12 ms·

A Better Alternative to Small Houses

122 points by chrismealy 10y ago

grecy 10y ago
Complete nonsense. A large(r) "shithole" requires more money for: # Maintenance in general - things like water heaters, furnaces, roofs and kitchen appliances are not cheap. # Heating. Older buildings have crap insulation, you're going to pay through the nose for that if you live anywhere cold. # Property Tax. Depending on where you live it's a function of the square footage of the house. # Things to fill it with. The bigger the living space, the more stuff you have.
bryanrasmussen 10y ago
from the name of the domain I thought the alternative he was going to discuss was going homeless with really good camping equipment.
- contingencies 10y ago
  Same here. Which reminds me, I have some decent Kiwi camping gear in Sydney, might give it a workout next month in the southern hemisphere summer!
ars 10y ago
(Summary: Live in a rundown, but large, house.) That only works if you rent. It's too expensive to own and not maintain a rundown home - you lose too much money on letting it decay. And no, I don't understand the economics of how it's not worth it for a homeowner, but is worth it for a landlord to let property decay. But somehow it is.
- thinkloop 10y ago
  The shittier the shithole the less depreciation there is. Land gains value, houses lose value. A brand new home, with brand new appliances, starts to depreciate quickly - like driving the car off the lot. Once the oven, roof, walls, plumbing, is 10yrs old the 11th year doesn't matter much. There is a threshold of course - if you let the roof cave in and destroy everything inside there's a jump in loss there. Otherwise the longer you can make use of your shitty house, on your appreciating land, the more financially beneficial it will be.
digi_owl 10y ago
err?
LouisSayers 10y ago
Yeah, but then there's the mould, the lack of insulation, rough neighbourhood and paper-thin walls (if in apartments) that you have to put up with... Sure you can get a shit hole, but then it's important to ask why it's considered a shit hole. Shitty housing in good areas aren't common (at least not where I've lived)
Swizec 10y ago
Or, you know, just get a place you like and understand that a home is a home, not an investment. The part whete people get into trouble is when they buy a home and think it's an investment. The implication of home != investment is that you get something you can afford.
- aidenn0 10y ago
  What does "you can afford" mean? By definition you can't be bankrupted by nonrecourse debt. On the other hand, I have a fairly significant fraction of my net worth tied up in my home, and a fair amount of equity at this point, so it would be fairly painful to lose it. That being said, in hindsight I am almost certainly financially in a better position than had I been renting for the past 5 years (I say "almost" because appraisals aren't worth the paper they are printed on as far as I'm concerned; I don't know a single person in this town who has bought or sold a house within 10% of the appraised value in the past decade). It seems like poor advice to not consider a home as an investment; investments come with risks, as well as opportunity costs. Particularly for smaller units, I've known places where renting was so much cheaper than buying that it should be considered a luxury to buy, and yet people just buy once they have a down-payment without considering the financial repercussions. Maybe you really mean one must understand that a home is not a risk-free investment, in which case we are in agreement.
  - michaelt 10y ago
    What does "you can afford" mean? Presumably that your monthly loan payments (and routine maintenance costs and bills) should be a small enough portion of your income that you can cover your day-to-day living expenses and still have a financial safety net. You know, so you don't get into financial trouble because there's a gas price rise or your dog needs to go to the vet.
  - Swizec 10y ago
    > yet people just buy once they have a down-payment without considering the financial repercussions. My desired location is in an anomalous realestate market. Mortgage for the place I live in would cost me about $6k/month, rent is about $3.5k/month. Even if that wasn't the case, do I really want an illiquid investment that ties me down with a loan for 30 years when there are so many other investments I could make? Just considering a downpayment of, say, $200k ... for that kinda money I could take 2 or 3 years off work and build a business that makes much more than that. Riskier investment, sure, but also a lot more profitable and more fun. Quicker returns too. Dunno, the arguments for buying never made sense to me. Unless of course you have high leverage (can buy cash, but choose not to). Then it's a whole different game.
