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$700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them
- DoreenMichele 3y agoNot ideal, but a step in the right direction. We used to have SROs -- Single Room Occupancy -- units for singles, childless couples, retirees. We've torn down about a million of them since WWII. We need to update the concept and bring it back in some fashion. If your life is online, you don't need that much space. You don't need rows of bookshelves when you can download kindle books. Founders of online businesses are notorious for dressing down and often have no need to dress to impress.
- poorbutdebtfree 3y agoSROs became airbnb private rooms listings, which were hilariously neutered in SF only after marginalized hosts in low income neighborhoods started getting a piece of the tourism pie.
- trimethylpurine 3y agoIf your life is online you don't need to be in SF. There are plenty of third world countries to move to where Americans won't be ashamed to call you a compatriot.
- hardcopy 3y agoRelevant book http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6j49p0wf/ http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6j49p0wf/
- kranner 3y agoMore than a step, this oversteps the mark by quite a bit. A human being shouldn't have to live in a space that small. I can't imagine it not screwing up anyone's mental health when just looking at a picture of it is giving me an anxiety attack.
- strangesmells02 3y agoI think they just sleep at it and there's huge common areas they can actually live in for the most part like a Navy ship.
- Retric 3y agoThese are basically just individual dorm rooms with communal living spaces. At 700$/month you can also afford a place outside of SF. Perfect for someone working 4 days a week who wants to commute well outside the city for the other 3.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoWell, I don't entirely disagree with you (about it overstepping the mark). But I also think you are exaggerating the negatives here. I would like to see SROs updated. This is not that.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago> More than a step, this oversteps the mark by quite a bit. A human being shouldn't have to live in a space that small. I can't imagine it not screwing up anyone's mental health when just looking at a picture of it is giving me an anxiety attack. It works well in Tokyo. These are common housing for kids who might only have part time jobs at convenience stores.
- xkekjrktllss 3y ago> It works well in Tokyo. These are common housing for kids who might only have part time jobs at convenience stores. By this logic, homeless encampments under freeway underpasses work well in the US. They are common for people who can't afford anything else so why fix what's not broken?
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoActually housing, even if small, works better than homeless encampments. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
- strangesmells02 3y agoAlso parking for vans. A van is an awesome way to live if you can get parking. If you make the rent like 1000 a month for the space, it will keep the riff raff out. Put up a workspace and a some showers. If something like that happened it would start a movement.
- rm2040 3y agoLike this? https://www.kift.com https://www.kift.com
- strangesmells02 3y agoExactly like that! Ive spoken with them and that is a great group of folks! Im in their discord and I think theyre onto something huge. Theyre more targeted for remote though. I was thinking more along the lines of somewhere in the suburbs for people who need to go into the office. You could have 5000 square foot property and rent 10 van spaces at 1000 a month each. OR have a duplex at 3000 a month each for 6000 total. Plus for the landlord theres minimal maintenance.as vans are pretty off the grid. You could credit screen and do background checks...etc.to help keep the riff raff out. If the zoning would allow it I think it could be a real solution to housing.
- rm2040 3y agoGotcha. The other day I saw some RVs here by google: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZaPAEhWhnfW4Bn6XA https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZaPAEhWhnfW4Bn6XA I don't know the legal set up is but it's close to what you describe.
- strangesmells02 3y agoYeah, I'm assuming that's either some sort of city sponsored safe parking program or the cops get rid of them every now and then. I want a more upscale van life experience where it's working people and nice facilities.
- kilolima 3y ago
- programmarchy 3y agoThis reminds me of the “Architect from Pluto” scene in Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain. The architect reveals his new efficient apartment design: a matrix of coffins. He received a thunderous applause from his investors. [1] “A man doesn’t need a home. All he needs is a shelter. If we can sell him on the idea of a shelter, we’ll make millions.” [1] https://youtu.be/FASvJF21yXU?feature=shared&t=70 https://youtu.be/FASvJF21yXU?feature=shared&t=70 (contains nudity)
- defrost 3y agoOr more closely the sleeping pod scenes in Tokyo in Wim Wenders Until the End of the World (1991) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfFWBWKwQT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfFWBWKwQT8 Just the trailer - it's a 5 hour film and hard to find the specific scene on youtube
- tivert 3y ago> Or more closely the sleeping pod scenes in Tokyo in Wim Wenders Until the End of the World (1991) Can you give a more detailed description? Was just a run-of-the-mill Japanese capsule hotel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel)? Those were already common in 1991 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/glenhsparky/4820691940 https://www.flickr.com/photos/glenhsparky/4820691940), and would have been certainly exotically sci-fi to an early-90s American audience. > Just the trailer - it's a 5 hour film and hard to find the specific scene on youtube Wow. some time ago that film connected with me for some reason (why, I have no recollection), so I have a VHS copy (because it was unavailable in any other format). That cut is much shorter.
