Living in other people's (unoccupied) homes

It’s a fascinating experience living in somebody else’s (unoccupied) home.  At first it feels a little invasive, as if you’re intruding into a stranger’s life, gawking from the sidelines, almost pretending to live it for them.  You judge them by the art on their walls, the books on their bookshelves, the food in their fridge (and the liquor in their cabinet!).

If surface judgments can be trusted, our AirBnB host on a recent trip to San Francisco is probably somebody with whom we have much in common.  A software engineer, with a small no-frills apartment in the Mission (read: moderately low-rent district), minimal “stuff,” no television, no telephone, small collection of books, substantial evidence of travel (or ambitions for it) to Africa, Europe, Asia.  We’d seen most of the movies in her small DVD collection.  A postcard on the back of her door offering this adage (in part):  “Simplify.  Embrace the adventure.”

But then the novelty passes, of course–the longer you stay, the more it starts to feel like your home, and the mental images that you’ve constructed of your host, inferred from subconscious but studious analysis of his/her possessions, fade and lose their color and richness.  

I’d be lying, of course, if I claimed that these vignettes of other people’s lives are the main reason we utilize AirBnB.  Mostly, it’s because we can get a great apartment, with our own kitchen, in a vibrant neighborhood, for less than the cost of a (super-cheap) hotel room.  

But it’s also an irresistible thought exercise:  we want to go to San Francisco for X days–surely there are innumerable San Francisco citizens who will be out of town for those same X days...?  Why should their home sit idle, a waste of space and resources, while we rent a high-priced hotel room?  While their car sits idle, our car sits idle back home, and we all drive around in high-priced rental cars?

What could be more wasteful?  Only in a society intoxicated on consumer materialism would this be the norm.  Once you agree to step back from these social norms–customs that we’ve shaped and that have shaped us our whole lives–you can’t help but to start re-examining them.  

For example, I have a cordless drill.  It sits on a shelf in a garage that we use for storage space.  I use it once every month or two.  Why do I own this?  Why should this device, which would represent a revolutionary advance capable of transforming the lives of many who live in developing parts of the world, sit idle on my shelf, transforming nothing?  If we were able to locate, via satellite imagery, all the cordless drills sitting idle on garage shelves in a 50-mile radius around my own, how many would we see?  500?  5,000?  How much action would you guess each of those drills sees, on average (excluding those employed in the construction sector)?  Ten minutes per month?  Maybe less?

(And note that I’m not even mentioning the things that we NEVER use–rollerblades, pingpong table, racquetball gear–as we’ve already given these things away.)

Certainly, there’s undeniable convenience in having that cordless drill within a 30-second walk from the time and place I discover I need it.  But the drill is merely an example.  How much stuff do you own that sits idle for most of your lifespan, and almost all of its lifespan?  How much of it do you really need to access instantly?  How much of this real need is impossible to predict within a day or so?

For those of you who use your cordless drill regularly–I’m not talking to you.  If you avidly build things or fix things, for a living or just for fun–that’s different.  Some people in this world have to build things–I certainly won’t (because I don't have the skills).  And what’s more virtuous than fixing something that’s broken?

But how many cars (to pick another example), in North America, sit idle for most of the day?  Why are we okay with paying tens of thousands of dollars (not to mention operating costs) for a tool that we use an hour or two per day?  Hell, most families have two.  

To me, the instant gratification borne of excessive affluence and overabundance causes us to confuse effortless convenience for real need.

This is why we are excited to participate in the sharing economy, part of a movement toward “collaborative consumption.”  It’s based on the simple premise that we no longer need to “own” things to be happy–we just need to have access to things, if not on demand, then within a reasonable timeframe.  

We can use public transportation, or rent a car from ZipCar or GetAround, or we can get a ride from somebody on Lyft.  We can rent our music from Spotify, or ReverbNation.  We can circulate books through PaperBackSwap, get our movies through Swap a DVD or Netflix.  When we travel, we can find a place to stay on AirBnB, or Craigslist, or CouchSurfing.com.  Hopefully, soon, we’ll be able to borrow consumer goods (that damned cordless drill, for one) via Unstash.com.

The lingering question is this: why do we, in Western Civilization, insist on owning these things?  On having shelves full of books and DVDs, garages full of golf clubs and tennis rackets and power tools?  Why can’t we agree to house one cordless drill per 10 or 20 square miles, (with exceptions for professional builders, legitimate amateur tinkerers, etc.)...?  What are the obstacles here?  Do we not trust each other?  Will our needs go unmet when we don’t have access to the right stuff at the right time?  Will our economy crumble when people stop buying cordless drills at The Home Depot?  These questions aren’t necessarily rhetorical–I’m honestly curious to know what the real obstacles are, and I’m interested in playing my part in surmounting them.  

There’s something invigorating about participating in collaborative consumption, in this new sharing economy.  I'd encourage you to explore it, as well. In the words of Unstash.com’s manifesto:  Own less.  Live more.