Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Telephone in the common house?

[Bitner/Stevenson (lilbert]

>From: "Hollie Butler" <hollie [at] meandering.org>
> Our common house has a telephone, although it doesn't have long distance. I
> am incredibly grateful for it, because my husband and I are new members of
> the community and USWEST won't hook up our house phone until "sometime after
> December 18th". We bought a phone card for the long distance (we moved from
> Seattle and still have a lot of business to finish up there), and are able
> to make most calls from the common house. We don't have incoming calls at
> the common house, of course. People just have to wait until we call them.
> ----------
>> Have some of you actual experience of having a common house with or
>> without a telephone? With or without a computer that can go on line?
>> (another use for a phone line)
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Lynn at RoseWind
----------------

I can't really imagine why you wouldn't want a telephone in the CH,
especially since you have people so far from it. In addition, in case of an
emergency where everyone is at the commonhouse, you want to be able to make
and receive calls from there. What if a child at home needs to get in touch
with a parent in the commonhouse, and has to choose between leaving a
younger sibling in serious trouble to get to the CH three blocks away and
handling it on his/her own?

I think it's dangerous not to have a phone in the commonhouse. There are
lots of scenarios I can think of where it would be vital, and none that I
can think of where it would be bad.

Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento, CA