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0 pointsthrowaway220322y ago0 comments

I'm not deliberately being obtuse - I simply don't believe that many people have literally empty rooms that they don't use.

I don't know anyone that has an empty room in their house, or one that no-one enters for weeks at a time, etc. Maybe the odd country estate is like that.

To a communist, the concept of having a guest room, office, storage room etc might feel like "underutilization".

If we apply that more generally, then the park outside my house is underutilized because the maximum capacity are not sunbathing in it at all times. I think that's a pretty silly use of language.

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6 comments · 3 top-level

lazyasciiart2y ago· 2 in thread

I absolutely know people with rooms that are literally unused. They aren’t empty, but it’s not a valuable use of space just because it means you don’t have to get rid of your last three couches and a desk that’s nice but not nice enough to use.

AlexandrB2y ago

Who decides what "valuable use of space" is? Next we'll be taxing people whose living rooms are too big because they're not "valuable use of space" and could be split into another bedroom.

throwaway22032OP2y ago

In life, some people look up, some people look down.

I'll never understand how someone could think that completely normal things like a house, garden, car, etc are somehow "too much". But they do. It's baffling.

I can understand, though not agree, with being angry with someone who owns say, tens of thousands of houses, millions of acres of land, and leaves it all empty.

But the idea that a house is underutilized if it doesn't have as many people as could possibly live in it? All I can say is, Hong Kong exists, Manhattan exists, feel free, I'm not in for that.

ivan_gammel2y ago· 1 in thread

Labeling formal logic as „communism“ won’t help (it‘s also kinda funny when people with certain cultural background use this word as synonym for some biblical evil, rather than for what it is). Guest room is not a necessity in most cases, it is convenience for which alternatives do exist and may even be more cost efficient/practical. Since it is not, downsizing your home in retirement to release space for bigger family will be more efficient than building everyone a house with a spare bedroom. It does not have to be expropriation of the property for this to happen, just a policy with good incentives (less maintenance effort, less taxes to pay, better investment opportunities etc).

disgruntledphd22y ago

> Since it is not, downsizing your home in retirement to release space for bigger family will be more efficient than building everyone a house with a spare bedroom.

This is true. The problem tends to be that people become settled in an area, and would prefer to downsize there so they don't need to uproot themselves. This is often very difficult, as there may not be availability in that area for a suitable smaller property.

oneeyedpigeon2y ago

> I don't know anyone that has an empty room in their house, or one that no-one enters for weeks at a time, etc.

I don't have any statistics to hand but, based on experience, there are a lot of houses in the UK like this. Particularly among middle class couples in their 60s, whose children have left home. In fact, my parents have two spare bedrooms that are only used a handful of times each year.

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