Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates • Hacker News Board

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#191

Post by Hilift » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 4:22 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #34

The article doesn't make this clear... is sharing a house illegal, or is it only illegal to separate leases for each room? Immediately post-college, I shared houses with other 20-somethings. It was always a single lease - 4 roommates listed, 4 beds, all of us responsible for the full amount of the rent. But, we were absolutely allowed to reside in the same home. Same thing in college - single lease for four people in…

How it works is the county or muni specifies the number. This is similar to allocating land for single family or multi tenant. You can of course bypass this and rent rooms or have a group house, but renters may not have the same legal protections.

No-one wants to live like MacArthur Park area in LA, that has 4x the density of Manhattan, NY, where every apartment has a shadow family that is evicted every year or two.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#192

Post by yieldcrv » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 4:22 PM UTC

duped wrote: post #37

This reminds me of places where it's illegal for more than N~=3 women to share a residence, ostensibly to prevent sex work (the assumption being that any home with a significant number of unmarried women is a brothel). When I was in high school a couple decades ago visiting liberal arts colleges across the Midwest, it was a common refrain that only fraternities had houses while sororities did not because they would b…

the cool thing about that is nobody can cite a single source

its just a college town urban legend across the country, and at best a misinterpretation of the exact unrelated roommate zoning this article is about which don't specify gender

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#193

Post by Workaccount2 » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 4:23 PM UTC

2THFairy wrote: post #119

AlexandrB wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone in this thread should read https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-call-that-compassio... Addiction requires some level of coercive intervention to address. No one wants to admit this point so we keep arguing about whether we want to leave addicts to die in the street or in a crowded crack den. Neither really solves the problem.

> No one wants to admit this point so we keep arguing about whether we want to leave addicts to die in the street or in a crowded crack den. Neither really solves the problem. That is correct, yet at the same time: Society as a whole refuses to give these people even the kindness of a roof over their head. They need better care, yes. But if people won't even agree that these people shouldn't freeze to death in winter…

Housing (or at least shelter) is infact widely available. The problem is that you can't do drugs or drink in these places.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#194

Post by TulliusCicero » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 4:24 PM UTC

advisedwang wrote: post #185

The author did not even talk about why these laws are in place, so I think it's worth mentioning that these laws are there to prevent slums. I'm not saying there's no place for them, but "busybodies and do-gooders who prevent people from using their own property" is extremely dismissive of efforts to solve a huge problem that existed in the 19th and 20th centuries. In fact, it sounds like the author would argue that…

You can prevent slums without outlawing this type of housing, they just need to be actively managed. Require landlords via regulation to keep up maintenance and evict unruly tenants, and actually enforce those laws.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#195

Post by TulliusCicero » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 4:26 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #112

Laws like this are designed to keep undesirables out. Rich folks don't want 18 people living in a single house and attending schools in their district.

Mandatory low density zoning in general serves that purpose, yes.

If you need to own or rent a certain amount of land in order to attend the local school, then you can effectively keep out the poors (or even middle class, potentially).

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#196

Post by swsieber » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 4:27 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #34

The article doesn't make this clear... is sharing a house illegal, or is it only illegal to separate leases for each room? Immediately post-college, I shared houses with other 20-somethings. It was always a single lease - 4 roommates listed, 4 beds, all of us responsible for the full amount of the rent. But, we were absolutely allowed to reside in the same home. Same thing in college - single lease for four people in…

Wow. I went to college in Utah and had 5 roommates. A total of two rooms. It was a blast.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#197

Post by pavon » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 4:28 PM UTC

pavon wrote: post #43

Interesting, I knew SROs were not allowed in most places in the US, but never clumped roommates in with that. All the places I've lived I had no problem sharing apartments let alone houses with roommates. I wonder if the laws distinguish from roommates chosen by tenants, vs multiple tenants chosen by the landlord, or if the places I've lived allowed SROs, or if the law was just commonly ignored.

To answer my own question. No state prohibits subletting. Maine law gives renters the right to sublet, New York limits the reasons landlords can refuse subletting, and all other states leave it up to the landlord (with differences in details, such as the default if the lease doesn't explicitly prohibit or allow it).

However, many states and/or cities do limit the number of unrelated individuals living together, and this applies whether they are all on the lease, subletted, or even in one's privately owned home. A brief search shows different areas have limits of no more than 2, 3, 4 or 5 unrelated individuals.

I've just happened to live in places that allow 4 or 5 unrelated individuals, and never rented a house with more than that many bedrooms/roomates.

It is crazy to me that in some parts of the country it is fine to have 7 family members living together (easy to do in a multigenerational home), but letting 3 friends live with me in the same size house that I own is illegal.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#198

Post by ajsnigrutin » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 4:28 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #124

Taek wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some freedom? My house is my safe space, it's the place I go when I'm exhausted, when I'm sick, when the rest of the world sucks. I should have a very high degree of freedom over who is allowed to share that space with me and I shouldn't have to justify not allowing another person (stranger or not) to co-habitate.

If you want that degree of freedom, a boarding house or shared occupancy is not for you. Pay up for dedicated solo housing.

Or just be free to choose your roommates.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#199

Post by bpt3 » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #175

SoftTalker wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure in some/many cases there were racial motivations but also SROs that have many unrelated people in individual rooms often become seen as flophouses and are seen as undesirable by other property owners. So they are often prohibited at least in single-family zoned areas.

Certainly, but I'll also argue that single family zoning needs to go, and upzoning enabled anywhere reasonable. Do existing owners not like flophouses? Do they not like density? Do they not like any change at all? All of the above. Property owners are entitled to their property, they are not entitled to stop efforts around them to increase housing supply or density. (as someone who has acquired lots, rezoned, and hav…

Property owners absolutely are entitled to stop efforts around them to increase housing supply or density, and I say this as someone who also has done similar work to you.

If a community wants to remain SFH-only, that is their right, even if other people who can't afford to live there or would just like to see higher density would really like them to change their mind.

Re: Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates

#200

Post by visarga » Tue, Sep 23, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

orochimaaru wrote: post #63

alistairSH wrote: post #34

The article doesn't make this clear... is sharing a house illegal, or is it only illegal to separate leases for each room? Immediately post-college, I shared houses with other 20-somethings. It was always a single lease - 4 roommates listed, 4 beds, all of us responsible for the full amount of the rent. But, we were absolutely allowed to reside in the same home. Same thing in college - single lease for four people in…

I’m not sure what the article is complaining about. I know 2 per bedroom is widely allowed in the US. But more isn’t. It seems like the article is looking to revitalize the concept of a large dormitory where people mostly just come to sleep. Maybe I’m wrong but the article doesn’t do a good job of saying what the problem is. Either way I don’t think most millennials want more than 2 per room anyway.

> I’m not sure what the article is complaining about.

It's right there in the article:

"And as SROs disappeared, homelessness—which had been rare from at least the end of the Great Depression to the late 1970s—exploded nationwide."