by Lisa Hix

Like many people, Cari Zinter is looking for a place, a nice flat in the East Bay — except she would prefer that flat to be a platform in a tree. And she's willing to pay rent for a good solid oak in a backyard.

She'd been riding her bike across the country and decided she would like to build her own permanent residence in Oakland. In the name of finding "alternative ways of using space to live," her home among the birds would be rather simple — built on a 10-by-10 platform, with a wash basin for laundry and bathing, and a system for collecting rain water and using her urine for compost. In the future, she would even consider installing solar panels for electricity and a zip line to bring her bike up and down. She says she's hoping to inspire a new way of living, maybe even a whole community of people living in treehouses.

But perhaps Zinter, originally from Ohio, is unaware of how unpopular tree-sitters have become after a dozen or so poo-flinging activists — including our favorite Dumpster Muffin — spent 21 months altogether sleeping in the oak grove in front of UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium. Failing to prevent the university from chopping down the trees to erect a athletic training center, the last four were neatly plucked out of their perches on September 9 when construction workers built a scaffolding for the Berkeley cops to reach them.