For $800 a month, you can sleep in this closet in Palo Alto

A Bay Area startup is making waves with a set of new bunk-bed style sleeping pods available for up to $800 a month. They’re basically bunk beds with curtains in an enclosed space no more than 8 feet high. There are 15 total pods within a single house. For obvious reasons, renters can’t have overnight visitors.

The arrangement has gone viral, eliciting mockery from the socialsphere. A lot of people can’t believe someone would spend $9,600 a year on a bunk bed. But the pods are located in Palo Alto near the Stanford campus. A studio apartment in the Bay Area currently rents for around $2,400 — and that’s if you can find one. 

The pods come with utilities, internet, and a work-from-home space for those who just can’t get enough of the squeeze. The startup, Brownstone Shared Housing, is seeing high demand and expanding their product to other cities.

CBS News calls it “the latest sign that the U.S. housing shortage is reaching crisis levels.”

Hopefully we’ll look back on this someday and shake our heads instead of thinking, “what a steal!”