San Francisco says tiny sleeping 'pods,' which cost $700 a month and became a big hit with tech workers, are not up to code
San Francisco says tiny sleeping 'pods,' which cost $700 a month and became a big hit with tech workers, are not up to code
The pods, which are 4-foot-high boxes constructed from wood and steel, made headlines after tech workers praised the spaces.
San Francisco says tiny sleeping 'pods,' which cost $700 a month and became a big hit with tech workers, are not up to code::The pods, which are 4-foot-high boxes constructed from wood and steel, made headlines after tech workers praised the spaces.
Ugh. Bougie homeless. Just sleep in your car like normal people. 🙄 /s
I do want sleep pods at airports.
Shower pod at the Paris airport was the best layover I've ever had. You pay in 30 minute increments but so nice to get refreshed when you're traveling across the Atlantic.
Wow, 30min is really generous.
I bet that was really nice. 🙂 As someone who takes red eyes, showering when I get there would be preferred.
I would have a thirty minute shower than.
San Franciscan here. What is “car?”
A mobile home. Don’t worry you’ll be able to rent one from Uber for the night soon enough.
They're things on the road that take you to your abode.
$700 for this is insane. I get why they’re doing it but there’s no reason anyone should pay $700 for a bed.
San Francisco should build their own get that shit up to code, make it about 30 stories, have spots for restaurants, stores, retail at the bottom and make it actually affordable and for everyone. There should be no market for 700 a month 4 foot tall boxes. Greedy fucks.
Shit should be like $50 a month max and yea it’s dystopian AF but if people want to do it I guess whatever. Just don’t rip them off.
but if people want to do it I guess whatever.
They don't want it. They need to do it. There's no choice here. Alternative is to not have a job in your field, because you have to move 300km away to afford something.
Just what is shown in the photo would get you $7000 a month... why rent out 2-3 houses when you can rent out 10 boxes I guess.
Yep, there’s a market for it so of course the landlords will do it. Housing and rent prices in this country just sickens me but this is some next level shit
With a housing shortage, say 10 people needing a place to live in this space, renting 2-3 houses leaves 7-8 people homeless. Making progress can't be just a rejection of sub(sub)standard solutions, it has to also be building acceptable but dense housing.
And then with all the rampant corruption it would turn into a overpriced slum. Yes I'm pessimistic, and I hope I can be proven wrong and that your idea would happen.
Look up how much parking costs in SF lol
Ok hot take, this is a perfectly valid move, 700 for location and a box to sleep in is a welcome option for many renters in the city. If there are shared spaces like kitchen baths etc this works.
If you want your own space, ok, this isn't for you, but this alleviates a ton of rental demand which could lower rents in aggregate if enough of these are built!
The alternative is your whole paycheck goes to rent and you retire a week before death, i'd be all for this if I were single.
Is someone making a profit? Most definitely, but I get a better option to run my career in the city, I'm down. Not only that, I hope this model picks up so more people can have the option.
My gripe here is the city, bitching about no windows when this is a pretty tangible solution to many renter's problems. Either fix it yourself or get out the way when others are addressing it.
Edit: lots of group think and virtue signalling here. If these aren't there you don't even have the choice, it's 5k rent or move away from the city. That's not bootlicking that's fact. Whining about landlords being greedy isn't a solution, and this is.
You sound like the guy who founded a company to kill himself next to the wreckage of a really old ship.
"That damned city, bitching about safety regulations! They need to just get out of the way of innovation!"
ugh, this is dysphorian THIS IS NOT FUCKING NORMAL. THIS IS LATE STAGE CAPITALISM
Late stage capitalism? They were doing shit like this in the 1800s. It IS capitalism.
Like, seriously. It’s always been a thing.
In the 1800s, you could rent a space on a rope overnight so that you could drape yourself over it and have a place to sleep that night that wasn’t on the freezing, urine-soaked ground.
This has long been an issue.
revolution time!
Yea, in my city (where owning your apartment was pretty much impossible until 20th century), people rented out corners inside normal apartments.
Ok obligatory fuck late stage capitalism. That said, hot take, this is a perfectly valid move, 700 for location and a box to sleep in is a welcome option for many renters in the city. If there are shared spaces like kitchen baths etc this works.
If you want your own space, ok, this isn't for you, but this alleviates a ton of rental demand which could lower rents in aggregate if enough of these are built!
The alternative is your whole paycheck goes to rent and you retire a week before death, i'd be all for this if I were single.
Is someone making a profit? Most definitely, but I get a better option to run my career in the city, I'm down. Not only that, I hope this model picks up so more people can have the option.
My gripe here is the city, bitching about no windows when this is a pretty tangible solution to many renter's problems. Either fix it yourself or get out the way when others are addressing it.
