$943 Belltower Co-op - Seeking 1 Housemate for Private Room Dec 1! (Allston)

Belltower Co-op - Seeking 1 Housemate for Dec 1! (please read the housing ad before applying! Please note, housing ad has edited terms that posting platforms flag using *) Our co-op on the border of Allston and Brookline (a few minutes walk from the Harvard Ave T) is seeking 1 co-op-minded individual to move into our 7-bedroom/3 bath home! We are a house of six individuals and two cats welcoming people of all genders, ethnicities, orientations, abilities, and backgrounds. Special shout-out to tr*ns people, disabled people, and mutual aid activists; however, all are welcome! Our home is 21+ and not substance-free. Substances may be present in shared spaces (within house norms like ventilation and asking about shared air space). No heavy drinking is tolerated. If you need a substance-free environment, this probably isn’t a fit—no hard feelings. Note that we have two cats and cannot currently accept more cats or dogs, although small pets that live in your room are a possibility. If you are interested in applying, please read the rest of the ad, then fill out the form linked at the end. ACCESSIBILITY: Please know that our house has stairs to the front and back entrances, as well as stairs to all bedrooms. The available room is on the third floor. Please reach out if you have any further questions regarding accessibility. ROOM DETAILS & RENT INFO: Dec 1 move in (a few days earlier possible) $943 for first month’s rent required to secure the room (ASAP after acceptance) $1788 for last month’s rent and security deposit required upon move-in date We share vegetarian groceries, which average around $100/month per person We each contribute $10 per month to the house fund, which covers random things beyond groceries Rent typically increases for the house starting with the new lease September 1 each year by roughly $35 each. The above costs are through July 2026. The room is located on the third floor, which has two other bedrooms. It’s a spacious room with two big windows facing the street. Lots of light from the windows! There are two alcoves, one of which can fit a queen sized bed and the other is shallower, but can tuck away a dresser. Good sized closet with a deep shelf above the hanging rack. HOUSE EXPENSE INFO: Rent is calculated based on square footage and number of occupants. Two people can occupy the same room, although rent will be more than a simple split of the room (ask for more details). Utilities per person are $60-$80 in summer months and $120-$180 in winter months We share all of our vegetarian groceries (~$100/month per person) (housemates can also buy their own separate food, including meat, but we encourage food sharing). Free laundry (washer and dryer) is located in the basement. Free parking is available on-street (you don’t need a residential permit for our street but can get a free one to expand your parking options). AMENITIES: We occupy an entire three-story home, with a spacious first floor serving entirely as common space! Storage in the basement for bikes, boxes, etc. Washer, dryer, and dishwasher! 3 full bathrooms A backyard with a flower garden, vegetable garden, picnic table, and fire pit A large front porch with chairs and a rocking bench A dining room with a piano, lots of books, and arts n crafts Our exciting bathroom porch (!) A cozy living room with TV and board games, and a futon for your guests! 2 cheeky black cats CURRENT HOUSE VALUES: - The Belltower is our home. - We invite vulnerability. - Intentionally creating shared experiences for the house and community. - Maintaining openness, empathy, and non-judgment - Fostering curiosity, growth, and willingness to learn, while always seeking to understand rather than blame or judge. - Everyone’s uniqueness and individuality are welcomed and celebrated. That creates the strength of the whole. In togetherness and interdependence, we are stronger than on our own. - Mental health awareness. We are a neurodiverse home. As a house, we regularly revisit and recenter our values, a process that you would be invited and expected to participate in. MEAL SHARING SYSTEM: We currently have a house meal once a week (typically Mon or Tue) and we rotate who cooks. On other nights it’s common for people to informally cook food for more than themselves. We encourage people to cook a lot of food if it’s not that much extra effort for them to do so, as then we’ll have plenty of leftovers for people to easily reheat. This current version of our food system is still fairly new, so we’re interested to hear about how you would potentially see yourself contributing! We share the costs of our vegetarian groceries and other regular house materials. In general, almost all of the food is available for anyone to use whenever they want, with only a few small areas set aside for personal items. We rotate through a weekly house grocery shop, where one person buys most of the regular things we want for the week. People can still buy things on their own, this just reduces the amount of shopping everyone has to do, and spreads the work out more evenly. SOCIALIZING: On typical days, we spend impromptu time together in the kitchen and our other shared spaces chatting and enjoying each other’s company. Some of us work from home, and are often sharing work or reading space together during the day. Most of our socializing is informal, just when we run into people and talk about our days. As a house we use Keybase (an encrypted application similar to Slack/Discord) to stay connected virtually and share various media, including local events, important house agenda items, and most importantly, cat pictures! We’ve also found it to be a great way to stay organized between our bi-weekly house meetings. We try to plan house activities from time to time, such as camping trips, bike rides, beach days, movie nights, and the occasional house party (most notably birthdays and Halloween). We regularly have guests and small gatherings, but are not a party house. ROOMMATE EXPECTATIONS: We like to keep shared spaces generally tidy and organized -- we have an expectation that you will clean up after yourself. Our bathroom cleaning schedule rotates on a weekly basis, while other chores are based on an opt-in model, where we each contribute to the house’s upkeep as we are motivated. We are seeking housemates who are committed to an equitable division of labor within the house. Ask us about our chore chart! On at least a quarterly basis, we have house workdays, in which we all pitch-in a few hours to deep clean the house. We have mandatory house meetings twice a month. When a housemate plans to move out, we ask for three full calendar months' notice in order to allow time for the search process. If you are interested in joining our community, please fill out the application below and we will get back to you shortly if we would like to invite you for an interview. The interview can be conducted in person (encouraged) or via Zoom and will include a brief house tour, a look into the room we have available, an introduction to the house members, some questions from us, and then time for you to ask any questions! If your interview is over Zoom, we would still like to meet you in-person at the house before any final decisions are made. Note that we take at least a few weeks to select a new housemate, making sure we have a deliberative process to reach consensus on someone who we are sure will be a good fit. If you are looking for immediate housing, we likely won’t be able to meet your needs. It typically takes around 3-4 weeks from the time the housing form is filled out until we complete interviews and make offers. If you are interested in applying, please fill out the below form: https://forms.gle/cvt9g1XUawCMpf9b9 Thank you! The Belltower ---- Current housemates: T (he/they, 29, Scorpio) Works for the government by day, goes to punk shows by night. Hikes, bikes, boxes, bakes. E (he/him, 42, white, queer, atheist anarchist) has been an organizer with various leftist movements, a communard, consensus facilitator, farmer, writer, waste hauler, and university professor. He likes long bike rides, gardening, dark beer, cooking vegan food, wearing black, dumpster diving, and reading radical political theory. V (she/her, 29, queer, disabled, stoner) can be found working on her dissertation, discussing various matters with her cats, and bopping around avoiding working on her dissertation. Others have said, “strong big sister energy,” “obviously an aquarius," and “do you smell w**d?” Loves to laugh, vibe, and people-watch from the porch. Y (he/him, 29) Big nerd, loves DnD and other forms of gaming, big on cooking and impromptu hangouts. Occasionally participates in local pub singing with the Greater Boston Traditional Song group, amateur mineralogy and rockhounding, and cosplaying. C (she/her, 38) Graduate student in clinical social work after many years as a s*x-education teacher. Long time co-oper who enjoys sharing laughs, food, and trash TV with housemates. B (she/her, 24): engineer (ish) who is interested in the environmental field, the ocean, and the concept of place. Enjoys reading, hammocking, running, and being outside.