- defrost 3y agoWenders filmed scenes in Japanese capsule pod hotels of the time ... it's relative to be sure but IMHO these are closer to the rentable pods depicted in the article than the scenes from the Jodorowsky movie. The motivation here was admittedly to respond to one arthouse film drop with another. I'm kind of old and while not in the film and TV business I've been tangential enough to work as an extra, tech runner, location support etc for various productions - notably in Berlin for Wings of Desire and in Australia (where I live) for some of the central Australian location work for Until the End of the World. ( Australian band in Wings of Desire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPf6SWcENWo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPf6SWcENWo )
- userbinator 3y ago[flagged]
- no_butterscotch 3y agoThis doesn't seem like a safe setup. How long before tweakers and others start lighting fires in their pods?
- unethical_ban 3y agoPresumably they only lease to people with credit cards and identity. This doesn't sound like motel 6.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoMotel 6 requires credit cards and ID now these days also. It is hard to get a legit place to stay without a CC.
- alexpotato 3y agoMy favorite story, possibly not true, about alternative sleeping quarters is from the days of sailing: Sailors who were too drunk to make it back to their ships after a long evening at the tavern would to a room in the back of the tavern, In that room would be two ropes stretched from wall to wall: 1. about waist height 2. just below armpit height. The top rope was slightly offset, horizontally, from the bottom rope. Apparently the idea was that you would walk up to the bottom rope, lean forward and drape your head and arms over the top rope. The top rope would sit under your armpits and would hold you up while you slept off the night of boozing. That makes these "capsule" rooms seem not so bad.
- johnsanders 3y agoPretty sure this was a thing in Victorian England. It's in Jack the Ripper stories and possibly where the word "hangover" came from I think.
- imgabe 3y agoI will not live in the pod. I will not eat bugs.
- TylerE 3y agoEver eat Lobster? Shrimp? Both are, scientifically speaking, bugs.
- trimethylpurine 3y agoCrustaceans are very distantly related to "bugs," and don't taste remotely similar. While, funny, this correlation is not accurate.
- kibwen 3y agoThe correlation is very accurate. Lobsters were once considered so low-quality that they had to be force-fed to prisoners. Anyone complaining about "eating bugs" on principle is being foolish. If you don't like bugs for the taste, that's one thing (I've tried crickets before; they're unremarkable). But if anyone thinks that eating bugs is inherently any worse than eating, say, pigs, or octopuses, then that's simply incoherent.
- trimethylpurine 3y agoIt's not accurate. Scientifically, "bugs" refers to hemiptera, not crustaceans. Nomenclature isn't typically determined by the quality of nutrition, nor the economic class to which an animal is fed. But this is interesting, nonetheless.
- TylerE 3y agoAre you upset by people who don't refer to tomatoes as berries? Because, scientifically, they are.
- 3y ago
- tennisflyi 3y agoPrecursor to capsule hotels in large? Also, most apartments amenities are just a price burden - I don’t care about the shitty gym or ransacked game room.
- swengw 3y ago$23 a night, basically a discounted hostel bed
- paulryanrogers 3y agoWhere you pay by the month
- HumblyTossed 3y ago> (Lewis jokes that I should report that he’s an inch taller so that he can boast about it on the dating apps. I do not oblige.) Lewis should be more concerned to find out if he/she/they had enough room at their place to accommodate two people comfortably.
- tomohelix 3y agoLooking through this thread, it is surprising that there are actually people who consider this "acceptable". Like it is not something out of a dystopian hellscape. Amazing how much a person can be conditioned into accepting a terrible situation. And no, there are ways to fix this, there is just no will to do so, partly because of the people who see nothing wrong with it.
- azinman2 3y agoI think we need more options like this which reduce prices for people in expensive areas everywhere. Would you rather people be priced out? I’d rather have a bigger mix of people in any one metropolis.
