
$1,790 a month and 'no cooking' allowed: Welcome to renting in the Bay Area - vector_spaces
https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san-francisco/article/rent-room-no-cooking-kitchen-law-habitability-13691981.php
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JonathanMerklin
My first 18 months in the Bay Area were in a $1600 spare room with no cooking
allowed. My mental and physical health both tanked. Things are better now, but
when the time comes to leave my current job, I want out. The cons severely
outweigh the pros if (like me) you are starting from next-to-nothing, have no
family to keep you here, and you don't find your personal identity through
your job. I would recommend working literally anywhere else.

~~~
ganoushoreilly
It definitely takes it's toll, I had a one bedroom near "Oracle Park" and
while I can't complain about it's quality or location, you knowingly paid for
it. 8 Years ago It was around $3500 and I was frustrated and decided to get
out, I looked up the price now, around $6k. It's just crazy.

Then there was the process of getting the place, Print out credit score in
advance, show up on the spot (hoping to get in on the early rental showing,
prior to the publicized showing) and be prepared to put down 1st and last
months rent and 1 month deposit then and there.

It's simply not feasible for most americans to do that. Even the tech-oriented
jobs aren't all paying the crazy rates you read about. The fact that the
Department of Housing and Urban Development now states that $82k a year puts a
single person in "Low Income" is just preposterous. As ahead of the curve as
the city likes to project itself on social issues, it has a lot of do as I say
not as I do attitudes among the NIMBY crowd.

I think it's turned it into a situation of in your early 20's, go to SF/Bay
and experience it, then in your thirties start looking elsewhere for quality
of life.

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burger_moon
When I was in the military this is how our barracks were. They closed the on
base kitchen and gave us a food stipend instead. Our rooms were the size of a
large bedroom, shared with 2 people and we had a mini fridge and a microwave
in the room.

Still managed to get pretty big working out and eating a diet that consisted
of meats you could microwave (a lot of precooked sausage and can chili haha),
we definitely didn't make SF money so there wasn't a lot of eating out.

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Tempest1981
Some of these are AirBnb superhosts (multiple renters sharing). They want to
avoid low ratings due to:

\- strong food smells

\- dirty pots and pans, spills

\- poor sharing behavior

There may also be safety/insurance/lawsuit concerns. And less profit due to
appliance/plumbing repairs.

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griffoa
Man, Silicon Valley really is the sweat shop of the IT world. Why anyone would
strive to go live and work there, is beyond me.

~~~
akhilcacharya
...you don't _have_ to rent a $1800 room.

~~~
ac29
Seriously - the Bay Area is expensive, but you can still rent an entire 3br
house in the south bay for $2500 or less (within a few miles of Apple HQ,
even). With a couple roommates, that's under $1000/each, and you can cook all
you want.

Not everyone lives in SF.

~~~
akhilcacharya
I spend $2.7k a month and I don't even live in SF!

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canada_dry
Toronto feels ya...

[https://www.blogto.com/real-estate-
toronto/2018/10/what-2200...](https://www.blogto.com/real-estate-
toronto/2018/10/what-2200-apartment-looks-toronto-right-now-2018/)

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winrid
When I first moved to the area with a friend I rented a fifth wheel trailer in
the back of some guy's yard in Morgan Hill and my friend rented the shed
outside (but he had a futon, electricity, a little heater, his computer...)

That was what we could afford at the time, until stuff took off.

I am so glad I did it though. The area is a lot better fit for me than Western
PA although you give up a lot of freedoms. Definitely can't walk outside and
shoot guns in your back yard :)

Pretty much I pay to be around other smart people.

I'm not sure any location in the world with a high concentration of a valuable
talent/skill will have cheap living expenses.

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vector_spaces
It's incredibly sad.

