Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Consequences ?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

How old is your community? Is this shortly after move-in or 20 years after?

We had very different problems with clashing standards when we moved in and 
often people didn’t understand that their standards were clashing. The person 
who was always adjusting the temperature in the CH to 80 degrees lived in 
Florida and his family had never had the indoor temps lower. He had no idea 
that setting the temp at 74 had been intentional. Like Virgil’s example on dog 
poop — one person’s normal is another person’s major crime.

Karen’s points about the balance between having absolute order and damaging 
relationships are good ones. Understanding why things are happening is 
important to changing them but changing behavior is easier if the needs of the 
behavior are understood. In fact, the behavior often changes itself when 
discussed. We used to have dishes sitting around the dining room and kitchen 
all the time until someone ran the sanitizer for a meal — usually once a week. 
But we also discouraged people from handwashing dishes because we wanted them 
sanitized. And paper plates and glasses were bad for the environment.

We switched to regular dishwashers and now there are no dishes sitting around 
the dining room or kitchen. If someone forgets to put a glass in the dishwasher 
it is very easy for someone else to do it.

A very helpful insight came from a community member who said he never reads 
rules — never. He just does what other people do, or he thinks they do. So it 
means someone has to speak up if he is doing something they wish he wouldn’t do.

Rather than thinking in terms of punishment, “You cannot do this or we will….” 
find ways of saying why the behavior is bothering you. For several  years after 
we moved in one person used to remind us regularly, “Okay guys, I didn’t buy my 
way into a trailer trash community — can we clean it up a bit?”  Sometimes she 
went into detail but normally people understood what she meant — straighten the 
chairs and pick up the trash. She was Black and the unspoken word here was a 
“white” trailer trash community. Her Black culture didn’t allow the casual mess 
that some of our white members enjoyed.

But I honestly have to say that we have not had to resort to “fines” or 
“punishments” for anything. People speak up when something is bothering them. 
Often they talk to someone else first and if they aren’t comfortable talking to 
the perpetrator personally, they go to a team or a friend who can speak up 
without getting angry. 

There have been statements that we need fines or restrictions — people 
shouldn’t be able to use the CH for a month after leaving a small meal's worth 
of dishes in the sink or banned from posting on email after they go off the 
rails at someone, but it never has happened. As I sit here, I can’t think of 
one fine or restriction that we have placed on someone for anything in 23  
years. Partly because no one wants to be the enforcer. They just want their 
feelings acknowledged and “something done.” I’m amazed, actually, at how often 
after a complaint on email (usually) people confess to being the person who 
left ice cream melting on the back steps of the CH, apologizing, and explaining 
why it happened.

I complain regularly about people expecting that their standards are the right 
standards and that we have moved into cohousing with a plan to become more 
perfect people. Who says it is inappropriate for people to show emotion in 
meetings? Who decided that speaking in hyperbole is confusing? A lot of things 
have been ironed out and calmed down. We understand more than react, but we 
still react. To do otherwise would be to suffer in silence and eventually just 
leave.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org