Chapter 1: The Neoliberal Regime of Disappearance: Mothers Living with Their Children in Canadian Motels^*

Ada opened the door hesitantly and peeked out. She had beautiful brown eyes and long dark hair. She was wearing a simple but elegant black and white dress with bare feet. She smiled and immediately welcomed me into her motel room. I introduced myself as a U of T student doing some research on the motels and she seemed very pleased to see me. I came inside, closed the door and sat down on the only chair in the room.

I was immediately accosted by the stale air and smell of old cigarette smoke. Her baby slept on the bed. The room was small. A playpen stood in one corner and two beds pushed together took up most of the floor space in the room. There was an open tiny closet in the corner but there were few clothes and it looked mostly packed with things. One door led to the bathroom. The only thing between the room and the outside was a locked door without even a deadbolt. The brown floral carpet was stained along with the mattresses. The bed sheets were dark and stained, and Ada told me the motel owner gave them a cup to put underneath the dirty bedposts to prevent the bed bugs. When she lifted up the sheets I could see the filthy dark stains on the mattress and the way the mattress itself was sunken in. There was no space to cook, no kitchen. The Sands doesn’t even have a communal kitchen so there is simply no place to make dinner. The one table stood beside the bed and was covered with KFC, pita bread and diapers. There was a fridge on the left-hand side but not even a hot plate. I could see that in the tiny space between the playpen and the table Ada had some cooking items, a large bowl and some cutlery on the floor.