Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/07/woman-explains-why-she-hates-l.html
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The tiny RV style toilet stall/shower sounds miserable. Even a tiny house should let you use a dry toilet seat… :-/
I don’t know how the boing boing contributors who live out of vans much of the time do it. It would be a huge challenge for me.
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What I hate about tiny houses is that they’re such a clear indication of how badly the rich have fucked over everyone who doesn’t have a million dollars to pay for a house with usable dimensions where you could raise a family.
The economy isn’t for everyone anymore. America’s amazing bounty is only for the rich. So cram yourself into 110 square feet, and be happy you only had to pay several hundred thousand dollars. I hope you don’t have any hobbies or aspirations that take up an area larger than your lap.
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I never understood why trailer park homes get a bum rap while tiny homes get praise. They’re basically the same thing…well, other than the fact that a trailer home often comes with an abundance of hillbilly neighbors.
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Well, as a hillbilly I can tell you hillbillies get a bum rap, too!
It’s rednecks we should look down on with disdain.
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Thank you. I’ve seen this, too, and it comes off as very classist. Manufactured homes (the industry term for “trailers”) are a logical housing solution for plenty of people. Built right and installed correctly, they can be very durable, safe and efficient.
I like the idea of custom built tiny homes, too, but that doesn’t mean we have to disparage other affordable options.
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a quarter of Americans live alone, and don’t necessarily need much room, especially as many cities work to improve public space and there are an increasing number of places to spend time away from home.
The idea of farming out the living room, dining room — basically all the comforts of home that let you feel private and in control — to random public spaces fills me with a surprising amount of unease.
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The article’s discussion of the housing crisis in the Bay Area is disingenuous. There’s only one real answer:
Hey, property owners: Quit jacking up the rents!
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I actually view it as the opposite. In large part when you see the Tiny House, live off the grid in an RV thing its fairly well off almost always white folks. Along with the purported “minimalism” that goes hand in hand with the concept. Seems largely driven by people dreaming of or actually discarding owned real estate, or checking out on higher end rentals properties they can well afford and discarding the sort of and amount of material goods it takes some level of wealth to have.
There seems to be very little interest in the subject among lower middle class or impoverished people. And the sort of middle class, especially city dwelling, folks who are already crammed into unlivably small yet expensive places like in NYC. Mostly seem to dream of moving to smaller cities or rural and suburban places where they can afford a larger more stable place.
This sort of thing always strikes me as a fetishization of superficial aspects of poverty. A sort of conspicuous consumption via the ascetic, with all its moral superiority and look at me intact. Having grown up without much, and spent a lot of time unable to afford basics. The idea that having less is “simpler” holds very little water with me.
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I feel like there should be a happy medium. Like smaller ranch style houses that are cozy but not claustrophobic.
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or, you know, any of the amazing historic bungalows that are all over the country.
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Buddy… you’re alright!
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I definitely opened this page, looked at the still at the start of the video and thought, “This woman looks a lot like Fred Armisen.”
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In my limited experience, they’ve also been able to maintain a sense of community that most places, even small towns have largely lost.
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Mobile homes are larger & more comfortable - and cheaper. But they do require you admit your economic status to yourself.
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Bring back the Sears Roebuck kit house!
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I suppose it’s not a coincidence that tiny-home enthusiasts often seem to have just moved in…
Not just the rich, but housing developers are responsible for this, too. Apparently developers can charge more for the extra square feet than it costs them to build, so there’s a half-century-long trend of increasing house sizes beyond what people need or even want.
Part of the problem is that they’re not the same - tiny houses are built by (middle class) owners on land they own; mobile homes are on land rented under terrible conditions. So it’s totally a class thing - the difference is one is about the poor being exploited.
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I highly recommend the book “Evicted” by Matthew Desmond. It covers a number of issues related to rental housing, and he spends a good amount of time looking at the mobile home rental market. It’s pretty nasty, with very little rights to your property since you don’t own the land. In many cases the owner of the mobile home simply abandons it when they are evicted, since they can’t find a way to move the trailer. In the end the landlord often takes the mobile home, and simply rents/sells it to someone else, with the spiral continuing.
The world of mobile home rentals is a world apart from what you see when you watch a tiny home show on HGTV.
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