- tomohelix 3y agoI would rather have a tumor be cut open and removed than having a band aid put on it and left to fester. If the housing situation in a place got so bad that a person has to pay nearly 1/3 of their monthly income just to get a closet to sleep in, it is not a livable place. A slum has a big mix of people but would you really consider it a great "metropolis" where you can have a life and raise a family? Again, this is 1/3 of minimum wage for as much space as a closet. It is basically priced as high as it could to best exploit the poorest among us. Maybe it is a different in value between me and those who grew up in SF but I consider it inhumane to treat someone who is working full time like this. If you don't think so, let me ask you this: would you let your family, your spouse and your children, to live like this? In a box? Or would you do all you could to get them something better? Not everyone can do better than minimum wage, but it doesn't mean they deserve to live like this. That is what I mean. There are solutions to the housing problem that is not this band aid on a festering wound. But it seems this kind of situation is perfectly fine to SF people. To which I have nothing else to say but amazement at how can a city priding itself on economic abundance and human right progress can also be utterly indifferent to the suffering of its fellows and even justifying it.
- gamepsys 3y agoI'm honestly confused about which part specifically you find unacceptable. Do you think it should be illegal to sell housing smaller than a certain minimum size? Do you think the price is too high? Do you think the location is awful?
- hnisforfascists 3y ago[dead]
- throwawaaarrgh 3y agoI scorned the SF tech scene growing up, and now that I'm getting older, it seems foolish that I didn't live there for a few years and try to fleece some VCs to build a crappy product and exit with millions, or at least take one of those cushy $350K jobs and bank most of it for a decade. Could be retired at 40, instead I'll be saving for retirement until 68.
- freitzkriesler2 3y agoRun the numbers, those salary numbers aren't as good as you think once taxes and CoL are factored in. And for every big VC payout there are thousands with worthless monopoly paper options. You're probably farther ahead than you think.
- fragmede 3y agoCoL is the big one, along with lifestyle inflation. It depends on the numbers, is a smaller percent saved off a bigger paycheck more than a bigger percent off a smaller paycheck? Too many variables to ever really say, so the thing to optimize for is hygge.
- freitzkriesler2 3y ago100% on the money (pun intended) and also something people forget is how trapped you are if you take a $350k job. That salary puts you square in the top 3% of wage earners in the country. Finding another comparable job becomes stupid hard so you end up trapped. Granted if you're an engineer from a top school or have MS/PhD you'll be OK but that's always my fear - getting a good job and then losing it and not being able to take another because of that horrible lifestyle inflation.
- webworker 3y agoSame
- ctjlewis 3y agoMy salary is $20,000 right now and I cut my health insurance. Obviously if I’m staying in a pod, we don’t have millions of dollars in investment. I’m doing what I can with what I have.
- betaby 3y ago[flagged]
- nerdix 3y agoThis article contains a link to a different article about Hong Kong coffin homes which I had never heard of them before. And wow....it's like some sort of cyberpunk dystopian nightmare turned reality.
- paxys 3y agoThe piece seems pretty exaggerated to generate clicks. "Hacker houses" have been a thing in Silicon Valley forever. You share a large house with a bunch of like-minded people and get a tiny space of your own to sleep in. For someone in their early-mid 20s, what's the harm? It's the perfect way to build a community and have a blast.
- mixmastamyk 3y agoI’ve seen the same with other demographics… ~ten bunk beds in the garage of a suburban house.
- fxd123 3y agoBut as the article points out- some of the people are techies trying to network and find success in SF's tech scene, and others are people struggling to get by working at Carls Jr...
- fragmede 3y ago"Build community" is not to be undervalued! Having mentors is great, but just having someone to tell your problems to, and have them just have them be facing the same problems, and have no solutions, doesn't seem like it would offer much support until you've experienced it. I didn't understand that when I was younger. The community you make at a hacker house is worth putting up with a lack of personal space for a time.
- ytdytvhxgydvhh 3y agoYikes, I’d definitely bring a CO2 monitor with an alarm if I found myself sleeping in such a pod. I’m sure the ventilation can be handled correctly but I wouldn’t be blindly confident that the landlord was on top of it.
- paulryanrogers 3y agoArticle says that place has a curtain for privacy so should be okay when placed in a place like a bank, that can handle many people. Still not a bad idea to monitor just in case
- mixmastamyk 3y agoSounds like a great way to convert old banks and other unused commercial buildings into sorely needed housing. I had read that such transformation was costly in the past. Maybe the fact that rooms and water features are separate makes this feasible, where hotel room conversion would cost a fortune.
