Originally published at: Woman rents tent on her Zürich balcony for $540 a month | Boing Boing
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There is a special place in hell for people like her.
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I think it’s evidence that the cost of living in cities is not just a US problem, but an international problem that must be addressed systemically. If people had affordable housing options in Zurich, this would not be available to her as an option.
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I have a fascination with tiny and unconventional living spaces, so I was hoping to see some great heated tent with a power source on a luxe balcony. The actual situation, basic REI tent and a sleeping pad left much to be desired.
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This sort of thing really isn’t entirely new - some people have always been crammed, inhumanely, into apartments in certain desirable, dense urban areas (especially in the absence of a livable minimum wage - either because the law made no provision, or because undocumented workers were being paid illegally low wages). The new bits seem to be that the number of cities and towns where this is happening has hugely increased (to include very much not densely populated areas), the lease-holders sharing their own space are (ostensibly) middle class rather than desperately poor, and some of them are setting up wildly unequal living arrangements (presumably their costs are usually unequal too, but, to that degree?).
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The Pandemic has stripped all of the affordable housing out’a the Joshua Tree/high desert, we have zero rentals for worker bees here. The issue is two fold, no rentals and the skyrocketing rent prices.
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I had the impression Zurich has always been crazy expensive. I wish this were a tourist option instead of monthly living arrangement, at least in slightly warmer months. But then again I like camping.
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I once stayed at an Air B&B that was a tent in someone’s back yard in Berkeley, CA. It was $20/night and quite comfortable. It was private and quiet. If you take $20/night out to a month, that’s more than the $500 on the balcony. But Berkeley doesn’t get quite so cold!
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So, no HOA then?
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I think this is the first time I’ve seen the words affordable and Zurich used in the same sentence 
I used to live in Lausanne, and I found prices in Zurich eye-watering. If you arrive from outside CH, I can only imagine the prices must look like a joke.
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Zurich, zu-richie, rich, rich
Mr Rich Rich Rich
Bonus: a surprising riff based on the Gilligan’s Island theme, which comes and goes at strange moments, so your friends won’t believe you when you eventually notice & point it out 
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Can confirm. I spent six weeks in Zurich in 2011 for work. It was a good thing it was for work, because the client covered our food and lodging. I’ve been to some insanely expensive places (and live in a relatively expensive place now), but nothing has ever quite matched the shock of Zurich prices for, basically, everything, and I don’t imagine the situation has gotten better in the decade since. I remember, at the time, paying CHF32, which was almost $40 with exchange rates, for what amounted to decent (but still fast-food) General Tso chicken.
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I mean … not so sure. Can’t defend her, but also she did say that the decision to share her kitchen and bathroom with a stranger was because she couldn’t afford the cost of living. So, we have one of those situations where now the ex middle class is also poor, but the solution is neither to be found in the ex middle class exploiting the poor directly, nor in infighting among the top and bottom of a heap which cannot afford to be housed.
Also - anyone else see this as the premise for the gritty Who’s the Boss remake?
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I would watch that.
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When we were kids and staying a weekend or two at our grandparents’ place during the typically sweltering NYC Summers, my siblings and I would sleep out on the fire escape. Not uncommon back in the day.
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