House Hunting is No “Small” Feat

For the past several weeks I’ve been occupied with finding a new place to stay; my lease is up and it’s time to move to the city – exciting, I know. My roommates and I aren’t looking for anything too fancy, although it’s got to be near a subway station, it needs to be clean, and on-site laundry is a must. So far, the hunt for housing has been promising, but recently I stumbled across the perfect home: the M-CH.

The M-CH stands for Micro Compact Home – it is an ergonomically designed, 2.2 tonne, solar paneled cube. It measures 2.6m x 2.6m x 2.6m, and comes with everything I need – shower, toilet, microwave, fridge, stove top, sink, and bed. With space set aside for a flatscreen TV, and a slide-out table, the M-CH is the perfect bachelor pad. Check it out for yourself at microcompacthome.com!

In all seriousness, I won’t be moving into a micro compact home anytime soon, although I won’t rule it out for the future – it would especially make a great lakeside pad for summer weekends. However, I don’t just think the M-CH is cool because of the novelty of the idea, but for several other reasons as well. I really dig the idea of efficiency, and the compact home is definitely that. Its solar panels are especially handy in that regard, but imagine how little heating or air conditioning it would require for a space so small? Not very much, as you can imagine. There are even models of the home that are made to have even lower carbon emissions than the current model.

The environmental friendliness factors aside, the M-CH also forces the inhabitant to do something that is becoming less and less common – take a hike, literally. In a decent sized apartment, condo, or house, it’s harder to feel cramped up – especially with our iPads, laptops, and video games easily at hand. With such a small space, however, we’re forced to consider: Hmmm, I could probably go for some fresh air right now… I don’t know about you, but anything that forces me to get some fresh air can not be a bad thing.

So the apartment hunting continues for now, and I cross my fingers I’ll come across a place I even get half as excited for as the micro compact home. Come to think of it though, I’m sure my roommates will be happy about the extra space a normal apartment provides.

-Phil