The Muffin Fairy and No-Knock Houses

Last night we were visited by the muffin fairy. An anonymouse neighbor in our intentional community has been leaving fresh muffins on porches these past few weeks, a truly random act of kindness. They look delicious, and we're saving them for a special occasion. The muffin fairy is a class act -- that's a cloth ribbon you see in the photo.

The muffin fairy could have left the muffins in our house, instead of on the front porch. Ours is a no-knock house. Let me explain --

When someone wants to build a house in our community, they run it by the architectural guidance team. We help them design the house to be friendly -- an inviting appearance, a front porch, a sitting area. We ask that they put the room they expect to spend the most time in at the front of the house. This is often a kitchen or study, with no curtains on the window, so that you can wave at neighbors or check out the action outside your door.

Bedrooms, bathrooms, and other private spaces tend to be in the back of the house, upstairs, or downstairs. The front of the house is "public", the back of the house is "private".

Several homes, like ours, have adopted a no-knock policy. After giving hundreds of tours of our community, I've noticed that some visitors get extremely nervouse learning about this. In my opinion, these are visitors who would be uncomfortable living here.

No-knock means we expect you to walk into our house without knocking. This has a number of advantages --

• We don't have to get up and answer the door.
• You can walk through the house and find us.

It also means that when we say "Our house is your house", we mean it. I've gotten up at 6:30 in the morning on occasion to find my next door neighbor rummaging through the refrigerator because he ran out of milk. Of course, I would never do anything like that to him. Instead, I might rummage through his refrigerator at midnight if I run out of ice cream. [Alas, that family left our community for Santa Barbara, but not because of this.]