If it's a beach town, it's gonna be dead in winter, if it's a mountain house you probably will get more visitors in winter. 

@Greg Scott is dead on.

Since he’s a criminal and I assume you are not, you could be the one coming away dead, but you never know.Why would you contact the police if they “won’t help an actual victim of a crime that got scammed out of money”. 

If you move to certain parts of the East Bay you could get an FHA Loan and buy a duplex.........Otherwise if you are dead set on renting here in the Bay Area, see if you can find a landlord that does not prohibit you from subletting....just make sure that in the lease it does not prohibit you from subletting........if you rent a 2 bd apartment, sublet one of the bedrooms.....As for Pittsburgh.......if you are from there and have contacts there that is phenomenal.

Leaving a pass thru in that left wall for light is a good idea, but I'm not sure it's worth the tradeoff for the smaller functional kitchen with the huge dead floor space. 

Might be empty a few months in the dead of winter.

But I dont have any money I'm dead broke and looking for ideas on how to get into house hacking.

The rents owners are getting for the trapped dead equity is a crappy annual ROI.You have to make a choice to keep the property or sell.

I will retire when I am dead. 

What I wanted to do was get a map book of my county and just highlight the streets I'd already driven.Y'see, kids, before the rise of cell phones, maps were printed on dead trees.