At first glance, the large Victorian house on Sacramento St. looks like a typical Cambridge residence, but something about it seems a bit out of the ordinary.

A sign above the porch proclaims, "Center For High Energy Metaphysics." And when you enter, another sign above the entrance to the dining room reads, "Don't spit in the soup--we've all got to eat."

Welcome to the Dudley Co-op, (officially called the Harvard Co-operative) where undergraduates trade chandeliered dining halls and masters' teas for a slightly more laid-back housing experience.

"We can tan nude," says Lisa S. Bromer '88-'91, a Dudley Co-op resident, "and...I mean look at this, my plants are blooming that I planted last year."

"We have cats, too," she adds.

Students who live in the Dudley Co-op or the Jordan J Co-op, the University's other co-operative living option, say their housing choice may give them a little more freedom, but it also demands more time.

Living in the co-ops means sharing the responsibilities for food-shopping, cooking and cleaning. Students perform about four to six hours of household chores each week in order to accumulate the week's required number of brownie points.

"The essential difference is that when you go home to a room in a house, you're going home to a dorm room...here, you come home to a big family...a pile of dishes you have to do--it's a little more to come home too," says Charles O. Redditt '90-'91, who lives in Dudley.

Approximately 35 students live in the Dudley Co-op, and 15 others lodge in Jordan for about half the board fee paid by house residents. According to Leo Cabranes-Grant, a resident tutor in Jordan, each co-op is a half-way house, a middle ground between "life in the real world" and a Harvard house.

"I used to be attached to Eliot House and it is very, very different from Eliot House," says Caroline M. Cowie, the Dudley resident tutor. "It's a lot less luxurious life, but it is as well looked after."

Students say the extra time they invest in co-op chores may sound like a burden, but "when you consider the time you spend goofing off, it's really not a terrible amount of time," says Rachel M. Safman '91 of Jordan.

And Eric P. Trueheart '91-'92, who also lives in Jordan, says he likes cooking his own food--which, he admits, he had never done before coming to the co-op.

All the board fees paid by co-op residents go into a collective fund which pays for the co-op's food. While the shopping list tries to accommodate students' varied tastes, "if you craved something extravagant like marinated herring, which no one else liked, we would probably ask you to buy it yourself," Safman says.

Students also say they like the distance co-op life puts between them and the administration.

"It doesn't feel institutional," says Misha X. Glouberman '90-'91. "There aren't all these university officials running around after you."