Sunny room in amazing co-op! ($945) - Available Nov. 2 (Palo Alto)

Hello friends,

A spot in our house has opened up in our wonderful coop -- Box of Rain! The room is available starting Nov. 2 (but potentially as early as October 25). We see finding new housemates as a chance to re-animate our community with new perspectives and energy. If you are interested in joining our house, read on to find out more about the process, fill out our google form, and please feel free to share with anyone you think might be interested!

Craigslist link: https://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/roo/d/palo-alto-sunny-room-in-amazing-co-op/7669045678.html

Application (copy/paste url): https://forms.gle/Gk5Tb1cmXZv6aFrh6

A little about us:

We currently have 9 people in 8 rooms, but we've had up to 3 couples/doubles at once in the past. One of the housemates is leaving, which is why we have an opening.

Some of us have been part of this community for at least 4 years, and some of us are new, but folks usually stay a year or more.

Some of us have jobby jobs, some are grad students, and some are looking for what’s next. Some of us are working from home right now, and some of us are back in the office/lab most days. Hybrid work is common. Current residents include:

- A: 24yo male. Likes to bake sourdough bread and cook food. Makes music. Likes to play basketball, spike ball, board games and other games. Works on conversation and climate things.

- I: 27yo female. Ecuador born & raised. Former 3rd grade teacher now working in EdTech. Loves long walks in nature, making housemates laugh and dabbling in the arts.

- B: 26yo male. Loves board games, moving his body in fun and interesting ways, and the cozy feeling of a group of people singing or making food together. Climate tech software engineer.

- E: 31yo female. Loves running/hiking/cycle touring long distances, preferably in the mountains. Researcher-advocate finishing a PhD on climate relocation, always down to chat about ideas of “home”. Ashtanga yogi and plant momma, for whom vegetarian feasts are a love language.

- C: 23yo male. Loves playing boardgames, frisbee, and spikeball and is a talented juggler and pianist. Sofware engineer who loves solving problems.

- C: 30yo female. Fungal ecologist & college lecturer by day, in the kitchen or the ceramics studio by night.

- S: 30yo male. Loves to ride bicycles, motorcycles, unicycles, and anything that has wheels. Currently transitioning into life’s next exciting chapter. Loves to go camping and backpacking, will almost always say “YES!” to dancing, and is a novice practitioner of laughter yoga.

S: 32yo female. Recovering molecular biology graduate student, rides horses, cooks, meditates, dog mom Frida (2yo female German shepherd/Australian kelpie mix (aka Germalian Shelpie).

Frida: our furry housemate who lives with her dog mom in the detached ADU. She loves getting her belly rubbed, going to the beach, protecting the backyard from squirrels, and going on car rides. She will enamore you with her gaze. She's super mellow and friendly but never comes into the main house because some of the housemates have allergies.

Our larger community includes significant others, friends, families, and a few eating associates (EAs) who share our food with us.

Sometimes the house is dark on Saturday night, sometimes we're all home hanging out and singing songs and playing instruments or board games.

We support each other when we're low or sick.

We celebrate each other's accomplishments.

Parties are rare but we do 'em right.

In general, alcohol and drug consumption is minimal (but present). Many of us enjoy an occasional beverage with dinner.

Our house is cozy and sound travels. Quiet hours on week nights are 10:30pm-7:30am.

Responsibilities and commitments of the Box life:

Teams of 2-3 cook vegetarian meals for the house 4 nights a week (each resident once/week) and clean the kitchen after dinner. Our food is yummy, folks. Whole Foods is 2 blocks away and Trader Joe’s is equally convenient via bicycle or on foot. There are two nearby farmers markets on the weekends. We share responsibility to pick up our CSA box and shop at Costco for shared food.

3 people thoroughly clean the house for 2.5 hours/person each weekend - this is probably our most solemn responsibility. Each person does this ~ once every three weeks.

We work hard to make our house beautiful, clean, and moderately classy by hosting house work days every quarter. Everyone is expected to participate in work day as we collaborate in making house improvements.

We have a house meeting once a month.

We absolutely do not tolerate racism, sexism, hate speech, or other discriminatory language or behavior.

The Room
The room available, is located on the first floor of the house, next to the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom. The room has an ample closet, a window to the backyard, and space for a desk, chair, dresser, and plants! The room gets lots of natural light and was most recently occupied by a couple. We offer additional storage space in the basement and in the attic.

How much does it cost?

Rent & Security Deposit
Right now, rent for the entire house is $7750/month. If we had 8 singles this would be split to $969 per month. However, this number fluctuates depending on the total rent and how many singles vs. doubles live in the house. Since we currently have one double, rent for this room is currently $945 per month.

A deposit is held equal to 1.5*(your monthly rent). Because monthly rent is subject to change depending on how many people live in the house, the deposit can fluctuate.

Utilities average $50 - 100 per month, and are more expensive in the winter months.

Monthly House Dues
We have monthly house dues that contribute to a social fund ($10/month) and a home improvement fund ($15/month). We decide how to spend this money, whether it is for hosting an event/party or building something around the house.

We also contribute monthly to a bulk food fund for those bigger bulk food orders (flour, sugar, grains, dried beans, etc. that we get from a bulk supplier) ($15/month).

Food & House Items
We also share the costs of house supplies (laundry detergent, TP, internet, etc). This fluctuates widely from month to month but averages to about $15/month/person

We share the cost of food as a house. We get our produce through a community supported agriculture (CSA) box from Full Belly Farm and other items such as eggs/oat milk/tortillas/breads/cheese/etc. from a roughly biweekly Costco run. This shared food comes out to about $150-225 total per month. This however excludes some items which residents may decide to buy for themselves (alcohols, meat, special teas/coffee, ice cream treats that you may want to keep for yourself!)

TLDR: Right now, a single person in this room would pay around $1,100 - 1,300/month which includes utilities, shared food, and house supplies.

COVID-19 policies and commitments:

We maintain open lines of conversation about comfort, risk, potential exposures, and comings-and-goings to and from the community. We are committed to looking out for each other and adapt our COVID-19 protocols accordingly on a consensus basis.

Here is the process we will use to fill the spot:

Notify our immediate community of the spot, seeking interest, and describe our process. (This is that!)

Get to know you. If you seem like a potential fit, we will reach out to schedule a call with you, with the potential for coming by for an open house sometime in the next few weeks. We really value meeting people interested in being a part of our community in this setting.

The residents will meet on October 15 with a list of names and the intention of finishing the process.

Without discussion, individual names may be non-anonymously removed from the list by any resident.

Each resident then has the opportunity to silently and anonymously write down zero to three names on pieces of paper and place them in a "hat".

Up to 3 names will be drawn at random from the hat, and the spot will be offered to those individuals in that order until it is filled.

If you are interested in the spot, let us know by filling out the application form linked above!

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Box of Rain