- gnicholas 3y agoI wonder how feasible it is to have overnight guests. Aside from the size (and the lack of impressiveness…), it seems like the close quarters could make sound an issue.
- kibwen 3y agoThat's just begging an entrepreneur to import the idea of love hotels from Japan (where presumably they serve much the same purpose, given the propensity for building walls out of paper).
- crhulls 3y agoMaybe I’ll sound like the old out of touch rich guy (I’m 40 and won the startup lottery), but isn’t it great there is a way for people who are broke but have hustle to get their chance? When I was an intern at Goldman Sachs me and my roommate rented an apartment in the Tenderloin for $600 a month. I slept in the closet. We stayed at the office 24/7 and focused on work. My former roommate is now a GP at a major growth equity fund. I opted out of finance and instead of getting a banker salary I lived in another closet for a bit and a shed with no shower or bathroom (I had to walk to the main house). I lived off $700 a month and pieced together a seed round in 2009 and things slowly got better from there. Now I have a public company and can say I’m one of the few founders to get my investors a unicorn exit. I know I am the outlier of outliers and had more luck than anything else, but god damn don’t disdain others who are willing to sacrifice to give it a go.
- paulryanrogers 3y agoWe can still distain worsening living conditions. These folks are paying more for less space than a closet. And starting up in an era of more entrenched incumbents with higher interest rates. So looks like worsening odds for more expensive lottery tickets, at least from the outside looking in.
- friend_and_foe 3y agoThis isn't worsening living conditions though. 50 years ago, in most places in the US, people shit into pits in the ground covered by a shed with a crescent carved into the door. They had lots of land, and they lived in drafty wooden shacks with, at best, a wood stove to keep them warm. 100 years ago in cities like new York most new immigrants lived in rickety stick buildings and took a shit in shared privies. The fact that it is considered the norm today for every individual to have their own toilet and closet full of clothes is a borderline miracle. A sanitary bed to sleep in, air conditioned, and a living area, that's not good enough for a single person because the bunk isn't queen sized and the living area is shared? I'm not convinced that this is some travesty.
- 3y ago
- NSMutableSet 3y ago>It’s comfortable enough for Lewis, who is 5 foot 9. (Lewis jokes that I should report that he’s an inch taller so that he can boast about it on the dating apps. I do not oblige.) I think something got lost in translation here. In SF online dating app culture, 5'10 is the minimum "not short" height. Note that it's specifically not considered "tall". Why 5'10? I don't know. How do I know this? Way too many overheard conversations with coworkers, housemates, and countless acquaintances of the above over the past eight years of living here as a tech worker. The result is lots of men rounding 2-3 inches up to reach 5'10. I hesitate to call it lying, because there's a reality distortion field that results from enough people doing it. Lots of people are convinced that they or their partners are actually a taller height. I can't find it at the moment, but I saw a post a while ago about how this becomes a real problem for things like ski rentals, where inches in height difference actually matter. Then 5'10-5'11 guys who previously wouldn't have rounded up to 6' are forced into doing so, because the expectation is that a guy who puts 5'10 is shorter than he really is. Then the 6' guys have to put 6'2 for the same reason. At 6'2 it doesn't matter anymore, since it's officially tall. Yes, this is really dumb. But the point is that it's not about "boasting", which sounds silly.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- paulryanrogers 3y agoAverage male height in the US is 5'9" so that may be where the threshold came from.
- nodirection 3y agoI’ve actually lived in a coliving space here in LA with a similar coworking and sleeping setup during a transitional period in my life between marriage and separation. The community was great and really supported me but it is definitely a young persons game. 41 is a little old to be sleeping in a pod next to 20 year olds, doing 20 year old things.
- cagey 3y agoSeinfeld: Kramer’s Japanese guests sleep in drawers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvZfb5t8DnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvZfb5t8DnA
- raminf 3y agoIn dotcom days, I used to work in SF with a developer from Australia. He liked to stay in youth hostels in SoMa. They were cheap and offered easy commute to downtown. He got to hang out and socialize with traveling expats and save a ton of money. It was inconvenient by conventional standards (had to vacate and rotate rooms every few days) but he enjoyed the lifestyle. In the winter time, he went up to Tahoe and became a ski instructor while still freelancing tech projects. With all the extra money he sent home, he ended up buying a house there while in his 20s. I lost touch but heard through mutual friends he was doing well. You can sniff at pod housing, but when you're young, footloose, and chasing a dream, it's a pretty good deal.
