Would you live in a micro apartment?

Mumbai is an expensive city. While the cost of living is on a steady hike, it looks as if the price of real estate and the cost of transportation are on some kind of hallucinogen.

Let’s get practical. The stock of fossil fuels the world has is fast depleting. Those with money will continue to buy their share and more at whatever price, thus raising the average cost. Minimum fare for public transport and the price for all other commodities will subsequently rise.

Coming back to real estate. Till as long as people with money continue to buy property for the available rates, the rates will just remain skyrocketing. This is not even accounting for the demands for black money and things like that. There are people, newly married couples, buying 2,3 BHKs for a couple of crores.

Does a 20-something young couple need that much space? Hell, if you’ve grown up in such luxury and can still afford to replicate that, you are welcome to suit yourself.

I definitely don’t. My fiancee corroborates. Allow me to propose to you the idea of micro living or living with less.

Imagine a 300 sq. ft. flat. (A lot of ‘houses’ for the LIG or the Low Income Group that the MHADA builds are only as big as 225 sq. ft which often houses four and more members. (At the same time, unlike the elephant in the fridge joke). Don’t worry, you can also imagine an in-house toilet and a bathroom. The only other wall inside the apartment is mobile, which means it has a set of wheels at the top and bottom, by which you can move it from one of the room to the other. If you need more of the living room, push the mobile wall to the far end. If you need an extra room, keep the wall in the centre and put a mattress or an inflatable air bed there. Voila, spare bedroom! One side is obviously the kitchenette, with just enough to feed the two or an occasional four. I’ll bet that’s more space than you’ll need.

You are probably struggling to come up with disadvantages of a micro house but I would exhort you to push them aside while I tell you about the positives of living with less:

LESS SPACE TO COOL/LIGHT-UP

It’s only 300 sq. ft. which means it won’t cost you much to cool the entire space, if you want to. You won’t need more than a couple of CFL lights to light it up either. Moreover, green building techniques also suggest walls made of double-layered, durable fibre-glass that let in all the sunlight you’ll need during the day. All you need then are good blinds. You don’t want people on the road watching you have sex, but don’t let anything I say come between you and your kinks.

NO SPACE TO HORDE

You know you only have so much space which makes you think, “Do I really need this stuff?” which is good because you have more room for life and can also save money for that pending Ladakh trip!

And most importantly, which I’m the happiest about –

LESS SPACE TO CLEAN

I can imagine a lot of future fights with my wife about who’ll wash the dishes and who’ll clean the house with both of us wanting to do the latter.

I have a question for you. Given a chance, would you like to live in a micro apartment in Mumbai?