MOUNTAIN VIEW (CBS SF) – The housing crisis in the South Bay has a new form of short-term rental popping up.

A man in the Monta Loma neighborhood of Mountain View is renting out a Coleman tent in a “beautiful garden” outside his home for visitors or slightly more permanent residences for the high price of $46 per night; an amount that adds up to roughly $965 per month.

“I had been joking recently with someone about people would probably take a tent in a backyard and pay for it, so I decided to try it, and people actually were quite responsive,” said tent landlord John Potter.

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The tent, which measures 9′ by 7′ and retails for about two nights worth of rent in the garden, is currently listed on Airbnb, “very close to the Caltrain and Google X.”

On the San Francisco-based rental site, Potter also offers up a shower once per day for renters and the privilege of eating indoors.

The offer was so appealing that Potter says he had to more than double the daily rate from $20 to 446 on Airbnb. Interested renters are mostly people in between jobs, or starting new ones.

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“It kind of is (outrageous), said Potter. “But maybe they should build more affordable housing in Mountain View.”

If $965 a month for a tent is a bit much, a single room in this Monta Loma neighborhood goes for about $1,200 bucks a month.

Potter – a freelance web developer – doesn’t actually own the property. He lives with his parents, but they let him keep the rent. He says the best part about the rental is the “fresh air.”

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Airbnb is no stranger to controversy in the Bay Area. The company has been criticized for straining the already distressed rental market in the area, with many saying that the city needs to do more to regulate the service. Airbnb continues to claim adherence to a “shared-economy” objective.

The company also has a page dedicated solely to tent rentals in California.





Alyssa Pereira is a music writer, web producer, and pop culture blogger for CBS stations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Find her on Twitter at Alyssa Pereira