in my complex. A male homeowner came over to help me. He said that if anything similar happened in the future, I should raise the alarm in the group chat. Later, I replaced my front door lock with a smart lock, which cost me over 1,000 yuan ($137), but I felt much more secure.

Buying this apartment was meant to alleviate my concerns about safety. At one place I rented — a duplex I shared with three men and two women — I was the victim of what’s called a “creepshot.”

One day in May 2020, I was taking a shower and happened to glance up, which is when I spotted a phone pointing down at me. It was attached to a pole, which was obviously being held up by a man outside the shower. I screamed in fright, and he quickly pulled his phone back. I got dressed quickly and ran out of the bathroom, but the man was already gone.

I called the police, and they interviewed all the tenants. The police officers checked the photo albums on everyone’s phones and searched for the pole, but they found nothing. When one of the female tenants tried to comfort me, I just couldn’t hold it together. I cried all night. After that, I told my landlord I was moving out.

I’ve moved four or five times, and I was never sure how long I’d stay in one place. Another apartment I rented was in really poor condition. Once, I was awakened by the sound of scratching. I turned on my flashlight and saw a rat, its two bright eyes staring right back at me. I was so scared that I couldn’t move. The rat then crawled over me!

After experiencing so many terrifying experiences, I began to think how nice it would be to have my own small apartment, where I could invite my family and friends. I wanted that happy life.

A sense of home

I was the first person to move into our unfinished apartment building. A few neighbors arrived after hearing I was living here: a man in his 40s, and two women around my age. We celebrated by having hot pot together in my apartment. They brought beef, fruits, and wine, and I prepared pork ribs.

We had no water or electricity. The temporary power box we used would trip whenever there was a power surge. There was a time that the box even produced sparks and began to burn. When the voltage was high, the lights would flicker like they were dancing.

We said we should work together to solve the water and power issues, and agreed not to use power-hungry appliances simultaneously. Because of this, I didn’t dare to install an air conditioner, which meant I had only an electric fan to cool down in the hot weather. I also bought a small electric water heater so that I could shower. It had enough capacity for 10 minutes. Before that, I had to boil the water first using an electric heating rod and wash using a basin.

Many neighbors had more than one home, either rented or owned. But I had no other option. Before, in addition to my monthly rent of 1,500 yuan, I was paying a mortgage of 2,500 yuan. It was overwhelming. Moving into my apartment was a way to save money.

My home is only 57 square meters, but it took all my savings to buy it. I moved to Chengdu from a small county in Nanchong, another city in Sichuan province. Over the years I’ve worked in cellphone sales, as a makeup artist, and as a coffee shop barista. When I bought the apartment, I was earning 4,000 yuan a month, which was enough to support myself.

I didn’t have much of a concept of “home.” My parents worked elsewhere running a small business, so my younger brother and I grew up living with my grandmother. My score in the gaokao, the national college entrance examination, was not ideal — I could have attended a vocational college, but the costs were too high. My brother had just started high school, and my father’s business had failed and he was in heavy debt. My parents had to sell their house in our hometown. I could tell that my mother was under a lot of pressure — she was only in her 40s, but her hair turned almost entirely white.

As the eldest child, I felt I should bear some of the family’s burden. I told my mother I wanted to go out and work. My father didn’t hear about this until later, and he felt guilty. I saw him crying in his bedroom. He wrote me a letter, saying he was sorry for not being a good father.

When I eventually started working, I thought just renting a place to sleep was good enough. I found a place close to the subway, which meant I could commute to work for only 2 yuan, and I survived on cheap fast food. The cost of living, including rent, was around 1,500 yuan a month. I would send money back to my parents, and within three years, we’d paid off all our family’s debt.

I started planning to buy a small apartment in 2021, as I’d managed to save about 150,000 yuan. My mother supported me by giving me another 100,000 yuan. But after finally making a purchase, and then learning my new apartment was in an unfinished building, I regretted it so much. I couldn’t sleep because of the anxiety. Whenever my parents asked about the apartment, I’d lie to them that I’d already started choosing curtains and flooring.