bArray 10y ago
I live in a shared shit hole and let me tell you, it can be pretty damn miserable at times. I'm living 20 minutes from central London via train for £300 a month. Everything is falling apart, things keep breaking because they have been repaired so many times, everything is glitchy, bits of ceiling occasionally fall on my head. All that said, it's freedom. I can live any hours I like, do anything I want and not worry about the consequences. I don't worry about the paint falling off the wall, the furniture that wobbles or the heating that randomly turns on. I would say I am living the life.
- midgetjones 10y ago
  It depresses me to say so, but that is insanely cheap for London.
  - bbcbasic 10y ago
    It's insanely cheap for south east England. Must be a shared room I'm guessing.
    - bArray 10y ago
      This is slightly north of London. Shared accommodation but separate rooms.
      - bbcbasic 10y ago
        I used to live in welwyn garden city and paid that sort of rent. Good way to save money.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    The price tells you how awful it must be to be that cheap.
    - bArray 10y ago
      Yeah, it's literally the cheapest place I could find in the local area.
SwellJoe 10y ago
I'd like to put forward the pinnacle of this theory: Get a tiny shithole. Travel trailers are dirt cheap, once they reach a certain age, and they're shitholes, once they reach a certain age. There really isn't much you can do to fix up a really old travel trailer that isn't one of the "collectible" sort (Airstream, mostly, but there are some others with collector value). They don't cost too much to heat/cool, even if poorly insulated, because they're very, very small (a couple hundred square feet). They've also got wheels, so you can drive them south when it gets cold and north when it gets warm. And, unlike tiny houses, you can park them in most RV parks, which provides the hookups you need to live comfortably (though the older and shittier your trailer is, the fewer parks will take you, but you don't want an expensive and fancy RV park, anyway, as that defeats the purpose of living in a shithole tiny house). I say all this only half jokingly. I live in a 32 year old Avion travel trailer (one of the collectible sorts, all aluminum and very expensive when new); not quite a shithole, but not exactly pristine, either. I genuinely recommend it for folks who have the freedom to do so.
- sakopov 10y ago
  How frequently do you travel? Do you work remotely and if so how do you manage to find internet connection? This is something I've been very interested in for some time now.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    It depends on a number of factors. For the first four years, or so, I traveled a lot, rarely staying in one place for more than a month at a time, and sometimes less than a week. For the past year, because I'm traveling with a girlfriend who likes more stability, and her cats who hate driving, we've been taking it quite slowly. We've mostly stayed at least a month wherever we stop, and we've been in our current location for about four months. I work remotely, yes, but always have, even before traveling. Internet has gotten outrageously expensive in recent years, as no one offers unlimited data. I spend about $250 (sometimes as much as $300) a month on Internet (it used to be under $100) from two providers, and still often find myself out of data near the end of the month. So, you should budget for that, unless you want to spend a lot of time in coffee shops and libraries and such. I have friends who travel and spend much less, but they don't work from their RV as much as I do. It's a pretty flexible lifestyle; one can, and people do, park the whole summer in one location and then move south for winter and spend the whole winter in the desert or southern California, or Mexico. Others travel nearly full-time. It's the benefit of having a fully self-contained home with wheels.
devoply 10y ago
I feel this is a passive aggressive way of attacking what's a reasonable idea. To live in a small place that you own outright. Maybe this guy associates that with smug hipsters or something like that. But really it's about people seeking autonomy. Not seeking a way out of society or wanting to live at the bottom rung of it.
Tharkun 10y ago
