Housing! A Wacky Plan in four parts

[usernamenumber]

UPDATE Nothing is settled yet, but it is looking like we have enough people for the Belmont place, too many for the Somerville place (plus more interest in Belmont), but not enough for both. Still though, if there's a group of three who would be interested in Somerville, lemme know and I can pass on contact info.

Hokay, so.

Boston types, I've got this wacky idea, which involves any of the local geekery who are looking for housing, or will be in the coming months.

You've probably heard that about our housing situation by now (short version: ZOMGWEHAVETOGTFO!) As such, we've been looking at places. There are not a lot of places available in the middle of the summer. We have, however, found two, which have an interesting set of tradeoffs:

Part One: great house, not-great location:
This morning, Josh and I went to see a place in Belmont. The house is awesome. Four levels if you count the basement rec room, five off-street parking places, screened in patio, five bedrooms with three bathrooms. Not shared with anyone else. It basically cries out "Please, make ma a haven for a group of fun-loving geeks!".

The down-side of this place is the location, at least if you are used to living near the T, let alone a social center like one of the squares. There are a number of busses that go from there to Harvard Square, but that's about it for public transportation. It's probably a 20-30 min bike ride from there to Porter or Harvard. That said, it is right down the street from a grocery store, so the essentials are there.

After returning home I learned about...

Part Two: not-great house, great location:
faerieboots informed me that the household of a mutual friend, laura47 (to whom this may come as a surprise, since I haven't talked to her about it), recently moved out and is still available. The house, from what I've been told, is not bad, but nowhere near as cool as the Belmont place. An ordinary, slightly dingy (though about to be renovated) three-bedroom, one bath place. The location, however, is much better, just a few blocks from Ball Square and closer to Porter and probably Davis than our current place. On top of it all (literally), there's another geekhaus upstairs, which seems to be populated by some pretty cool people already.

Part Three: A brief aside...
I don't know where else to put this, so I'll put it here: There is a possibility that we will need a subletter through the end of July, with the option to lease on for next year, though you'd have to apply for that. Also, big_jewfro is selling his furniture. These include a very nice desk, shelves, etc. As with the sublet, we may already have a taker, but if anyone out there is interested, please let us know.

Part Four: And now, a Wacky Plan
To summarize:

• There is a 5br place with better house than location.
  
• There is a 3br place with better location than house.
  
• Total: 8 rooms split between houses with pro/cons such that different members of my household are leaning different ways.
  
• There are 2-4 of us (depending on Josh and Kevin's situations) currently on the market
  
• I know of at least six other geeks who will be looking come September
  
• It could therefore be possible to distribute the local geekery between both places, thereby maintaining the two-level geekhaus near Ball Sq and establishing Das Uberhaus Ultimate Geek Social Mecca ZOMG in Belmont.
  

So, here's he deal. If you are one of those people who will be looking for housing, and would be interested in doing something like this. Please reply with:

• Whether you would lean toward the Belmont or Somerville house
  
• Whether you would be willing/able to take the one that isn't your preference
  
• If you're comfortable with saying so, what your rent ceiling is
  

Rent at both places, if everyone split evenly, would be $700 each. However, the rooms are all different sizes so I expect that some would pay more and some would pay less based on that.

Oh, if you think you might be one of the people I'm talking about and you are not interested, if you could tell me here or in private that would be helpful.

This would be super-awesome if we can work the logistics right, but we have to make decisions fast here, because at least the place in Belmont will be going soon, so please reply with a quickness.

Thanks!

Comments

[laurion]

Belmont is actually a very sweet place to live, and has reasonable levels of Commuter Rail and Bus access. If you have a car or a bike, you're really not that restricted.

Now if the domestic partner were at all interested in geekhausing, I'd bring it up, but as we don't know where her employ will be at current, and she really, -really- prefers to not cohabit (especially given our cats which make it effectively very difficult in some cases), it's be a silly thing to do.

Still, best of luck gathering the geek quotient, and I look forward to visiting Belmont....

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

If it were at the edge of Belmont near Fresh Pond it's totally be do-able for me, but as it is it'd be hard for me to get to most of the place it's important for me to be able to get to easily, like the non-commuter-rail T since I don't have a monthly pass, not to mention juldea's place.