- ilaksh 3y agoI wonder why we hear about this type of space more often than micro-apartments or micro-studios. I think the reality of the number of homeless people, as well as the popularity of options like dorms or pods, especially in areas like California, demonstrates that the requirements for living space size that are intended to keep up people's living standards, are not working out. I wish that truly micro-studios with balconies were popular thing in big cities. If I could have my own bathroom, small fridge, microwave, bunk bed with desk underneath, and just enough room to play a slightly restricted VR table tennis, along with a mini balcony. I would rather live in a city. Literally like 12x16 feet could be adequate. It would be better than just a bunk for private space. And you could still have some nice shared facilities.
- Ekaros 3y agoStill quite big. But this is clearly the future we will be all forced into to combat climate change. Just imagine how much will we save in emissions by forcing everyone to live like this.
- trimethylpurine 3y agoProbably not much. We'd still have to deliver goods which is the bulk of the transportation carbon chain.
- glimshe 3y agoLiving like the homeless and poor of most US states and foreign countries... Just for the privilege of being in SF? When I came to the US to work in tech, I made sure that I'd never live in a worse situation than my supposedly 3rd World home country, but this is way, way worse than what I could have had working in tech back home.
- nunez 3y agoHonestly if I were in my 20s and wanted to grind like this, these would be perfect. I wouldn't sleep that much, anyway (because of the grind), and when I wasn't sleeping or working, I probably wouldn't be "home". Plus, if this guy's startup moons, he has an awesome "story" about how he slept in a coffin to chase that hustle.
- ctjlewis 3y agoThe reaction to this was generally pretty negative, so I’m pleasantly surprised that the top comments here were mostly positive. It’s important to understand there are two floors of working spaces and a private office that’s usually open. It’s not just the pod, and that’s just for sleeping. This is the lowest-cost way for me to be in SF, and it’s been an insanely net positive trade so far. I was in central IL trying to build a startup before this. And to be honest, it’s pretty cool waking up and knowing my friends will be downstairs, and I can talk to them about whatever I’m working on that day etc. I like it way more than I thought I would, it’s beyond “bearable.” It’s not luxury living by any means but it’s not this awful thing that people are taking it as.
- gnicholas 3y agoIt sounds like the $700 covers more than the pod itself — renters also get access to a coworking space (and obviously, bathrooms and common areas. What is the going rate for coworking space in SF? To me (or rather, single me from many years ago), the key remaining question is what the bathroom situation is like. If you have to wait in line for bathrooms/showers with dozens of other residents, I'd pass. But if they have sufficient facilities, and they're kept clean, I could see giving it a try.
- ShamelessC 3y ago> access to a coworking space (and obviously, bathrooms) Neither of those things are obvious. 700$/month is more than enough for an apartment with 1.5 bedrooms where I live. This seems nightmarish.
- azinman2 3y agoAnd I could go to a super rural area and get something even cheaper. People also pay even more than this for super tiny claustrophobic apartments in NYC and HK. Cities provide value in all kinds of ways, and it turns out they’re popular. Having cheap options that allows a wider range of people to take advantage of it sounds like a great idea to me.
- ShamelessC 3y agoI guess it's kind of hard for me to imagine any city so amazing that people are not just willing but grateful to live in a literal pod. I've worked remotely for SV companies and I just don't get the appeal in the internet era. To each their own, I suppose.
- kyawzazaw 3y agowhere you live in SF?
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoI could get something for $150/month in Thailand, maybe even near the beach. I can’t imagine being stuck in middle America paying $700/month for something similar.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoHow's security? Do you get a lockable space, or do you sleep with your notebook under your pillow?
- CamperBob2 3y agoDoesn't sound like there is any security. He mentions a privacy curtain.
- HarryHirsch 3y agoThe half-homeless protagonist of the Treasure of the Sierra Madre had at least a cage where he could lock his suitcase in. 2020's San Francisco is objectively worse than 1920's Tampico.
- jbm 3y ago> by German author B. Traven, whose identity remains unknown... Thank you for sending me down this crazy Wikipedia journey.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoIn Tokyo you can lock your luggage still in various places. And you can get a cheaper and higher standard cubicle type of room superior to these beds, with more valuable free or cheap amenities. I believe there’s a “nomad visa” in the works as well