Sometimes Silicon Valley makes it way too easy to parody the goings on of tech companies and their founders or employees. This is one of those times. First, Rob Rhinehart created a meal-replacement product called Soylent (because he is apparently not a Charlton Heston fan) so that busy coders and other employees could be more productive every day rather than wasting time eating or resting for more than 43 seconds. Then, Rhinehart decided that he would construct an experiential living structure with just a shipping container and a plot of land in Montecito Heights. Spoiler alert: that plan hasn’t worked well for ol’ Rob.
The shipping container “house” isn’t like those cool tiny houses or shipping container structures you see sometimes on HGTV. In fact, this isn’t a true house at all, but more of an empty shipping container plopped down in the middle of a hill somewhere and used as a flop house for Rhinehart and his friends. There is no working plumbing, trash receptacles, or any sort of security around the property. Which means that after only a short time the container was surrounded by trash and covered by graffiti left by random taggers or vagrants in the area.
Rhinehart has been cited multiple times by the city of Los Angeles for zoning and grading violations that he has up until now chosen to ignore. According to Gizmodo he was told he needed to update the property to be in accordance with their request and ignored all such notices. His court date is scheduled for September, but until that time at least his area neighbors know that their long nightmare of having a smelly, gross shipping container sitting next door is almost over.
(Via Gizmodo)
