4 ms·

I'm not American so I'm slightly confused by the terminology here. In the article it says she was renting a one bedroom place and looking for a roommate. I've f

I'm not American so I'm slightly confused by the terminology here. In the article it says she was renting a one bedroom place and looking for a roommate. I've frequently assumed that when Americans say 'roommate' they actually mean somebody they share a house with (what we would call flatmate or housemate in the uk), rather than somebody they share a bedroom with. But in this case it sounds like she was trying to find somebody to actually sleep in the same bedroom, since the place only had one bedroom. In your comment you say you have 'roommates'. So to be clear, you saying that you share a bedroom with at least two other people? And you consider this normal for an adult in a developed country? Is this really the situation in SV now? People who are "DevOps Consultants" have to share bedrooms with random strangers just to afford to live?

mcguire 10y ago
My understanding from reading the article was that the roommate (aka flatmate) fell through before renting an apartment, so she rented the cheapest 1-bedroom apartment she could find with the expectation that she would move when she found a suitable roommate.
autotune 10y ago
A "roommate" is typically someone who has a separate room each typically. A shared bedroom would be more of a hostel situation. What she should've done is found a two-bedroom roommate situation first or stayed in a hostel as noted above rather than get a one bedroom place. As far as my affordability goes, I could manage a one bedroom in this city if I wanted to be living month-to-month and live in the Tenderloin. Someone with the similar responsibilities that I have who is more senior in their career likely has more options.
deleted 10y ago
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outworlder 10y ago
> Is this really the situation in SV now? It is in San Francisco. So people commute. Public transportation is awful (the actual rides are fine, frequency and coverage are the main issues), so traffic is terrible. Edit: despite the name, you don't share bedrooms. You share a home.
- odonnellryan 10y ago
  How bad is SF traffic for real? Let's say you lived 10 miles out of the city. How long would it take you get get to your job by car? In NYC, 10 miles can be a ~1hr commute even by public transport.
  - snug 10y ago
    By car, it depends. I live 15 miles away in Oakland, and work in SOMA. Without traffic, it will take 30 minutes. This is with toll pass and HOV lane. Without it, it would take more than an hour. By train, it takes me an hour each way, every day.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
jahewson 10y ago
Roommate means someone to share an apartment with. Not to share a room.
steveklabnik 10y ago
Sometimes, people will take a one bedroom apartment, hang up a curtain, and fit two people in. Sometimes, it's the only thing you can afford.
rhino369 10y ago
Typically roommate does mean flatmate. But a new occurrence (well new for middle class folks) is renting a one bedroom place with a roommate. You can either share the bedroom, but more commonly, one of you sleeps in the living room. Sometimes you can put up a fake wall--sort of a room divider--to make two bedrooms. It's not really normal, but it's done in absurd high cost of living cities like SF and Manhattan, NY. Then again Americans do it during college, so I'm not sure why I think it's so weird a young adult would do it. But I think it's weird.
beat 10y ago
"DevOps consultants" can probably afford better (I should hope so). She was doing a low-level call center job, something that requires no skills other than basic literacy. It's awful work, and pays little more than minimum wage. Throw in the uniquely American problem of employee-provided health insurance (with no insurance for low-end employees), and you have a real recipe for suffering. A friend of mine once worked in a call center for a major phone carrier. In order to qualify for health insurance as part of her job, she had to spend six months as a "manager". "Managers" didn't actually manage anyone, and had less authority to solve problems than regular customer service reps. The job consisted of taking the calls of people who screamed "I WANT TO SPEAK TO A MANAGER!!!!", not so much for authority but for a target to yell out their frustrations. Her job, then, was to get yelled at, all day, every day, and not be able to do anything to help the angry people. For a sensitive soul, it was torture. Welcome to America.
alistairSH 10y ago
No idea why you were down-voted - it's a reasonable question. And San Francisco confuses matters because of the high cost. In the US, the only time having a true roommate (two beds, one bedroom) as an adult is normal is in a college dormitory. Beyond that, when American's say "roommate" they really mean "housemate", just as you suspected. But, rent has risen to quickly in the Bay area, that it is increasingly common for adults to share rooms, not just houses/flats. It's completely abnormal and indicative of serious problems in the housing market in SF. To my knowledge, this is not a common occurrence anywhere else in the US. When it does happen outside SF, it is usually among the extremely poor, which often includes recent immigrants.