I don't live in a shithole, but I live in a shitty neighbourhood with many shitholes. It's definitely not as glamourous as this guy makes it out to be. The whole 'broken window syndrome' means that no one gives a shit about anything in the neighbourhood. People will literally shit on your doorstep. They will drunkenly crash their cars into their garage in the middle of the night. You will be awoken, many a night, because people are fighting. Stay away from shitholes if you value sleep and your sanity.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  And when people move away they call it white flight and question why they didn't stick around and give back to the community. What community?
  - jandrese 10y ago
    Or they do stick around and try hard to make the area a better place to live and get nothing but grief for gentrifying the neighborhood.
- internaut 10y ago
  It took me a while to understand this, two violent encounters. Rent was low but not worth the damage it does to your nerves. Depending on your neighbours you could be easily 100x more likely to get mugged. In hindsight the burned out house next door was a definite clue!
hubert123 10y ago
I live in a shithole and the only complaint that I have is the health risk from using a shared toilet and the noise in the city. Other than that, I really dont care. I have everything I need and it's cheap. If I could get something even cheaper then I would.
jcoffland 10y ago
The problem with shitholes is that they suck. Sure they are cheaper but like fast food it's not good for you.
TempleOSV412 10y ago
small mobile computers suck. Give me a Xeon 3Ghz 24 core.
sigi45 10y ago
I'm grown up enought to have so much aesthetic that i don't wanna life in a shithole anymore.
metaphor 10y ago
Extolling the merits of a clear pejorative strikes me as disingenuous to say the least. I honestly can't figure whether this blog simply echoes the sentiments of a bachelor longing for days free from adult responsibility, or tries to be some hip justification for squalor conditions contrived by the outrageous cost of living in a high-density city. If your reasons for choosing to live in a shithole are: 1. cost; 2. cost; and 3. laziness thinly paraded as character...more 1st-world power to you. I prefer to live frugal, which actually requires a bit of work to pull off.
- drcross 10y ago
  Some of you guys really need to lighten up.
blubb-fish 10y ago
I live in Germany where I guess the situation is quite different in that regard from the States. One thing that comes to mind is that shitholes are also usually located in shit areas - the whole neighbourhood situation is there usually rather depressing and less secure. The idea of a tiny house is that you can place it anywhere - at least in theory. And that allows you to choose an especially calm, quiet, peaceful environment. I'd love to live in a tiny house - a shit hole on the other hand does not seem so appealing. Also b/c the additional square meters wouldn't be of much use. A nicer less is for me more than a shittier cheap more.
- yitchelle 10y ago
  I also live in Germany. The other day I was walking past a kleingartenverein [0] and wonder how it it will be before it becomes legal to stay in in the small hut that is on each garden. [0] - for the non-German speaker folks, this is the closes I can find on what a kleingartenverein is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)
  - jsilence 10y ago
    The Bundeskleingartengesetz will never allow this.
50CNT 10y ago
We're currently going for "tiny shithole". Trying to set up a full kitchen in <4sqm of space. Our current BOM for that is 1 x 15L Medical Wastebasket 1 x60x40cm Table 1 x Anti Slip Stickers 2 x 30x40cm Bamboo Cutting Boards 1 x 75cmx35cmx150cm Industrial Shelf 1 x 56cmx24cmx38cm Plate Rack 1 x 7W T5 LED Lamp 1 x T5 plug with switch 1 x 90cmx45cmx180cm Industrial Shelf 1 x 71cmx46cmx21.1cm Range Hood 1 x 15cm Range Hood Exhaust 1 x HEPA/Active Charcoal Filter Sheets 1 x Roll of Greaseproof Foil 1 x Induction Plate 2100W 1 x Pressure Cooker 1000W 70kPA 1 x 52cmx32.5cmx30.5cm Oven 1600W 1 x 182L Fridge 1 x Kitchen Scale 1 x Kitchen TImer 1 x Meat Thermometer 1 x Immersion Blender 1 x Coffee Machine 1 x Chefs Knife 1 x Cast Iron Skillet/Dutch Oven 4 x Lint-free Kitchen Towels 1 x Vegetable Peeler 1 x Paring Knife 1 x Silicone Spatula 1 x Ceramic Sautee Pan 2 x Large Mixing Bowl 8 x Small Prep Bowl 1 x Zester (Microplane) 1 x Silicone Bench Scraper 1 x Tongs 1 x Mesh Sieve 1 x Strainer 1 x Set of Measuring Spoones 1 x Ladle 1 x Can Openner (side open) 1 x Potato Ricer 1 x Waiters Bottle Opener 2 x Wooden Spoon 1 x Kitchen Apron 1 x Salad Spinner 1 x Sharpening Stone 2 x Pepper/Salt Mill 1 x Set of Tupperware 17pcs. 8 x Plates 1 x Pack of Chopsticks 20pcs 8 x Cutlery Set (Fork, Knife, Spoon) 8 x Highball Glasses 1+1 x 120cmx60cmx75cm Foldable Table 8 x Stackable Chairs We've spent about 4500RMB (650USD) on it, which includes some non-kitchen stuff (Wardrobes, Bedding, Lamps, extra shelving), and there's still some bits and bobs we'll need to get, but all in all, it's a compact, cheap, and versatile kitchen stack.
