I once worked for a company during Dotcom that failed to pay rent for 7 months, was then forced into Chap 7 at 4:30 PM on a Thursday (we were given 30 mins to vacate the office). The building management then padlocked the doors leaving everything inside for the next 7 months while the they and the major creditor fought over rent and the contents. Turned out the building and the creditor were in fact parts of the same company - Merrill Lynch. They locked themselves out.
You can go quite long without paying rent.