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A landlord who cares deeply about your health? Well, that’s the story, anyway. Jinesh Varia, who is renting out a three-bedroom townhouse with a fireplace and a Jacuzzi tub in Bothell, WA, a Seattle suburb, is offering a $200 discount on the $2,200 monthly rent to prospective tenants who pledge not to eat meat. Is it a canny attempt to publicize his rental property with a nifty discount? Or a blatant effort to blast the word about his favorite cause, environmental activism via vegetarianism? Well, maybe it’s a bit of both.
Varia is a member of Vegetarians of Washington, a nonprofit group dedicated to improving “the health and well-being of people and the world we live in, both by encouraging mainstream Americans to discover the advantages and pleasures of vegetarian food.”
He likens his preference for herbivores to no-smoking policies, though he concedes that those are generally put in place to preserve the property from stinking—far more than to reduce lung cancer.
“We can promote this as a way to spread awareness,” he told NBC affiliate King5.
Varia is moving out of his 1,566-square foot townhouse not because of an influx of meat-chomping neighbors, but because his 9-month-old baby has started crawling and the place isn’t fully childproof.
So is it worth sacrificing that double cheeseburger with bacon for cheaper rent? Here are a couple of things to take into consideration: Some say being a vegetarian is actually more expensive. Meanwhile, meat eaters might consider this a weird (and new?) form of housing discrimination.
And here’s one thing Varia might not have considered: Vegetarians don’t necessarily make better tenants. They may still be barbecuing tofu and drinking organic beer into the wee hours, roasting malodorous Brussels sprouts while the neighbors are trying to enjoy a steak.
The truth is, Varia won’t know for sure if his tenants stick to the veggie cause. He says he doesn’t plan to go through the trash in search of bones.
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