Where are these types of places illegal in reality?

I know of single room rentals available in pretty much every major metro in the world. Shared common bathroom and kitchen.

I also know of one in plenty of subletting of multi-bedroom apartments.

I have never heard of enforcement against this. It also doesn’t bring rents down as much as claimed.

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cyberclimb 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

In the Netherlands from what I've seen (at least around Amsterdam) it's almost always forbidden for houses to be rented out to a group of flatmates (e.g. students), some people go so far as to fake relationships to imply they're a couple instead.

I'm not sure if this an actual law but housing listings often imply its forbidden in the neighborhood, they're looking for couples and families with kids.

	▲	lonelyasacloud 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> In the Netherlands from what I've seen (at least around Amsterdam) it's almost always forbidden for houses to be rented out to a group of flatmates (e.g. students), some people go so far as to fake relationships to imply they're a couple instead. The landlord believes that their property and their relationships with the neighbours of the property will be less likely to destroyed by letting the property to older/respected/settled down members of society. Common practice in most of UK as well.
	▲	anal_reactor 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The whole rental law is utterly fucked in the Netherlands, and the Dutch keep solving the issue of too many rules in typical Dutch fashion - by adding even more rules. The end result is that you have a huge number of people paying significantly below the market rate, which is great for them, but if you want a new contract, the answer is "nope, go be poor somewhere else".

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TuringNYC 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>> Where are these types of places illegal in reality?

Because eventually individual rooms start being rented by families. Next you have four families living in a single-family occupancy location and there is a huge fire hazard. I've seen this happen in NYC growing up, and its super dangerous. I also empathize with the other side -- as a poor person you may have no other option.

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sokoloff 3 days ago | parent [-]

Living in a car or being homeless is also super-dangerous when contrasted to living in a more typical housing arrangement.

It’s not at all clear to me that four families in a single family-intended house is worse than the alternatives. (Building more housing is the long-term solution, of course…)

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mothballed 3 days ago | parent [-]

Rational people tend to get the safest housing they can afford.

Therefore regulating housing is quite possible to only make things less safe, as people end up giving up money for healthy food / education / healthcare / dentistry etc to fund the trumped up "enviromental study" "planning and zoning" "code" and other requirements that might not best fit their budget.

	▲	TuringNYC 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Totally agree on all this points. The real issue is insufficient supply of housing. All these problems would go away if housing stock kept up with population. The interim regulation is addressing risks of the outcomes of poor policy, rather than addressing the poor policy in the first place.

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ch4s3 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They’re (SROs) illegal in every major US city.

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yardie 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've seen them in posher suburban towns and a lot of HOAs. It's usually worded that no more than 2-4 non relatives can share a single residence. You won't find it in the more working class towns and cities. I have seen some Florida coastal towns, like the Keys, enable a maximum in order to push out the working poor who may be living 6-8 in a 2-bedroom house or apartment.

You aren't in the neighborhoods where this has been in place. But it doesn't mean its not happening.

	▲	SoftTalker 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		It happens informally everywhere. People will let friends or family move in and split the rent. In many places the landlord is never around and nobody is watching the property so they get away with it.

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mothballed 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

If it's illegal you're in a situation where the landlord likes money and the tenants like not being homeless. In a house where 4th amendment rights are strongest.

In practice I think it's about impossible to enforce. Code enforcement or police would need a warrant to enter, and in most jurisdictions the complaints are public record far enough ahead of time anyone with the slightest bit of foresight would get ahead of it.

In my county sometimes I monitor the local complaints, mostly initially when I was looking at properties because I did not want to live next to a neighbor who likes to be a busybody to the code enforcement. There are a number of properties that just lock their gates whenever a code complaints happen or tell code inspection to kick rocks, by the time they come back with a warrant the situation is faked well enough they can't do anything.

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potato3732842 3 days ago | parent [-]

>In practice I think it's about impossible to enforce. Code enforcement or police would need a warrant to enter

If they have a suspicion and they feel inclined to go after you they'll just go hard enforcing all manner of other shit they don't need to go inside to enforce agains the landlord. It doesn't matter that the things they're trying to enforce may very well be bullshit that couldn't stand in court if challenged, it's cheaper to comply than to fight it.

Code enforcement and other civil and administrative areas of law where the .gov can issue fines on the same order or larger than many criminal penalties while giving the accused none of the rights of criminal trial are a massive, massive, massive, I can't say it enough, massive, end run around constitutional rights.

	▲	mothballed 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I don't doubt it happens, just personally going off of what I discovered when perusing the public records in my county. There were a bunch of properties that had a bunch of code complaints followed by inspector noting (paraphrasing) "arrived, gates locked, no one let me in, cannot see from road, case closed as unable to substantiate."