Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Hot tub policies in cohousing

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

We have had a hot tub for years. Its covered in our blanket liability
policy. Teenagers do all kinds of stuff with and without suits after dark,
its family business, not a community concern.

The hottub groups informal policy is suits are worn during the daytime,
after nine pm or before 8am there are naked people. In my limited
observations, Rarely do our teens choose to be naked with adults, but they
are naked amoung themselves and their "squeezes" during the dark, late
evening hours. I would say that our unstated policy is that whatever happens
in a hot tub, between consenting naked people after dark is the business of
the people involved. I am quite sure the parents of any teens in our
neighborhood are fully capable of teaching their children whatever they need
to know about these things.

We have an electric unit and it uses power, although its on a timer so its
hot at certain times (mostly the naked times). The whole thing is paid for
by a users group, not the association. The users group is less than a fourth
of the community at this point, I am not sure about exact numbers, anybody
not in the user group can use the hot tub for a fee. Since I have skin
reactions to chemicals like chlorine, I don't use the tub and so don't know
how much the per use fee is, but I am sure it's not much more than a dollar
at most. I think the monthly user group fee is $10? which covers maintaince,
electric use, and a small capital fund for improvements like a new cover and
such.

Lock the hot tub? This would bring out howls of outrage I am sure. We have
more kids than I can even keep track of and child safety is not an issue
with the hot tub, although ours is above ground and requires fairly strong
person to move the cover so I doubt a stray toddler could even get in.



Rob Sandelin
Northwest Intentional Communties Association
Building a better society, one neighborhood at a time

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