- thro32 10y ago
  You have 8 x Stackable Chairs at 4sqm?
  - 50CNT 10y ago
    4sqm is just the kitchen, not the dining/living area. We want to be able to stow those away, and have folding tables. Edit: Living area is about 6sqm (3mx2m)
- thro32 10y ago
bane 10y ago
I've never quite understood the problem the tiny house movement is supposed to be solving other than "look at all the amenities we can cram into such a tiny space!" Most of the time when they're shown off, they're sitting isolated on some huge lot somewhere in the woods, so housing density isn't it. I mean, clearly, just look at how they're positioned on the market -- 9/10 are in the woods or next to a lake or some such. A housing situation that's less sustainable than suburbs. If I look for ones that are actually for sale, they just seem to be rebranded college apartments or RVs - except now the sellers are charging twice as much because they attached a solar shower to the back or something. They often come with advice for how to get them into RV parks or mobile home parks, but those can be very expensive to dock a house in and can sometimes come with uncomfortable and very real externalities as you intersect with the transient and the poor (plus, if you're going to live in a mobile home park, you may as well just buy a used mobile home, they're much more comfortable to live in). Just like RVs and mobile homes, most of the shed-like tiny houses are terrible housing investments because the market views them as what they are, RVs and sheds, and depreciates them over time on average, while actual real estate tends to appreciate over time. And for the non-RV tiny houses, they don't solve the mobility question. They're just about as fixed as a normal home structure. And notions about living less materially seem okay, but there are many long-term stories of tiny home dwellers who run away screaming because of how cramped their living conditions are, and all the unexpected external costs (like self storage for their actual stuff) that never seems to get into tiny house movement propaganda. I feel like what they're actually trying to solve is the desire of apartment dwellers to "own" a home without having to go through the normal home ownership system, which they've been conditioned to view as a trap of some sort for reasons, and "hack" that system by coming at it from some non-traditional angle. It's also interesting how pretty much all of the professionally designed and purpose built tiny homes seem to lead their sales pitch with all the tiny house movement awards they've won and really not much about the structure or the maintenance of the 20 acres the tiny house sits on.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  Tiny homes are about simplifying your life. You don't accumulate junk, and you tend to really enjoy the things you do own. If you keep a bunch of stuff in storage you're missing the point of the exercise. Tiny homes are also a statement of individuality. For it to work you have to select or create a design that fits how you live. People frequently build aesthetic fixtures and storage into their tiny homes as well. Thus the space reflects you much more than a trailer/mobile home. Finally, a large part of it is a desire not to be shackled in debt. Not having long term financial obligations is very freeing; on the other hand a mortgage is a hassle. Tiny homes are definitely only a good choice for active people who like the outdoors or being publicly social. You should avoid pre-built or spec tiny homes if possible - for it to work the space needs to feel like an extension of you.
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
“You don’t need to fix up a shithole!” Well, maybe. One shithole some friends lived in in Melbourne had had all the copper piping stolen, so the landlord had replaced it with garden hose. Touching the shower head or taps in the bathroom resulted in a mild electric tingle. Something wasn't right there I tell you. Probably electrical earthing and the absence of a residual current device. Another shithole, this time in Adelaide, I lived in for a couple years, when it rained heavy one gutter overflowed and there would be a waterfall above the window inside the house. Couple other shitholes I saw in my 20's weren't so bad. Filth is fun when you're young. Also, there's no way a lender will get in on you borrowing to buy a shithole.

