Rooms beside running/biking trail, great roomies

Spacious living room where we can watch movies together

Come live with us in our gorgeous home by the baylands trails in East Palo Alto. Easy biking distance to Google (via off-road trails), Meta, Amazon and Stanford. Just a couple of miles from Palo Alto's downtown with restaurants, cafes and stores on University and California Aves.

We love living with roommates, and set up for low-stress sharing: 3 bathrooms for all (4 total), 2 fridges, 2 dishwashers, indoor bike rack, monthly cleaner. AT&T Fiber Internet (1 Gig/gbps), fast WiFi. Home theater: projector, screen, Roku/Netflix. Washer & dryer. Front door code so you don’t need a key. Yard with BBQ.

__Rooms available__
Rear right room. 11’ by 10’ 1” plus closet (7’ 10” by 2’ 1”). Views into backyard and across treetops above Golf Course. Carpeted. In-closet access to crawlspace occasionally needed by owners/plumbers etc. (with notice). Ground floor. 127 sq ft. $950/month. Available March 1st.

Seeking a roommate with the intention of staying at least six months.
Each roommate shares access to 3 full bathrooms with up to 5 other roommates.

__Who we are__
Our roommates include working grad students and professionals. We enjoy the social interaction and freedom of having independent, positive, friendly roommates. We like to go for a run, a bike ride, the gym, yoga, travel, enjoy the countryside, reading books and taking care of plants and our home. We like to stay reasonably tidy, especially in common areas, but we are not obsessive about it.

Living in the Comfy Creekside Castle are “I”, Moses, Tristan, Stephen, Emanuel, Moses’s two kittens Hazel and Maíz, and owners Mark & Grace. “I” is the Intake/Discharge Coordinator at a non-profit crisis residential facility that provides services to the psychiatrically disabled. Moses is studying learning design tech at Stanford and likes bbq-ing, cooking, and watching movies. Tristan works at a biotech startup, loves plants, and visits his other home in Oregon once a month. Stephen is working on his personal assistant startup and enjoys hiking, reading, learning new things (currently jiu jitsu), and playing with other people's pets. Emmanuel just arrived from WA to start working at Stanford. Hazel and Maíz are indoor kittens, who come out to play with us after Moses gets home. Mark is an artist who draws, paints and sculpts in his garage studio, and fixes the house. Grace works in operations management, gets involved in musical theatre and is learning cello. Both Mark and Grace are away quite a lot.

During COVID we are all cautious about exposing our roommates. We make mutual agreements about how to handle risks like casual visits by checking in with everyone and ensuring nobody is surprised or uncomfortable. When we have symptoms, we test and if positive we use N95 masks when briefly outside our rooms. In spite of this and many vaccinations several of us have now had and recovered from COVID.

__Pets__
We like to have cats in the house. Please don't apply if you are deathly allergic or this would make you unhappy. Please be willing to help keep cats indoors by paying attention to open doors and windows. We have two cats now. Note that our rescued cats already have feline leukemia virus so only another indoor cat with that virus (or a very old cat) would be suitable. Our limit is three cats and two cat owners. No dogs in the house. “I” keeps a pet corn snake in her room. Ask us about other creatures and we will think about it.

__Neighborhood; transportation__
This neighborhood is great for access to Google, Facebook, Amazon, Stanford, and Palo Alto/University Avenue/California Avenue shops, restaurants and Caltrain. There's Starbucks, Togo's, IKEA, a Cardenas grocery and a Target this side of 101, and there’s a lovely family-run grocery (“The Market at Edgewood”) with great fresh stuff and amazing patisserie-chef-made cakes at Embarcadero next to 101. It's not great for walking to shops/cafes - a convenience store a few blocks away is all. Two bike bridges over 101 lead to Palo Alto’s Midtown/Cal/University aves. Super family-run Taqueria La Cazuela is a short drive away. A running/biking trail at the back of the house connects to the Bay Trail. See birds, water and wildlife - loop runs (~4 miles) around Palo Alto airport and Duck Pond and baylands destinations.

We usually get 7.5 cars on the driveway which is typically all of them. The garage is not available since it’s Mark’s studio. The SamTrans 280 bus is nearby infrequently - don’t come here if your plan is to rely on public transport. It’s easy to get Uber and Lyft.

The neighborhood has an active Facebook group (East Palo Alto Neighbors) and a Nextdoor group (Pulgas Gardens) covering festivals, farmers markets, meetings and development proposals.

__Utilities etc.__
We share utilities and services, divided by the number of people living here so when the house is full each roommate pays 1/8 of the total. No landline phone service or cable. Internet included. A cleaner comes each month for $300 (split). Owners pay gardening. Security deposit is $500; pay deposit & first & last month's rent on move-in.

Rent and utilities are paid through an online platform; we require renters insurance.

__House rules__
No smoking or vaping anything, and no drugs on the premises (house and land) please - no exceptions. No subletting.

__Next steps___
Please write and tell us a bit about yourself (you must write representing yourself, not through an agency or family member) and let us know if you can come to meet us on the weekend of February 25th-26th. We are offering in-person tours on that weekend or if you are remote, a live video tour of the house and rooms, and we will meet together in person or by video (for remote people) and chat.
Happy room- and roommate-hunting!