This kid must be like 17-18 and has seen none of the world. This would be luxury to half the planet.
half the planet lmao, no. Secondly you can point at the US why it's so bad in those countries too
This is a dormitory with a shared living space, bathrooms and shower. If anything the “bunks” are quite generously sized.
Take a look at your comment and ask if maybe you’re flipping out unnecessarily.
ugh, this is dysphorian THIS IS NOT FUCKING NORMAL. THIS IS LATE STAGE CAPITALISM
"A big hit" with people who desperately need accommodation that won't bankrupt them.
Yeah i love how every negative was couched within a sentence mentioning how popular and great these pieces of shit are
"And there's really cool people here!"
Get me a bucket, I'm gonna fucking puke.
A pod for sleeping at home: 👍 A pod for sleeping in a hotel: 👍 A pod to rent for cheap on vacation: 👍
A pod is your fucking home: 👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎
I imagine this is more like the Japanese coffin hotels. They are for salary men that work too late to take the trains home.
In this case, probably for people who don't want to do the 1-1.5hr each way to their "just affordable enough" commutter home every day. I doubt these are many people's long term permanent address.
$700/mo is excessive though.
It’s actually an entire shared living space with a common room, bathrooms, and shower. Not comparable to coffin hotels which are not for extended living. You could absolutely live in these long term. It’s essentially a dormitory. Tech workers fresh out of college probably adapt to them just great. You can’t live anywhere else in SF for $700 and you don’t live in the City to stay home anyway. People living in these spend their time working at lavish offices and going out partying and wining and dining. This is a place to crash, and not even a bad one.
I remember reading about, "pod hotels" in Akiharbara, "Electric Town", Japan in the late 90s or early 2000s. I recall them being marketed as a cheap way to see the neighborhood. Even back then, Akiharbara was the global epicenter of anime/manga, retro gaming, arcades, computer stores and repair shops.
Glad to see the concept has now evolved to, "dystopian hell" some 20 years later.
yeah, to be clear: capsule hotels in japan are not meant to be long term stays, they're for busy business people that need a quick place to sleep for ONE night because they worked till late at night and missed the last train, or similar situations like that. Nobody actually lives in a capsule hotel
EDIT: to clarify, some people may live in a capsule hotel, but they're not designed for long-term living
There have to be people living in capsule hotels in Japan. There are people in Japan living in computer cafes, where the lights are on 24/7. Japan isn't all sunshine and roses. Tons of people barely hanging on and these cheap ass places let them have at least some sort of dignity. If you work any job in Japan, odds are you'll have a roof over your head. Same can't be said in the US, where many homeless people have jobs and can't afford to be protected from the elements.
It's really sad that someone had the thought process of, "I bet we can convince people to live in these fucking things". An despite this small bump in the road, it is seemingly working.
It's disgusting how many people will leverage housing costs (especially in San Francisco) against their fellow (hu)man.
I've stayed in one in Osaka. You don't have access to clothes or belongings during your stay. It's a lot like staying on a space ship without the travel.
Centered in the square carpet of green plastic turf, a Japanese teenager sat behind a C-shaped console, reading a textbook. The white fiberglass coffins were racked in a framework of industrial scaffolding. Six tiers of coffins, ten coffins on a side. Case nodded in the boy's direction and limped across the plastic grass to the nearest ladder. The compound was roofed with cheap laminated matting that rattled in a strong wind and leaked when it rained, but the coffins were reasonably difficult to open without a key.
The expansion-grate catwalk vibrated with his weight as he edged his way along the third tier to Number 92. The coffins were three meters long, the oval hatches a meter wide and just under a meter and a half tall.
-- William Gibson, Neuromancer
Cyberpunk was supposed to be a dystopian vision.
soon the window will go, then the other conforts
Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to see modern SRO-style buildings, noise proofed, with small individual bathrooms and kitchenettes. That sort of development would be a godsend to the housing shortage, perfect for young people, supercommuters, and recent transplants, as well as for stopgap homeless prevention.
This isn't that. This is horrible.
Yeah young people(students) fresh out on their own and have nothing yet trying to make ends meet don’t have standards yet when they first get out into the world and once they run into responsibilities they find out fast this type of living really isn’t living. It’s actually super limited. Until then: extorters are going to extort.
But how is this supposed to happen in high-density cities like NYC or SF?
I don't have any answers, but as someone who lived in SF for 7 years back in the 90s and early oughts as a student, I know for a fact that "there are no simple solutions for the problems that we face."
Yeah, I just quoted a DRI song; guilty as charged!
I know. It's difficult. It would require changes to coding for square footage requirements. It might not be particularly profitable. It'd be expensive to run safely. The opportunity costs would be astronomical (considering the luxury-condo alternative).
