A dispatch from Commissar D. Volkov, Regional Housing Allocation Bureau, Sector 7
Photo: Commissar D. Volkov, via image.jannyai.com
Greetings, Comrade.
First, allow me to extend the warmest congratulations of the People's Housing Directorate on the successful abolition of the rentier class. We have reviewed your social media archive — all 847 posts — and we want you to know that your contribution to the discourse was noted, appreciated, and filed in a folder labeled Pre-Revolutionary Enthusiasm (Theoretical).
You wanted your landlord gone. He is gone. The Revolution delivers.
Now, if you could please move your yoga mat approximately eighteen inches to the left, Comrade Dmitri needs space for his cot.
What You Imagined vs. What Has Been Allocated
We understand there may be some confusion. The aesthetic of the communist housing fantasy — as curated extensively across your Pinterest boards — featured exposed brick, a communal herb garden on a sun-drenched rooftop, perhaps a reading nook, definitely no landlord sliding passive-aggressive notes under the door about the recycling. It looked, frankly, a lot like a Brooklyn loft advertised at $4,200 a month but with the caption "imagine this, but free and equitable."
The People's Housing Directorate regrets to inform you that the historical record had other plans.
What has actually been allocated to your former two-bedroom apartment — previously occupied by you and, on weekends, a sourdough starter named Gerald — is as follows:
- Eleven occupants, including yourself, all assigned to the regional fruit-picking collective
- Two sets of bunk beds in what was previously your bedroom, plus one additional cot in the hallway alcove you were using as a "meditation corner"
- One shared bathroom, which operates on a posted schedule. Your window is 6:14 to 6:29 a.m. We suggest efficiency.
- A communal kitchen where meals are prepared collectively and distributed by roster. Gerald the sourdough starter has been requisitioned for the collective bread program. He is thriving.
The herb garden remains a possibility. Comrade Yusuf has expressed interest. He will need tools, however, and tool requisition forms take approximately four to six weeks.
On the Matter of Noise Complaints
You have asked — twice now, in increasingly polite but increasingly strained tones — about the process for filing a noise complaint regarding Comrade Aleksei's 4 a.m. coughing.
This is an excellent question, and we want to honor it with a complete and honest answer.
There is no process.
Under the previous system, you had a landlord. He was, by your own extensive documentation, a negligent slumlord who once took six weeks to fix a radiator and once raised your rent by $300 because he "had a feeling the market was moving." You were correct to resent him. But that landlord — that terrible, rent-gouging, passive-aggressive landlord — was also, functionally, a single point of contact for the management of your living situation. He existed. You could call him. You could leave a bad Yelp review.
The People's Housing Directorate is a committee of seven people, two of whom are currently reassigned to the eastern grain collective, and none of whom are responsible for Aleksei's sinuses.
We suggest earplugs. They have been requisitioned. Estimated arrival: spring.
The Community You Always Wanted (Mandatory Edition)
Here is where we want to offer some genuine encouragement, because the People's Housing Directorate is not without heart.
You posted, on multiple occasions, that what Americans fundamentally lack is community. You lamented the atomization of modern life, the way neighbors don't know each other, the loneliness epidemic, the death of the third place. You were, we must say, not wrong.
You now have community. Profound, inescapable, around-the-clock community. You know your neighbors' sleep schedules, dietary preferences, relationship histories, and at least two of their recurring nightmares. Comrade Fatima makes a cabbage soup on Thursdays that the entire floor can smell by Wednesday evening. Comrade Lev plays chess against himself and narrates it aloud. You have learned things about human snoring that no prior generation of Americans was privileged to understand.
Is this the community you envisioned? Possibly not in its precise contours. But it is community, and it is yours, and it is allocated.
A Note on Your Previous Living Situation
We have reviewed the records. Your former rent was $1,850 a month for a one-bedroom in a mid-sized American city. You described this as "genuinely criminal" and "proof that capitalism is incompatible with human dignity," sentiments that appeared in fourteen separate posts between 2020 and 2023.
Your current housing costs you nothing in currency. This is technically correct. The Revolution has, in the most literal sense, fulfilled your request.
In exchange, you are asked to contribute forty-three hours per week to the regional stone fruit harvest, share approximately 340 square feet of living space with ten other adults, and wake up at 5:45 a.m., which we note is earlier than you have ever voluntarily woken up based on any available evidence, including your own tweets.
The math, we feel, is straightforward.
Looking Forward
The People's Housing Directorate wants to close on a note of genuine optimism, because that is the Revolutionary spirit and also because morale surveys in Sector 7 have been trending in a direction that concerns the committee.
You are part of something larger than yourself. The apartment that once enriched a single landlord now houses eleven workers essential to the collective agricultural output. The rooftop, previously locked and accessible only to residents who paid a $75 monthly amenity fee, is now open to all. Comrade Yusuf's herb garden application is progressing.
You wanted a world without landlords. You live in one.
We simply ask that you update your expectations to match the world you asked for, arrive at your fruit-picking station by 6:45 a.m. sharp, and please, please stop asking if there is a way to get a private bathroom.
There is not a way to get a private bathroom.
In solidarity and efficient housing allocation,
Commissar D. Volkov Regional Housing Bureau, Sector 7 "A roof over every head. Whether you like the head it's next to is a bourgeois concern."