GET IT ALL

Many people assume they should have Home-mates who are more or less like them in a age, gender, culture, and sexual orientation. However, many other combinations work very well-for instance, middle aged, single empty-nesters living with young professionals, couples renting to foreign students; seniors with middle aged adults; mature Home-mates of opposite sexes. It could be that age, gender, sexual orientation, and cultural preferences don't matter at all. You know what your preferences are.

Sources: Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping Good Housemates

Contributors:  Annamarie Pluhar

Recommended Books: Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping Good Housemates

Do you require a washer and dryer? A dishwasher? A microwave? Do you already have these appliances and need to make sure they fit in the space? Or do you not own any of them, but need them in the place you are moving into?

Sources: Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping Good Housemates

Contributors:  Annamarie Pluhar

Recommended Books: Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping Good Housemates

People with different routines can be fabulous Home-mates; people with the same routines can be fabulous Home-mates too. How do you live? Are you a morning person or a night person? Think about a typical day. How does it start? When do you eat? How does it end? How are your weekends different from weekdays? Which of your routines would affect other people in the house? Is there anything in your daily routines that you "must have" or simply "would like to have"?

Sources: Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping Good Housemates

Contributors:  Annamarie Pluhar

Recommended Books: Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping Good Housemates

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcMt6zI7VkM

1. Radical Inclusion
2. Gifting
3. Decommodification
4. Radical Self-Reliance
5. Radical Self-Expression
6. Communal Effort
7. Civic Responsibility
8. Leave No Trace
9. Participation
10. Immediacy

 Researchers at the Univesity of Kassel in Germany compared carbon dioxcide emissions from the daily lifestyles of the average German household, 3 local "ecological households," and 2 German Eco-Villages: Kommune Niederkaufungen and Ökodorf Sieben Linden. The researchers measured CO2 emissions along the chain of events to create, use, and/or transport electricity, heating, water, and food (including the transport of food grown elsewhere to the local markets). They also measured the CO2 emissions of each member's work and vacation travel. Given the current number of people on the planet, they determined the baseline for an acceptable amount of CO2 emissions. (Not surprisingly, they found that the average German household emitted 6 times the minimum acceptable level of CO2 emissions.) 

The 400 members of Findhorn Foundation in northern Scotland have a 40% smaller "ecological footprint" than the UK average, according to a 2005 study. An ecological analysis measures a given population's impact on the environment by translating the impact of its activities-buildings, clothes, food, water, energy, and all products and services used- into the amount of biologically productive acres on the Earth by the global population (and allowing for other species' needs), environmentalists have determined that each person's "fair share"- how much land one would ideally use to support their activities-is about 3 acres per person. While many Third World countries use far less than their fair share, with people in Napal, for example, using less than half an acre per person, typical North Americans use about 30 acres per person and Europeans use about 15 acres per person. Yet Findhorn found that the ecological footprint of the average community member was about 8 acres or 60 percent of the UK national average.