Friday, February 17, 2012

Welcome to Portlandia

We’ve been entertaining ourselves for weeks watching short skits online called “Portlandia.”  If you haven’t seen these before and want a good laugh, they’re pretty funny.

We have reassured ourselves that these skits aren’t for real.  But then Russ started looking for temporary housing on Craigslist…and I’m not so sure anymore.

Here’s our favorite housing ad:

 

The Aerie, a collective house upstairs from the Red and Black Cafe in SE Portland, has one room available for a sublet March 1. The sublet would be for 4 months with the potential to move in permanently. Some more about our household:


THE PHYSICAL SPACE: Our house has five bedrooms, a small living room and kitchen, and one bathroom. We are on the second story of a 130+ year old former hotel, with 7 foot tall windows and 14 foot ceilings in all rooms. The room we're subletting has a loft built into it with the bed on top to take advantage of all that space. There is a basement that we use for storage. Laundry facilities are also in the basement. We keep a VEGAN kitchen. We recycle, compost, and have a greywater system (collecting water in buckets to flush the toilet).


THE HOUSE MEMBERS: We currently have five people, one dog, two cats, and a rabbit living with us. We are open to more dogs but we'll want to meet them as well as you. Unfortunately we can't have more cats in our house at this time. None of us are "party people" but with varying schedules and a small space, our house is fairly high-traffic and can be noisy. We have a huge collection of board/card games and a well-stocked kitchen for culinary projects. All of us are vegan and most of us identify as anarchists or otherwise politically radical. We are all respectful social drinkers.


THE COLLECTIVE: We have house meetings on a monthly basis to make decisions that affect all of us. These are run using consensus process, where we discuss the issue in order to find a solution everyone is happy with. We don't have scheduled community meals or activities, but very often find ourselves eating dinner together, playing games, or just hanging out and talking. We are queer/trans friendly and all family structures are welcome.


Rent is $351 per month, with an additional charge of $25 per month for more than one adult occupying a room (this charge goes into a vacancy fund in case of move-outs). We each pay a House Fund of $70 per person per month. This covers all utilities, including internet, and the purchase of bulk food and household supplies (laundry soap, TP, etc.) that are available to everyone.


If you're interested, please respond to this ad with as much information about yourself as possible. The more you can tell us about why specifically our house appeals to you, the better!

um….maybe not!  But we did get a good laugh out of it.

 

When I landed at the Portland airport and used their restrooms I had to laugh.  These signs were everywhere.

IMG_2809

At least I didn’t have to bring my own greywater!

5 comments:

  1. I've actually seen those toilet handles in a couple of airports, so that's definitely not just Portland. But the ad definitely made me laugh! ;)

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  2. The toilet handles are also at Duke. But I always get confused and flush the wrong way. And then I rush out and try to blend into the crowd before I'm arrested or something.

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  3. Yep- and I think the handles at Duke are green- for extra effect. That sounds like one crazy house- somehow I don't see Russ fitting in there:). At least it's not 420-friendly!

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  4. We just watched that 'Portlandia' skit at Bryan's sister's house in Albany last week. It's over the top -- but not as much as you might expect, as that housing listing clearly demonstrates. ;) You'll see more & more to delight your enjoyment of 'the random' I'm sure! =)

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  5. That ad is pretty darn funny. I can't wait to hear about the occasional true Portlandia people you run into!

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