When I first moved to the Bay Area a decade ago, there were many houses made
up of artists, musicians, anarchists, and punks that held poetry readings,
music shows, fed people (via Food Not Bombs or similar efforts, or just by
simply cooking food on regular days and offering it to anyone who happened to
swing by), supported people who were struggling (Needle Exchange, mental
health support groups, survivor groups), or even provided a temporary place to
sleep to strangers in return for abiding by a code of conduct and doing some
chores or paying some (truly) nominal fee.

Those places, some of which had been around since the dotcom days and had
effectively become local institutions, quickly started disappearing as
landlords started aggressively serving eviction notices. One notable example
that comes to mind was Hellarity [0] -- Hellarity was somewhat exceptional as
it was a squat, where most of the houses I'm thinking of weren't. But it was a
pretty special place nonetheless.

I don't want to glorify these houses too much since there were issues as there
inevitably will be with any large, mostly unstructured group of people. There
was plenty of shady and unsavory stuff going on.

What's sad to me is the loss of diversity of human experiences, and the loss
of the resources offered in spaces like this. The loss of these inordinately
impacts lower income people. People escaping abusive situations. People who
aren't on tech salaries or benefits. People who don't have health insurance at
all.

Also: a friend of mine who rents space in an art studio in Berkeley that
dozens of artists work out of was telling me that the space was just sold, and
it's becoming increasingly clear the new owners aren't interested in keeping
it as an art studio.

The Bay Area kind of bums me out, to say the least.

[0]:
[https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/03/07/18708901.php](https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/03/07/18708901.php)

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8bitsrule
'No cooking' is a phrase with a lot of ins and outs. 'Heating' is only
'cooking' if the food isn't pre-cooked.

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yitchelle
This has just created a premium category for places that allows you to cook.

Things have just got crazier in rental market in Silicon Valley.

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Areading314
[https://www.redfin.com/blog/february-2019-housing-market-
tra...](https://www.redfin.com/blog/february-2019-housing-market-tracker)

Looks like home prices are down 8% since last year in SF. Maybe things will
get better soon

~~~
mikeyouse
Hopefully but probably not.. Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Pinterest, Slack, and maybe
palantir and Robinhood down the peninsula are going to have IPOs in the next
year.. that's a lot of millionaires.

~~~
landryraccoon
Sweet, you mean there's going to be a ton of studios and 1 bedroom apartments
coming onto the market then?

~~~
jjeaff
No, now that they are millionaires, they will be able to afford a studio or
one bedroom apartment. So that supply will shrink.

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anfilt
What the heck how could you even have a decent diet without cooking...

~~~
dagw
When I was in my early 20s living on my own in the 'big city' for the first
time, eating a healthy diet didn't exactly make the top 10 list of my
concerns.

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anth_anm
This should be illegal.

~~~
tathougies
Why? Someone probably _really_ wants to live there, if they're willing to pay
that much to do it.

~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
Someone also wants to rent out their kids as child labor, and someone will
want to hire that kid. Doesn’t mean it should be allowed.

~~~
chillacy
Kids don't have the same level of rights as adults to enter contracts to work.
We do it because we accept that child labor damages education potential.

I'm an adult, if I never cook because I like to eat out, shouldn't that be my
choice? Who am I hurting by choosing not to cook?

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tathougies
Then don't move there.

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expertentipp
I have an anegdotal explanation of "no cooking" but don't lynch me. The is a
major representation of South Asians (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh) among IT
folks. They're infamous for poor sanitation and hygiene standards. Heavy use
of spices, the smell of them biting into every fabric in the apartment, yellow
stains of curcuma all over the place. Then cherry on the top - eating with
hands while not washing them neither before, nor after the meal. I shared
personally kitchen space with them during university times and that cured me
for good from South Asian cuisine.

~~~
OldManAndTheCpp
I don’t see a reason the landlord should care about eating with your hands, it
doesn’t affect the state of the apartment.

~~~
imtringued
What do you think happens to door handles that are used with unwashed hands
after eating?