mcguire 10y ago

My understanding from reading the article was that the roommate (aka flatmate) fell through before renting an apartment, so she rented the cheapest 1-bedroom apartment she could find with the expectation that she would move when she found a suitable roommate.

autotune 10y ago

A "roommate" is typically someone who has a separate room each typically. A shared bedroom would be more of a hostel situation. What she should've done is found a two-bedroom roommate situation first or stayed in a hostel as noted above rather than get a one bedroom place. As far as my affordability goes, I could manage a one bedroom in this city if I wanted to be living month-to-month and live in the Tenderloin. Someone with the similar responsibilities that I have who is more senior in their career likely has more options.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

outworlder 10y ago

> Is this really the situation in SV now? It is in San Francisco. So people commute. Public transportation is awful (the actual rides are fine, frequency and coverage are the main issues), so traffic is terrible. Edit: despite the name, you don't share bedrooms. You share a home.

odonnellryan 10y ago
How bad is SF traffic for real? Let's say you lived 10 miles out of the city. How long would it take you get get to your job by car? In NYC, 10 miles can be a ~1hr commute even by public transport.
- snug 10y ago
  By car, it depends. I live 15 miles away in Oakland, and work in SOMA. Without traffic, it will take 30 minutes. This is with toll pass and HOV lane. Without it, it would take more than an hour. By train, it takes me an hour each way, every day.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

jahewson 10y ago

Roommate means someone to share an apartment with. Not to share a room.

steveklabnik 10y ago

Sometimes, people will take a one bedroom apartment, hang up a curtain, and fit two people in. Sometimes, it's the only thing you can afford.

rhino369 10y ago

Typically roommate does mean flatmate. But a new occurrence (well new for middle class folks) is renting a one bedroom place with a roommate. You can either share the bedroom, but more commonly, one of you sleeps in the living room. Sometimes you can put up a fake wall--sort of a room divider--to make two bedrooms. It's not really normal, but it's done in absurd high cost of living cities like SF and Manhattan, NY. Then again Americans do it during college, so I'm not sure why I think it's so weird a young adult would do it. But I think it's weird.

beat 10y ago

"DevOps consultants" can probably afford better (I should hope so). She was doing a low-level call center job, something that requires no skills other than basic literacy. It's awful work, and pays little more than minimum wage. Throw in the uniquely American problem of employee-provided health insurance (with no insurance for low-end employees), and you have a real recipe for suffering. A friend of mine once worked in a call center for a major phone carrier. In order to qualify for health insurance as part of her job, she had to spend six months as a "manager". "Managers" didn't actually manage anyone, and had less authority to solve problems than regular customer service reps. The job consisted of taking the calls of people who screamed "I WANT TO SPEAK TO A MANAGER!!!!", not so much for authority but for a target to yell out their frustrations. Her job, then, was to get yelled at, all day, every day, and not be able to do anything to help the angry people. For a sensitive soul, it was torture. Welcome to America.

alistairSH 10y ago

No idea why you were down-voted - it's a reasonable question. And San Francisco confuses matters because of the high cost. In the US, the only time having a true roommate (two beds, one bedroom) as an adult is normal is in a college dormitory. Beyond that, when American's say "roommate" they really mean "housemate", just as you suspected. But, rent has risen to quickly in the Bay area, that it is increasingly common for adults to share rooms, not just houses/flats. It's completely abnormal and indicative of serious problems in the housing market in SF. To my knowledge, this is not a common occurrence anywhere else in the US. When it does happen outside SF, it is usually among the extremely poor, which often includes recent immigrants.