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

...that said, I would love to be shown incorrect in my assessment here. It is, after all, a really schweet house.

[laurion]

Where in Belmont is it? There's a buttload of busses, most of which go to Harvard. Some of which run ever 10-15 minutes or so. Also, if you're even modestly car enabled, it's almost hard to -not- end up on Rt. 2 to Alewife.

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

I didn't make the map link very obvious (hopefully fixed now), but anyway it's here.

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

Problem is that once Somerville's brutally stupid new parking rules go into effect (no non-permit parking, $1/hr meters in the square until 10pm), it becomes almost impossible to go there except via foot/bike or T.

[laurion]

Right, which is why you don't park in Somerville. You take the bus or park at Alewife and take the T in a stop or three.


Or convince everyone to move out of Somerville so you don't need to park there to see them. :D

[aries-walker.livejournal.com]

I'm a southerner by comparison, and so don't know anything about the housing, and will be quite useless here, and as such there's absolutely no reason for me to respond here except to say that 'big_jewfro' is the best LJ user name ever.

Addendum

[lediva.livejournal.com]

As I'm sure you know, I'm leaning towards the Belmont place.

Also, laurion's comment reminded me to note: any place I live can't have fur-bearing roommates. I has teh allerjeez.

Re: Addendum

[laurion]

They have shots for that these days, you know. Take a series of shots, and no more allergies to the furballs! So totally worth it for the many positive aspects to having them in your life.

Note: I do not have those particular allergies, so have not undergone the above treatment. YMMV

Re: Addendum

[lediva.livejournal.com]

I actually received allergy shots on a biweekly basis for nearly 15 years growing up. As a result of this, my eyes no longer swell shut around cats and dogs. But I still have reactions.

Re: Addendum

[laurion]

Ooh. I am double sad then.

[beowabbit]

I am not looking for a place, but I am looking for a housemate at my place in Quincy (not near Belmont or Ball Square, but red-line accessible, anyway). I just mention this in case you stumble across anybody who ends up not working out for your Giant Geek Pod project but who would be a good housemate for me and would be interested in Quincy.

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, where, exactly, is the Belmont place? I'm wondering how close it is to where I live.

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

Here

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool. I used to live on Belmont St.

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

Any comments that might be relevant to people living there? Did you bike, and if so is it safe? Most of Belmont seems to have good bike lanes but on Belmont St they were notably absent. =:(

[laurion]

I lived in watertown not far from that part of Belmont, and biking should present no major difficulties. They're not the same class of moron that runs down bikers in places like cambridge, medford, jp, or somerville.

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but biking where? Sequoia figured out a reasonably safe-looking route from there to Porter (near where juldea lives, for example), but it's a good 20-30 minute ride from the looks of it.

Is there anything of interest in the actual aread? (spoiled by always living a stone's throw, or at least a short bike ride, from Davis or Porter)

[laurion]

Sure. Watertown center has some tasty restaurants, there's a lot of neat things along 16, You're a hop skip and a jump from the Charles, which has explicit bike paths (no cars!) set up along its banks (I used to bike on those when I was living along it in Waltham/Watertown), you can bike to Fresh pond for either the pond itself or the movie theater there, you're not far from the watertown Arsenal, which is also a great place to hang out and/or shop...

Perhaps I'm missing the mark on what you consider to be 'of interest'. I mean, it's not Diesel Cafe, but then again, only Diesel is Diesel. But if you want an ice cream shop, a pizza restaurant, a mall, a coffeeshop, yeah, those are all within easy reach.

[laurion]

Take a peek at http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=&find_loc=belmont%2C+ma&ns=1&rpp=10 to see what people think is good in Belmont and see if it has the sorts of things you're looking for.

[laurion]

Of particular note, take a look at how many of those results are -on- Belmont street.

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

We almost bought a place spitting distance from there. It's walking distance to Cushing Square, which has some neat things.

[hanasaseru.livejournal.com]

(also, you would be near the New Repertory theater in Watertown, which is actually a pretty fantastic theater!)