122 points by chrismealy 10y ago

grecy 10y ago

Complete nonsense. A large(r) "shithole" requires more money for: # Maintenance in general - things like water heaters, furnaces, roofs and kitchen appliances are not cheap. # Heating. Older buildings have crap insulation, you're going to pay through the nose for that if you live anywhere cold. # Property Tax. Depending on where you live it's a function of the square footage of the house. # Things to fill it with. The bigger the living space, the more stuff you have.

bryanrasmussen 10y ago

from the name of the domain I thought the alternative he was going to discuss was going homeless with really good camping equipment.

contingencies 10y ago
Same here. Which reminds me, I have some decent Kiwi camping gear in Sydney, might give it a workout next month in the southern hemisphere summer!

ars 10y ago

(Summary: Live in a rundown, but large, house.) That only works if you rent. It's too expensive to own and not maintain a rundown home - you lose too much money on letting it decay. And no, I don't understand the economics of how it's not worth it for a homeowner, but is worth it for a landlord to let property decay. But somehow it is.

thinkloop 10y ago
The shittier the shithole the less depreciation there is. Land gains value, houses lose value. A brand new home, with brand new appliances, starts to depreciate quickly - like driving the car off the lot. Once the oven, roof, walls, plumbing, is 10yrs old the 11th year doesn't matter much. There is a threshold of course - if you let the roof cave in and destroy everything inside there's a jump in loss there. Otherwise the longer you can make use of your shitty house, on your appreciating land, the more financially beneficial it will be.

digi_owl 10y ago

err?

LouisSayers 10y ago

Yeah, but then there's the mould, the lack of insulation, rough neighbourhood and paper-thin walls (if in apartments) that you have to put up with... Sure you can get a shit hole, but then it's important to ask why it's considered a shit hole. Shitty housing in good areas aren't common (at least not where I've lived)

Swizec 10y ago

Or, you know, just get a place you like and understand that a home is a home, not an investment. The part whete people get into trouble is when they buy a home and think it's an investment. The implication of home != investment is that you get something you can afford.

aidenn0 10y ago
What does "you can afford" mean? By definition you can't be bankrupted by nonrecourse debt. On the other hand, I have a fairly significant fraction of my net worth tied up in my home, and a fair amount of equity at this point, so it would be fairly painful to lose it. That being said, in hindsight I am almost certainly financially in a better position than had I been renting for the past 5 years (I say "almost" because appraisals aren't worth the paper they are printed on as far as I'm concerned; I don't know a single person in this town who has bought or sold a house within 10% of the appraised value in the past decade). It seems like poor advice to not consider a home as an investment; investments come with risks, as well as opportunity costs. Particularly for smaller units, I've known places where renting was so much cheaper than buying that it should be considered a luxury to buy, and yet people just buy once they have a down-payment without considering the financial repercussions. Maybe you really mean one must understand that a home is not a risk-free investment, in which case we are in agreement.
- michaelt 10y ago
  What does "you can afford" mean? Presumably that your monthly loan payments (and routine maintenance costs and bills) should be a small enough portion of your income that you can cover your day-to-day living expenses and still have a financial safety net. You know, so you don't get into financial trouble because there's a gas price rise or your dog needs to go to the vet.
- Swizec 10y ago
  > yet people just buy once they have a down-payment without considering the financial repercussions. My desired location is in an anomalous realestate market. Mortgage for the place I live in would cost me about $6k/month, rent is about $3.5k/month. Even if that wasn't the case, do I really want an illiquid investment that ties me down with a loan for 30 years when there are so many other investments I could make? Just considering a downpayment of, say, $200k ... for that kinda money I could take 2 or 3 years off work and build a business that makes much more than that. Riskier investment, sure, but also a lot more profitable and more fun. Quicker returns too. Dunno, the arguments for buying never made sense to me. Unless of course you have high leverage (can buy cash, but choose not to). Then it's a whole different game.

