Co-Ops

[writerkit]

You know, I grasp the concept of "we share food and utilities." This makes sense as a co-op.

Even panicky about whether I will find an apartment (yes, I know it's still on the early side, but last time I was doing this there were way more apartments by this time than there currently are), I am extremely wary of "we all contribute to a household bank account and that covers basically everything"-- like, they specify gas, toiletries, therapy co-pays, and medications as some of the things it covers, and all I can think is that this is not accessible, because it does not work the second you get someone in there who has ridiculous medical costs (like me) or ridiculous gasoline costs (also like me).

Will I probably inquire further? Yes, because the apartment market is shaping up to be tight. Will I have a lot of questions about how their finances work? Also yes.

And of course I am ever bearing in mind that even in a tight market there are some rabbit holes not worth going down and I will watch their answers to my questions accordingly.

Comments

[squirrelitude]

Yeah, that seems like a pretty tricky thing to get right. We lived in a co-op house for about 5 years and it was hard even getting people to agree on what foods were communally purchased vs. individually. Medical bills? Hoo boy.

[jducoeur]

Yeaaahhh -- by my definitions, that's not a co-op, that's a commune. Which can work at the small scale, but it's not easy.