It wouldn't be the solution, because no one thing is. However, It would be a solution to a narrow set of problems, and an asset to residents and workers if it were managed and secured properly. I think one key would be ensuring that it didn't become a shelter for the vagrant homeless population, nor a place for families, just a relatively inexpensive, clean, safe option for individuals to land for a while.
Crush this trend, now.
$700 / 30 = $23.33 a day to sleep in a wood box... brilliant!
One of the other articles linked has a photo of the common room.
This is a dormitory style shared living space with living area and bathrooms / shower. The “boxes” are bunks for sleeping and actually roomy and private compared to every other dorm bunk I’ve ever seen.
This is the dumbest thing I've seen in a while
As a person who worked at one of these cool tech companies that provided food for breakfast lunch and dinner and snacks 24/7, I found I was only using my apartment to sleep. Most of the offices of other amenities such as a gym, and all the tech workers would go out for happy hours. If I was single this would be a very valid option. Some people don't plan to spend time in their apartments.
Having worked at, and co-founded, multiple startups over a period of 28 years: Sure. But why are you choosing that?
The reality is that the moment I started standing up to employers or investors and expecting decent standards, they folded and I was able to have a good work-life balance and get paid market rates and still get to work on cool startups and get shares.
These companies prey on most people never thinking to negotiate (and having been on the other side of the table, and tried to be decent: most people never negotiate, even though we almost always have space to do so)
The excuse by the residents as to why this is ok is certainly that.
How dumb do you have to be to complain about how much living in the city costs while paying almost a thousand a month to live in a closet.... You. You're the reason it's expensive and why housing isn't a priority. You have to stop buying this dumb shit to solve the issue and let's be honest if you're paying 700 to live in a closet and praise it's networking chances you aren't unable to move.
“Became a big hit with tech workers” lmao that’s fucking stupid. There’s just nowhere to live that’s remotely reasonably priced in SF. This is like one of the only choices if you really don’t want a roommate.
Who had William Gibson's coffins on their Cyberpunk Bingo?
Spoiler: They appeared in Japan in the late 80s in hotels, rented a day at a time.
Is this from Neuromancer per chance? I own the book and never read it.
I do not want to acknowledge how long I have owned it though, lol. It is crazy how things can end up backlogged.
Tech companies that offer places to sleep, eat and play at work, only do so so they can keep you working as long as a possible. If you never leave the office they make boatloads of money and make yourself a free Eggo waffle. And if you try to work from home so you can live in a city you can actually afford, they make come into the office so it’s impossible. Not because you aren’t doing good work at home, but because you can’t won’t 24/7 at home.
They write "tech workers" but it's pronounced "tech slaves"
As someone who's not American and had a couple of job opportunities to move to San Francisco, I'm glad not to have done it.
What kind of hellhole is that city? I had an impression it was extremely expensive but also very wealthy. The more I hear the worse it seems.
I like the city but it's not for everyone. I definitely wouldn't call it a hellhole.
had an impression it was extremely expensive but also very wealthy.
The trouble with these kinds of statements is that there are always going to be "bottom of the ladder" workers who are still poor in these cities, and being poor in am expensive city is a shit load worse than being poor anywhere else
Even then, salaries are high, but the CoL more or less cancels it out. Even the wealthy SWEs I know who live in SF are barely able to swing 2 bedroom apartments that they share with an SO. That's why you hear about new grads making $200k/year right out of college working for Meta or Google, it's true, but you'd be better off in a lot of ways working for a small company in Sacramento for $100k
San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And these tech bro pods, which are not really a thing here unlike in Japan where it's been a thing for a long time, are a gimmicky joke.
You would get more space and a better place to live in a nicer neighborhood for a similar price if you simply got roommates here. It might be $900 rather than $700 but if you were sharing a bedroom, which would STILL give you more space than these pods, you could easily get down to below $700. These things are preying on tech kids out of college who only know dorm-style life and have been hired into the new AI startups.
You definitely should have done it for the resume and networking boost. San Francisco is expensive but you can definitely find deals the more you look for them. Plus the Bay Area is bigger than just San Francisco.
And regarding the other comment, $200K in SF is definitely better than $100K in Sacramento. More money is always better, unless it's like a 10% bump. First of all, San Francisco is just more beautiful than Sacramento. Food is better. There's more to do.
Second of all, Sacramento is getting more expensive because people are moving there from the Bay Area. It's still cheaper, but prices are growing and you don't live in a major city. People are paying $500K to live next to a cornfield.
It's expensive because of the concentration of wealth, not the quality of the area. There's a ton of crime, homelessness, car break ins, etc.
People often leave their car doors unlocked or their windows down to prevent their windows from being broken, but instead they find random people sleeping in their cars.
On the plus side, the weather there is quite nice.