bArray 10y ago

I live in a shared shit hole and let me tell you, it can be pretty damn miserable at times. I'm living 20 minutes from central London via train for £300 a month. Everything is falling apart, things keep breaking because they have been repaired so many times, everything is glitchy, bits of ceiling occasionally fall on my head. All that said, it's freedom. I can live any hours I like, do anything I want and not worry about the consequences. I don't worry about the paint falling off the wall, the furniture that wobbles or the heating that randomly turns on. I would say I am living the life.

midgetjones 10y ago
It depresses me to say so, but that is insanely cheap for London.
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  It's insanely cheap for south east England. Must be a shared room I'm guessing.
  - bArray 10y ago
    This is slightly north of London. Shared accommodation but separate rooms.
    - bbcbasic 10y ago
      I used to live in welwyn garden city and paid that sort of rent. Good way to save money.
- pjc50 10y ago
  The price tells you how awful it must be to be that cheap.
  - bArray 10y ago
    Yeah, it's literally the cheapest place I could find in the local area.

SwellJoe 10y ago

I'd like to put forward the pinnacle of this theory: Get a tiny shithole. Travel trailers are dirt cheap, once they reach a certain age, and they're shitholes, once they reach a certain age. There really isn't much you can do to fix up a really old travel trailer that isn't one of the "collectible" sort (Airstream, mostly, but there are some others with collector value). They don't cost too much to heat/cool, even if poorly insulated, because they're very, very small (a couple hundred square feet). They've also got wheels, so you can drive them south when it gets cold and north when it gets warm. And, unlike tiny houses, you can park them in most RV parks, which provides the hookups you need to live comfortably (though the older and shittier your trailer is, the fewer parks will take you, but you don't want an expensive and fancy RV park, anyway, as that defeats the purpose of living in a shithole tiny house). I say all this only half jokingly. I live in a 32 year old Avion travel trailer (one of the collectible sorts, all aluminum and very expensive when new); not quite a shithole, but not exactly pristine, either. I genuinely recommend it for folks who have the freedom to do so.

sakopov 10y ago
How frequently do you travel? Do you work remotely and if so how do you manage to find internet connection? This is something I've been very interested in for some time now.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  It depends on a number of factors. For the first four years, or so, I traveled a lot, rarely staying in one place for more than a month at a time, and sometimes less than a week. For the past year, because I'm traveling with a girlfriend who likes more stability, and her cats who hate driving, we've been taking it quite slowly. We've mostly stayed at least a month wherever we stop, and we've been in our current location for about four months. I work remotely, yes, but always have, even before traveling. Internet has gotten outrageously expensive in recent years, as no one offers unlimited data. I spend about $250 (sometimes as much as $300) a month on Internet (it used to be under $100) from two providers, and still often find myself out of data near the end of the month. So, you should budget for that, unless you want to spend a lot of time in coffee shops and libraries and such. I have friends who travel and spend much less, but they don't work from their RV as much as I do. It's a pretty flexible lifestyle; one can, and people do, park the whole summer in one location and then move south for winter and spend the whole winter in the desert or southern California, or Mexico. Others travel nearly full-time. It's the benefit of having a fully self-contained home with wheels.

devoply 10y ago

I feel this is a passive aggressive way of attacking what's a reasonable idea. To live in a small place that you own outright. Maybe this guy associates that with smug hipsters or something like that. But really it's about people seeking autonomy. Not seeking a way out of society or wanting to live at the bottom rung of it.

Tharkun 10y ago

I don't live in a shithole, but I live in a shitty neighbourhood with many shitholes. It's definitely not as glamourous as this guy makes it out to be. The whole 'broken window syndrome' means that no one gives a shit about anything in the neighbourhood. People will literally shit on your doorstep. They will drunkenly crash their cars into their garage in the middle of the night. You will be awoken, many a night, because people are fighting. Stay away from shitholes if you value sleep and your sanity.

cmdrfred 10y ago
And when people move away they call it white flight and question why they didn't stick around and give back to the community. What community?
- jandrese 10y ago
  Or they do stick around and try hard to make the area a better place to live and get nothing but grief for gentrifying the neighborhood.
internaut 10y ago
It took me a while to understand this, two violent encounters. Rent was low but not worth the damage it does to your nerves. Depending on your neighbours you could be easily 100x more likely to get mugged. In hindsight the burned out house next door was a definite clue!

hubert123 10y ago

I live in a shithole and the only complaint that I have is the health risk from using a shared toilet and the noise in the city. Other than that, I really dont care. I have everything I need and it's cheap. If I could get something even cheaper then I would.

jcoffland 10y ago

The problem with shitholes is that they suck. Sure they are cheaper but like fast food it's not good for you.

