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