‘Bearing fruit’

In 2021, when I first went to view the apartment, I video called my mom, and she thought it was a nice choice — a one-bedroom place with a large floor-to-ceiling window. It also was within my tight budget — 500,000 yuan, with a down payment of less than 250,000 yuan. By this point, I’d already spent two months visiting various property developments.

The next day I paid a deposit of 30,000 yuan and posted the news on social media. To my surprise, someone commented that the complex was in fact the largest unfinished building in that district of Chengdu. After that, I saw a lot of articles and videos about homeowner rights protections relating to this real estate project.

I suddenly began to feel desperate. I asked the real estate agent whether I could pull out of the deal, and he warned me that I’d lose my deposit. That was July 2021. He also told me that my apartment was the last one and would be snapped up quickly if I didn’t buy. He was very enthusiastic, saying that once the floor tiles were laid, all the wiring was done, and the shopping mall next door had opened, the apartment would be ready for delivery.

There were many people in the sales office. The agent said the project had been stalled, but those problems had since been solved. When I visited the community, there were quite a few workers, with six or seven trucks parked up, so I believed him. However, by the end of that December, the workers had disappeared again.

A friend put me in touch with a lawyer, and he discovered that the developer had debts of more than 20 million yuan. In January 2022, when my apartment was meant to be delivered, I received a notice from the developer that the project had been delayed. They said several processes still needed to be completed, effectively meaning the building did not meet the standards. I made a trip to the construction site and found that absolutely nothing had been done to the building. The outside area was still in rough shape. Yet, the developer claimed that it was not an “unfinished building” because only a few workers were needed to install internal pipes and wiring. I and every other owner were asked to wait until June that year.

Later, a large group of us went to Chengdu’s commerce bureau to complain. The staff there met with us to explain the difficulties that the project was facing, and they said the developer was working hard to raise more funds. We were told that those homeowners in urgent need could apply to the developer to receive their keys first to begin the decoration.

I comforted myself with a sentence that I’d once read: “You can’t just be an orange, being squeezed into juice and thrown away. You should be a fruit tree, flowering in the spring and bearing fruit in the fall.” Even if my apartment is unfinished and I’m not allowed to live in it, I would find a way to decorate it anyway.

Last summer, when I got the keys, I quickly finished decorating and moved in. There were empty apartments with unlocked front doors throughout the building. The workers would use these to spend their lunch break. One night I was going home late from work, and as I walked in the corridor with a flashlight, I suddenly heard a sound like someone using a pair of pliers to clamp something. I called out, “Who’s there?” but no one responded. I ran home as quickly as I could and locked the door tight behind me. I later reported it to the developer and they eventually locked all the doors, so that the apartments could be accessed only by those with keys.

In September last year, I invited my mom to Chengdu to go sightseeing together. I didn’t tell her that the apartment was in an unfinished building, but she could tell as soon as she arrived. “Why is it so messy outside your apartment?” She started to cry, and then became even more worried when she spotted the bare electrical wires near my bed.

In January, the building finally had electricity. It was still cold outside, so I tried to make my small apartment a bit warmer using various lamps. When friends from the same building came to visit, they remarked on my good taste and suggested I apply for a job in interior decoration. Now I work as a design assistant at a studio, where I communicate with customers every day. My work hours are a little more flexible now.

I still can’t get the property certificate, as the apartment has not been officially delivered. Legally, it doesn’t even belong to me yet. But I think life is finally normalizing step by step. This year is better than last year, and today is better than yesterday. I’ve recently been seeing someone, as I think 28 is a good age for marriage. A friend introduced us.

On the day the gas was connected, I cooked my first hot meal — a pot of tomato and meatball soup, along with two other dishes. I also boiled some sausages given to me by my neighbor, serving them with some dried tofu from my mom. I was so satisfied that I had two big bowls of rice. That was a good day.

As told to reporter Lü Meng.

A version of this article originally appeared in White Night Workshop. It has been translated and edited for brevity and clarity, and is republished here with permission.

Translator: Eunice Ouyang; editors: Wang Juyi and Hao Qibao.

(Header image: Qi looks at her unfinished apartment complex in Chengdu, Sichuan province, November 2024. Lü Meng/White Night Workshop)