TempleOSV412 10y ago

small mobile computers suck. Give me a Xeon 3Ghz 24 core.

sigi45 10y ago

I'm grown up enought to have so much aesthetic that i don't wanna life in a shithole anymore.

metaphor 10y ago

Extolling the merits of a clear pejorative strikes me as disingenuous to say the least. I honestly can't figure whether this blog simply echoes the sentiments of a bachelor longing for days free from adult responsibility, or tries to be some hip justification for squalor conditions contrived by the outrageous cost of living in a high-density city. If your reasons for choosing to live in a shithole are: 1. cost; 2. cost; and 3. laziness thinly paraded as character...more 1st-world power to you. I prefer to live frugal, which actually requires a bit of work to pull off.

drcross 10y ago
Some of you guys really need to lighten up.

blubb-fish 10y ago

I live in Germany where I guess the situation is quite different in that regard from the States. One thing that comes to mind is that shitholes are also usually located in shit areas - the whole neighbourhood situation is there usually rather depressing and less secure. The idea of a tiny house is that you can place it anywhere - at least in theory. And that allows you to choose an especially calm, quiet, peaceful environment. I'd love to live in a tiny house - a shit hole on the other hand does not seem so appealing. Also b/c the additional square meters wouldn't be of much use. A nicer less is for me more than a shittier cheap more.

yitchelle 10y ago
I also live in Germany. The other day I was walking past a kleingartenverein [0] and wonder how it it will be before it becomes legal to stay in in the small hut that is on each garden. [0] - for the non-German speaker folks, this is the closes I can find on what a kleingartenverein is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)
- jsilence 10y ago
  The Bundeskleingartengesetz will never allow this.

50CNT 10y ago

We're currently going for "tiny shithole". Trying to set up a full kitchen in <4sqm of space. Our current BOM for that is 1 x 15L Medical Wastebasket 1 x60x40cm Table 1 x Anti Slip Stickers 2 x 30x40cm Bamboo Cutting Boards 1 x 75cmx35cmx150cm Industrial Shelf 1 x 56cmx24cmx38cm Plate Rack 1 x 7W T5 LED Lamp 1 x T5 plug with switch 1 x 90cmx45cmx180cm Industrial Shelf 1 x 71cmx46cmx21.1cm Range Hood 1 x 15cm Range Hood Exhaust 1 x HEPA/Active Charcoal Filter Sheets 1 x Roll of Greaseproof Foil 1 x Induction Plate 2100W 1 x Pressure Cooker 1000W 70kPA 1 x 52cmx32.5cmx30.5cm Oven 1600W 1 x 182L Fridge 1 x Kitchen Scale 1 x Kitchen TImer 1 x Meat Thermometer 1 x Immersion Blender 1 x Coffee Machine 1 x Chefs Knife 1 x Cast Iron Skillet/Dutch Oven 4 x Lint-free Kitchen Towels 1 x Vegetable Peeler 1 x Paring Knife 1 x Silicone Spatula 1 x Ceramic Sautee Pan 2 x Large Mixing Bowl 8 x Small Prep Bowl 1 x Zester (Microplane) 1 x Silicone Bench Scraper 1 x Tongs 1 x Mesh Sieve 1 x Strainer 1 x Set of Measuring Spoones 1 x Ladle 1 x Can Openner (side open) 1 x Potato Ricer 1 x Waiters Bottle Opener 2 x Wooden Spoon 1 x Kitchen Apron 1 x Salad Spinner 1 x Sharpening Stone 2 x Pepper/Salt Mill 1 x Set of Tupperware 17pcs. 8 x Plates 1 x Pack of Chopsticks 20pcs 8 x Cutlery Set (Fork, Knife, Spoon) 8 x Highball Glasses 1+1 x 120cmx60cmx75cm Foldable Table 8 x Stackable Chairs We've spent about 4500RMB (650USD) on it, which includes some non-kitchen stuff (Wardrobes, Bedding, Lamps, extra shelving), and there's still some bits and bobs we'll need to get, but all in all, it's a compact, cheap, and versatile kitchen stack.

