Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: "Gawkers" at cohousing communities

[David Hungerford (dghungerford]

To elaborate ever so slightly on stuart's mention that we at Muir Commons
are "a little tired" of media attention and drop-ins, Rob's rant about
"gawkers" at Sharingwood, and Jim S-G's qestions on how to act:

1) MC is in a standard california subdivision; we are completely surrounded
by a fence, low on the side facing other houses.  when you're past that
fence you are in our yard and we feel very unsafe with strangers wandering
around where our small children are playing--call first; you wouldn't walk
into someone's backyard even if there wasn't a fence, would you?  I
remember walking into the common house one day to find some guy with a
duffel bag reading our bulletin board.  I asked who he was visiting, and he
said he had come down from teh bay area to "check this place out."  and
since he had made such a long trip, "could [I]show him around"!!!!!
Another time I found someone taking pictures of our children, actually
talking to the children and setting up shots!  I'm sorry to say I blew a
gasket; and sent him packing.  turns out he was a reporter, but in my mind
that doesn't give him the right to do what he did.

>
>2. It's often hard to know who to contact in advance when visiting a coho
>community, because of their informal organizational structure.
We finally got a phone in the common house with a machine, the number is
listed as "Muir Commons"  --so no one has the excuse anymore that they
don't know whom to contact

>  Are you (Rob) saying that any visitor who is not known to most of the
>residents of a cohousing community should be escorted by a resident(s) at all
>times when visiting the site?
This is certainly the case for Muir Commons.

If so, this raises another issue, which is that
>escorting guests could use up a lot of people's time.
Bingo

>
>>In the handout materials for the Puget Sound Cohousing Network I list
>>etiquette for visiting.  Maybe this should be spread wider via the
>>journal.
I just don't see why people have to be taught to be polite; i have a
sneaking suspicion that the people who would need to read the "etiquette"
would not be the ones reading the journal.

David Hungerford
Muir Commons