Rental Crisis Sorted: For $900/Month You Can Live In A Sleeping Pod In Melb With 11 Other Ppl

sleeping pod interior with a red bedspread and fluorescent, blue lighting

I have an idea for a new version of The Matrix where the “red pill”/”blue pill” scene is recreated but the blue pill is living in the glass shitting cube studio apartment in North Adelaide for $1680 a month and the red pill is living in a sleeping pod in Abbotsford for $900 a month.

If you take the red pill, you will be staying in a room with 11 other people who also live in sleeping pods, which are stacked on top of each other and emit an unsettling fluorescent light. For the purposes of this reenactment, you have taken the red pill and I am about to show you how deep the inner-Melbourne sleeping pod rabbit hole goes.

Per the Guardian, a landlord is privately advertising his Abbotsford house (sadly normal), which has three bedrooms for $400 a week or $1500 a month (not great) or individual sleeping pods for up to $250 a week or $900 a month (diabolical).

Yes, for the small sum of $900 you can live like an astronaut in a sleeping pod that you need to climb up precarious, circular stairs and hang onto a handle to enter. The timeline we live in means renters must pay almost one thousand dollars a month to shuffle out of bed knee-first like they live in an expensively refurbished shitbox combi van that you just know stinks of ye olde Birkenstock fumes.

And guess what? The pods are all full.

Sleeping pods in Abbotsford house
Where do you put your things??? (booking.com)

Let’s clamber inside, shall we?

Interior of a pod in an Abbotsford house
I know it smells crazy in there. (booking.com)

Essentially, you will be living inside a washing machine.

According to the advertisement: “The boarding house and the capsules are fully licensed.”

Being able to drink in the sleeping pod is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because an alcoholic beverage will definitely help take the edge off of living in a tiny, futuristic womb. But a curse because, despite what those two pillows suggest, only one person can fit inside a sleeping pod. So you will be smashing cans by yourself with only a wall safe for company.

“Each capsule fits a single bed (can sleep one person only), equipped with own mirror, ventilating fan, USB ports, digital control panels, adjustable colour reading lights, safe locker, clothes hanger & curtain door for privacy,” the listing says.

The listing forgot to mention that you can also convert your sleeping pod into a funky little nightclub that actually echos our “red pill”/”blue pill” scenario from earlier. Look at how fun it looks in there — move over, Berghain!

What is possibly the scariest aspect of the sleeping pod situation is that the landlord has been flogging them for a hot minute. And they’ve gone up in price.

Facebook listing for Abbortsford sleeping pods
Inflation has even reached the sleeping pods. (Facebook)

A year ago, you could have lived in the scariest bunk bed of your life for just $700 a month. Lettuce, KFC and now sleeping pods in Abbotsford. When will it end!?

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