[laurion]

Ok, yeah. The 73 goes right down that street, and the 71 is a block, maybe 2 away. The 554 (apparently temporarily not in service) also goes that way.

[hanasaseru.livejournal.com]

And seriously, do not underestimate the usefulness of buses, especially major, frequently running ones. I use them somewhat excessively, as a person living in Waltham with no car.

[ultimatepsi.livejournal.com]

That's actually pretty close to my place.

[in-water-writ.livejournal.com]

::whimper:: is jealous and misses Boston geekery. If I currently had any prospects of a job in Boston that would entice me to leave my current job, I'd move to Boston in three heartbeats. Exactly three.

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

What kind of thing are you looking for? I think we might be hiring some ops people.

[in-water-writ.livejournal.com]

Currently I'm help desk, would prefer level 2 if I'm going to stay there. Have experience with Citrix, and am point on our current (huge) SharePoint initiative. Been out of Deis a little over a year and have already done my 1st international business trip.

To be fair, my experience is still thin in many places, but I pick things up really quickly. If you know of anything, I'd be much obliged

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

We have one that sounds relevant, Senior Windows Systems Engineer (http://www.itasoftware.com/careers/jlisting.html?uid=703274).

(If you do apply, make sure you put "Employee Referral" under "How you were referred" and then type my name in the box underneath.)

[in-water-writ.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I'm underqualified for that job. I've got the soft requirements for sure, but I'm missing a lot of the technical requirements and the years of experience. I'll keep checking back, though. Thanks :)

[contradictacat.livejournal.com]

I already emailed you, but for public consumption, my preference is Belmont. Crazy close to work, and I can still get to school without too much undue crazy.

[faerieboots.livejournal.com]

I'm really fascinated by the idea of having that amount of fluidity between two houses, but it sounds like everybody is leaning towards Belmont!

If you are really excited about the house, and it's on the 73, it sounds like it might be easier/better to just take the Belmont house.

Also, if juldea is in Porter square area, presumably you could drive there after work if you were so inclined, as Cambridge's parking rules are presumably not changing and metered spots become free parking at 6.

That being said, I think it would be awesome to have nifty people downstairs, so I won't cry too hard if some of y'all end up in Somerville ;^)

[bkdelong.livejournal.com]

Wow
. Has anyone warned davis_square of the MASSIVE geek/brain-drain that is about to/would hit whe y'all go to Belmont?

Is evening onstreet easier or harder (selfishly asks the out-of-towner)?

More seriously with your combined social network (physical and digital) has anyone put out a "Seeking Housing" post there which would allow us all to publicly reminisce how important just one year at that place was?

It may spurn many to come out of the wood work exposing additional 4br/5br ops if they see Harvard alumni, Firsties, PMRPers, the reat of the Somerville acting community as well as the LARPers, the gamers (hello? Rock Band and karaoke?) and everyone Skullcrusher Mountain has touched in some way to see it fractured or inconveniently moved out to Belmont for the T limited.

OK. It's not horrible and I'm over dramatacizing and such a post would prolly end up in *snark before it got posted but I just hate the idea of you all leaving Somerville.

Unless it's something you actually really want.

If not, socially engineer your social networks plus an LJ community into research action for you.

My sad $0.02

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

In general, Belmont on-street parking appears to be pretty darned easy. My company overflows our parking lot, and our overflow people never seem to have trouble finding parking (except when there's voting happening at the library across the street).

I don't live in Belmont, but I work there, and I've found it a pretty tolerable and safe place (there's one massive traffic clusterfsk but it's not anywhere near that house). Very walking friendly. F'r instance, I and many other women leave work pretty late at times (midnight-2 am) and never worry overmuch about getting to our cars safely. I see joggers and bikers regularly through our part of Belmont. And Belmont is bizarrely close to many things that it doesn't look close to. I don't know how they manage this particular form of time-space crunching, but it happens.

[spinrabbit.livejournal.com]

On-street parking in Belmont has one big catch (unless they've changed it recently): parking on-street overnight is illegal. But for evening visits, where I lived it was no problem.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

That wouldn't surprise me -- Arlington's got the same thing.