‘Sleeping pods’ offered for $800 a month in this California city. How does that work?

A Bay Area company is offering an unusual solution to the country’s housing shortage — sleeping in “pods” instead of renting a full apartment.

For $500 to $800 a month, renters can occupy a sleeping pod owned by Brownstone Shared Housing. The company, which first launched its pod concept in Palo Alto and now has a second house in Bakersfield, says it offers a short-term solution for students or people working in temporary jobs, CBS News reported.

The design of the house allows 14 people to share a three-bedroom, two-bathroomsingle family home, Insider reported. James Stallworth, one of the company’s co-founders, told Insider that the cost of renting one pod is less than half the cost of renting a studio apartment in the area.

An online tour of the Palo Alto and Bakersfield houses reveal that both options have a kitchen, a washer and dryer, and various communal spaces. Spaces in the Palo Alto house are $800 a month, while pods in the Bakersfield house are $500, according to the company’s website.

The leases are month-to-month, and the cost of utilities is included in the rent, according to Brownstone Shared Housing’s website.

The sleeping pods themselves are 8 feet tall and come with a fan, lighting, and a fold-down desk, ABC 7 reported. The sleeping space is a bit larger than a twin bed, the outlet reported.

The pods also have curtains for privacy, and there are two rows of pods stacked on top of one another, CBS News reported.

Christina Lennox, the other co-founder of the company, told Insider that she could spend up to 14 hours per day in her pod, and that customers love them.

But the concept hasn’t escaped criticism — one Reddit user who commented in the website’s Antiwork forum said it “shouldn’t be this expensive to just exist,” CBS News reported.

Another commenter in the forum criticized the pods for being “stacked on top of each other like filing cabinets.”

But the company’s founders maintained that their pods are an effective solution to the demand for housing in the Bay Area, SFGATE reported.

“We plan to open more houses in the Bay Area in the near future,” CEO Stallworth told the outlet. “There’s a lot of need for housing in the Bay Area, and we’ve had a lot of interested residents and landlords reach out to us.”

Stallworth and Lennox did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.

This story was originally published May 13, 2022 at 1:50 PM with the headline "‘Sleeping pods’ offered for $800 a month in this California city. How does that work?."