A lot of problems coming together.
Nature is one, they're warm year round so a lot of homeless folk are better off there.
Earthquakes prevent them from building tall. The surrounding hills make sprawl hard. Both the earth quakes and hills restrict the supply of housing.
And thats before you even start the leftist policies.
$700 a month?!
You get more space and amenities in prison. And much cheaper.
$700/mo is $23/night. Capsule hotels in Tokyo are about $30/night.
Do people live in those hotels in Tokyo?
People don't want to live in this pods for the most part. The problem is NIMBYs in San Francisco constantly block new housing from being built. This results in insane housing rental prices for workers. Because housing prices are so insane, it makes $700 sleeping pods look like a steal.
The issue is the lack of housing, NIMBYs, and the local government.
Skipping permits is a way of life in SF. (I had work conversations about buying older gromex so the dates were before you purchased in case am inspector noticed. Inspectors were prohibited from noticing anything they were not specifically there for.)
I wondered at the specific permit they missed.
without a permit changing the building from a bank to a living space and illegally converting a toilet into a shower.
That seems important to do properly.
I have a friend that moved to Japan when he was in his twenties to work in a blue collar job. The pay was good, but he had to work a lot of overtime, sometimes 12, 14 hours. These jobs also often offered a place to live nearby the factory. Somehow it seems very similar to this, the difference is that he got an actual apartment and not this sad excuse for one.
One day he got sick of it all, so he started to just apply for these jobs, get free housing, and never show up to work. He could live rent free for a month, sometimes two in the time between getting fired and finally evicted. When that happened, he would move to a different city and then do it all over again.
In the meantime he was studying Japanese and doing side gigs. After doing that for awhile he landed a job as an English teacher in a school and he doesn’t have to do that anymore.
A boring dystopia
Lol this reminds me of the scene in The Complete Al from the 80s where Weird Al travels to Japan and stays in one of their hotels:
https://youtu.be/_Seufp4nvXQ?si=I3QrLETjVvbFA9lL
Edit: skip towards the end if you want to see the specific scene.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/_Seufp4nvXQ?si=I3QrLETjVvbFA9lL
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Those would be fucking coffin homes in China What
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Tiny sleeping "pods," which have proved a hit with San Francisco's tech community, are not up to code, city officials said.
Representatives for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside normal working hours.
The pods, which are 4-foot-high boxes constructed from wood and steel, made headlines after tech workers praised the spaces in interviews with ABC 7 News.
Brownstone CEO James Stallworth told SFGate the company had a lot of inquiries from people interested in artificial intelligence.
Earlier this month, Christian Lewis, a tech-startup founder, posted photos of his experience in one of the pods on X, formerly known as Twitter.
i'm just trying to stay within the city of San Francisco without paying $4,000 a month or getting stabbed, and i think this is a great solution so far," he wrote.
The original article contains 281 words, the summary contains 143 words. Saved 49%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Who are these tech workers who wants to sleep in office pods??
The real dystopia here is San Francisco outlawing using your land how you want.
No one should be building living pods and then packing them full of people.
I just read the article and I partially agree with you. It's bureaucratic bullshit reasons.
So long as they get an actual factual address, then it's a good deal.
Yeah a good deal for shell corporations.
Ok hot take, this is a perfectly valid move, 700 for location and a box to sleep in is a welcome option for many renters in the city. If there are shared spaces like kitchen baths etc this works.
If you want your own space, ok, this isn't for you, but this alleviates a ton of rental demand which could lower rents in aggregate if enough of these are built!
The alternative is your whole paycheck goes to rent and you retire a week before death, i'd be all for this if I were single.
Is someone making a profit? Most definitely, but I get a better option to run my career in the city, I'm down. Not only that, I hope this model picks up so more people can have the option.
My gripe here is the city, bitching about no windows when this is a pretty tangible solution to many renter's problems. Either fix it yourself or get out the way when others are addressing it.
This is what enough bootlicking does to a brain...
what about when the person in the next bunk jerks off, farts, falls asleep, snores?
this is a nightmare scenario with no redeeming features that I'm sure will quickly lead depression if not violence
Did you just "well actually" slums?
You used to could find a one bedroom apartment for $900 and under and you think a $700 sleeping pod is a good idea??
I’m so sick of the coverage on this. There is a shared living space and bathrooms and shower, so it’s essentially a dormitory. Big whoop. Actually we could use more of such shared housing.
But then we wouldn’t be able to combine our hatred of tech workers with our complaints about the economy to turn this into a horror story.
And the people utilizing these spaces are not the ones bitching. How odd...
Yeah and while people are outraged at the squalor of it, they’re tech workers so no one’s actually concerned. It’s just an occasion to air one’s one bitching about the economy.