Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/28/this-woman-lives-in-a-tiny-hou.html
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I don’t laugh at these things as a parent of 3 kids and think “it’s totally impractical if you have kids!” because that’s obvious. It’s not built for a family of 5.
I do though laugh and think “Oh to have a young back and joints again” because there is no way I’d be climbing/crawling those stairs every night and day or bending down and pulling things out of low storage spaces without cursing up a storm as thinks creak and crack in my body.
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While I’m excited that the Tiny Home on Wheels movement provides a respectable path to first-home ownership without taking on crazy-levels of debt, I’m saddened that so much is being invested into a depreciating asset. Tiny Homes on owned real estate = Yes! Tiny Homes on Wheels (on rented real-estate) = sadly no.
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Real estate can only “appreciate” by becoming less affordable for the next generation.
This is the world we live in but it doesn’t work very well and it will only get worse.
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I kind of think all these folks should give a shout-out of thanks to those who live in considerably less lovely locations so that their tiny home can exist at all. The mined, smelted, and forged metal in the stove and the frame of the trailer, the clear glass windows, the generator out behind…they all depend on those Dark Satanic Mills existing somewhere in the world, and workers have to live near them to keep them running.
It’s a “way forward” only for her and a few others; the great majority have to keep metal and glass and plastics, tractor factories and fertilizer plants (and pharmaceuticals and hospitals and dentists) all running, to create a society where she is wealthy enough in resources and energy-intensive manufactured goods to be able to do this.
I’m glad she can live close to nature, but she’s living at all because of profoundly un-natural production systems exist to support her lifestyle. It’s not a way forward for about 99% of Earth’s population.
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I lived in a “tiny house” back in the late 1980’s. It was called a “trailer” and was not seen as something chic.
That being said, a lot of these newfangled mobile homes are pretty nice.
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But if she has all the great outdoors, why live in a small trailer.
My anvestors lived aong the Columbia, but there nomadic, stoppingatvarious places when it was time. They had housing but.less formsl.
I.havr.no interest on a tiny house, but do think of implementing some of the inner design. Why not have a bed towards the criling, rather than using valuable floor dpacr? Those stairs look more useful than many, easy to access storage rather than a blank wall. The idea of a bed above s desk or something is decades old, in Ni!adic Furniture where it was a way of daving space in a small room.
I’m glad you’re taking her to task, rather than the Americans and Canadians whose housing choices use several orders of magnitude more of those “Dark Satanic Mill” products. Sure, the latter overwhelmingly outnumber types like her. but you and I know who the real problem is 
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I’m right in between your reality and your nostalgia. Having only one kid, and with my back and joints not in terrible shape, I look at something like this and think “oh maybe I could swing this as a low-cost summer home” and then I get lost in a Zillow-hole for a few hours…
It only appreciates if the next person is willing to pay more for it than you did. If you build a highly specialized home then it may be difficult to find a buyer when you sell it, and the buyers you do find may be unenthusiastic about the home and make low offers.
Or maybe she’ll find another young person willing to pay a premium to ditch their worldy anchors and minimize their life.
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She’s currently drinking delicious water straight from the creek?
Nope nope nope…
https://www.bccanoe.com/bc-canoeing-info/environment/41-food-safety-and-hygiene#water
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The Tiny Homes shows are as wishful thinking as House Hunters International with their needs… $2,000/mo London apartment with 3 bedrooms, yard for the dogs and parking.
But I mean, sure, go live alone on some old logging road far away from anyone else, walk along stream with no bear mace or whistle… just be at one with your surroundings.
There’s only so much you can do on a trailer frame.
I would much rather ‘build’ the house once I get on site, set down the pre-fab walls, bolt it all together - so what if it takes a day and some effort… otherwise don’t discount modern RV’s, the expandable sides make a HUGE difference… Find one with good insulation and you are golden.
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For people with a smaller budget:
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Should mention a local Tiny Home builder in town somehow convinced a nearby reserve that their homes were THE solution to the reserve housing crisis and LOTS of money was involved. Idea being they can be built elsewhere and be towed into place… the most needy in the community would get them first… the elders, the infirm.
No one said “Hey, she’s in a wheelchair and has diabetes, there’s no room inside to maneuver”, the 12 foot ceilings are useless since stairs and upper bedroom space are out of the question. And large families would be getting multiple trailers.
The practical every-day of these things, along with increased insulation needs, no one involved look at those issues.
In the end, the building company didn’t deliver anything, money was spent, criminal charges, court cases still being dealt with.
I toured one of their three-ever builds… workmanship & finish was appalling, I knew right away they were grifters, always had an excuse for delays and contract problems.
A group I work with is trying to bring in modular housing units from China for their people … as long as there are no escalators I think they might have a solution there.
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When I first started watching Bryce’s channel (probably after a recommendation here) I was puzzled at the emphasis in many of them on the “on wheels”; it took a while before I understood that in some areas (especially some of the NZ examples) the “on wheels” was code for “exempt from building code”. The thing about code is, after the obligatory railing against The Man and His Rules, man, quite a lot of it is there for a pretty good reason.
The Boingiest one I can think of is the one that looks like a guitar amp:
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I don’t think they’re a solution for everyone but they might be a solution for some. There are several tiny-home communities that have been created as transitional housing for homeless people, for instance. In those situations, the right zoning and lower cost of the units can make a donated or municipal dollar go further. And for those who are just looking to own less and pay less, and maybe even be mobile, they seem to be pretty popular.
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This. Personally, I think tiny homes are cool, but they definitely aren’t for everyone, and they are not a solution to systematic stuff like lack of affordable housing in big cities.
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It’s artisanal giardia, so it’s OK.
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Yeah, that does seem like an important thing to note. But I also think there’s another reason “on wheels” matters. In many areas I think there are actually pieces of land where no “permanent structure” can be built. So that land ends up being exclusively for the use of recreation, like camping, fishing, etc. and that land tends to be pretty cheap because of that restriction. A tiny home would technically be able to circumvent those rules, if properly outfitted.
BTW that guitar amp one is on a foundation, according to the video, so I’m guessing it’s built to code.
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Her main house is on foundation (and built to code), the music studio is on wheels.
Many of the houses featured in the channel are sitting on property owned by friends or family, and if there is space for that it makes quite a bit of sense to me. (OTOH, if my neighbor put a house in his front yard and circumvented my ability to formally object to it by putting it on wheels, I would be mightily cheesed off, especially if he then used the property for AirBnB.)
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