The house, on a big double-block near the heart of the city, was started almost two decades ago by an environmentalist couple who wanted to use their inheritance to create and support sustainable, communal housing.

So there’s effectively ONE situation like this in the country. Meaning the headline is just fodder for landlords to feel like their behaviour/plans to “cram them in” is acceptable/positive… And ergo it’s irresponsible for SBS to publish it with that title.

I’m just picturing the inner city landlord segmenting a four bedroom family home into an eight sleeping pod hell house patting themselves on the back and saying “real relationships will be formed here thanks to my investment”.

I hate smug “my 10 person inner city warehouse situationship where the pipes leak works for me” stories. Hey good for you but your headline lifestyle and time in the limelight doesn’t change the fact that the rest of the renters are in a fucked up housing crisis.

It smacks of “of tenants are responsible to each other landlords can have as many people living there as they see fit” or as the article puts it:

high expectations of each other are key to successful communal living.

Nope, tenants are not the problem here.