Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Guest room or cheap hotel?

[Patricia Lautner (lautnerp]

The guest rooms are very busy here at JPCohousing in Boston.  Since our
policy is that nobody may stay who doesn't have a formal host assigned, I
don't think it ever comes up that total strangers would stay in the guest
rooms.  We do host other cohousers from different parts of the world but
only when a member agrees to be host.  Sometimes I have friends who come to
town for a conference and I host them in the guest suite.  I may not even
see them very much but they are my friends and I want to host them.  I look
at the guest suite and the entire commonhouse as MY home (that is shared)
and it's perfectly reasonable that I would welcome my friends to stay at my
place when attending a conference in Boston.


Patti Lautner
Jamaica Plain Cohousing, Boston MA




On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 8:55 AM, Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] 
gmail.com>wrote:

>
> I was thinking about this question last night and realized that the
> distinguishing characteristic isn't whether the guests are friends, members
> or strangers; it's the purpose of the visit.  Are the guests staying in our
> guest room to visit US (either our community or someone in the community)
> or are they here for some other purpose and using our space as a "hotel"?
>  It's the latter that I have mixed feelings about.
>
> This question arose for me because I'm on our "guest room team" and
> currently working on refurbishing the rooms, and while doing so I was
> musing on who would be enjoying the space I'm working on.   (It's really
> important to me that our rooms be warm, comfortable and welcoming, which at
> the moment they aren't. )
>
> Diana
>
>
> On Tuesday, January 28, 2014, Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Jan 27, 2014, at 11:43 PM, Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] gmail.com
> <javascript:;>>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > My question was about how
> > > people in your community feel about that.  Or perhaps you don't get
> > > requests from other cohousers, etc like we do.
> >
> > We do get requests from other cohousers -- we are in DC, museum capitol
> of
> > the world. And from people attending conferences that know of us from one
> > source or another. To my knowledge it has only become an issue if the
> > "outsiders" are not using the facilities well or are obnoxious or
> > something. A family of 6 once tried our patience because it was six
> people
> > living in the common house.
> >
> > The biggest problem has been when people were staying here and their host
> > is absent. Everyone else has to answer questions and explain things
> without
> > a clue who these people are. Stressing that residents are responsible for
> > their guests all the time they are here has reduced the number of
> > outsiders. People are not willing to take so much responsibility for
> people
> > they don't have a relationship with.
> >
> > If so many people requested the rooms that residents were being squeezed
> > out, it would also be a problem.
> >
> > Sharon
> > ----
> > Sharon Villines
> > Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> > http://www.takomavillage.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
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