thro32 10y ago
You have 8 x Stackable Chairs at 4sqm?
- 50CNT 10y ago
  4sqm is just the kitchen, not the dining/living area. We want to be able to stow those away, and have folding tables. Edit: Living area is about 6sqm (3mx2m)
thro32 10y ago

bane 10y ago

I've never quite understood the problem the tiny house movement is supposed to be solving other than "look at all the amenities we can cram into such a tiny space!" Most of the time when they're shown off, they're sitting isolated on some huge lot somewhere in the woods, so housing density isn't it. I mean, clearly, just look at how they're positioned on the market -- 9/10 are in the woods or next to a lake or some such. A housing situation that's less sustainable than suburbs. If I look for ones that are actually for sale, they just seem to be rebranded college apartments or RVs - except now the sellers are charging twice as much because they attached a solar shower to the back or something. They often come with advice for how to get them into RV parks or mobile home parks, but those can be very expensive to dock a house in and can sometimes come with uncomfortable and very real externalities as you intersect with the transient and the poor (plus, if you're going to live in a mobile home park, you may as well just buy a used mobile home, they're much more comfortable to live in). Just like RVs and mobile homes, most of the shed-like tiny houses are terrible housing investments because the market views them as what they are, RVs and sheds, and depreciates them over time on average, while actual real estate tends to appreciate over time. And for the non-RV tiny houses, they don't solve the mobility question. They're just about as fixed as a normal home structure. And notions about living less materially seem okay, but there are many long-term stories of tiny home dwellers who run away screaming because of how cramped their living conditions are, and all the unexpected external costs (like self storage for their actual stuff) that never seems to get into tiny house movement propaganda. I feel like what they're actually trying to solve is the desire of apartment dwellers to "own" a home without having to go through the normal home ownership system, which they've been conditioned to view as a trap of some sort for reasons, and "hack" that system by coming at it from some non-traditional angle. It's also interesting how pretty much all of the professionally designed and purpose built tiny homes seem to lead their sales pitch with all the tiny house movement awards they've won and really not much about the structure or the maintenance of the 20 acres the tiny house sits on.

CuriouslyC 10y ago
Tiny homes are about simplifying your life. You don't accumulate junk, and you tend to really enjoy the things you do own. If you keep a bunch of stuff in storage you're missing the point of the exercise. Tiny homes are also a statement of individuality. For it to work you have to select or create a design that fits how you live. People frequently build aesthetic fixtures and storage into their tiny homes as well. Thus the space reflects you much more than a trailer/mobile home. Finally, a large part of it is a desire not to be shackled in debt. Not having long term financial obligations is very freeing; on the other hand a mortgage is a hassle. Tiny homes are definitely only a good choice for active people who like the outdoors or being publicly social. You should avoid pre-built or spec tiny homes if possible - for it to work the space needs to feel like an extension of you.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago

“You don’t need to fix up a shithole!” Well, maybe. One shithole some friends lived in in Melbourne had had all the copper piping stolen, so the landlord had replaced it with garden hose. Touching the shower head or taps in the bathroom resulted in a mild electric tingle. Something wasn't right there I tell you. Probably electrical earthing and the absence of a residual current device. Another shithole, this time in Adelaide, I lived in for a couple years, when it rained heavy one gutter overflowed and there would be a waterfall above the window inside the house. Couple other shitholes I saw in my 20's weren't so bad. Filth is fun when you're young. Also, there's no way a lender will get in on you borrowing to buy a shithole.