Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Tiny Houses with a BIG Problem



Not all things in the tiny house community is tiny. Sometimes problems are very large. Here is a great example of what happens when things go wrong. Very wrong, in a big way...
Tiny Houses
Picture Property of Washington City Paper 
D.C.’s tiny houses are the architectural equivalent of that perfect couple you used to envy on Facebook: ultraphotogenic, cultured (they hosted a series of one-act plays last month), and so much quirkier and more interesting than anything going on in your bloated apartment. But now the status has flipped: The tiny houses are divorcing.

click here for the rest of the story

Read this too (this was in the comment section of the article):


I'm the owner of the fourth house mentioned in your article "a fourth house briefly sat on the lot in 2013, but the owner was rarely around and eventually moved the trailer," and it's my tiny house that you've chosen to feature as the photo for your article, the white one with red trim. Pera's house is to the left with the uneven siding and Austin's house is to the right with the charred siding. Levy's house is not shown.
I felt betrayed in my experience at Boneyard Studios, too. When my parents needed some help, I moved from California to Florida to be with them. I offered the folks at Boneyard the use of my house to help promote the tiny house movement while I was unable to live in it. They agreed, and while Pera was building her house, her builder often stayed in my house. Once he moved on to other projects, the folks at Boneyard asked me to move my house off the lot, saying that is was "a bit too small to be useful" to them and they wanted to use the land for something else. I was very surprised and disappointed, as I had thought my house was a permanent part of the tiny community and I had hoped to retire there. I hadn't paid anything for land rental, but neither had Pera's builder paid me for staying in the house. I offered to start contributing to the common expenses but my offer wasn't accepted. Getting the house off the lot was difficult, as their hot tub had to be moved, along with debris that had been piled up by Pera and her builder behind and under my tiny house. In addition, Austin and Pera wanted my house moved only during a weekday and only when they could be present. It was a complicated, expensive, unpleasant endeavor. Had I known my house would only be welcome there for a few months, I wouldn't have brought it there at all. Yet, it's often used as the feature image for articles about Boneyard Studios.
My tiny house is now in an RV park in Florida where it is well loved and cared for by a friend living in it at no charge from me (just paying the RV park owner lot his rent), to help others see that tiny living is possible.
I wish Pera, Austin, and Levy success and happier tiny times. Living tiny, to me, is about more than reducing consumption and use of resources. It's about living in harmony with the planet and each other. Small mindedness is not compatible. It will take big, generous, wise hearts to turn the tide of greed and selfishness that have become so prevalent in America, toward living with a spirit of self-reliance, cooperation, and using only what we need. For inspiration, I'd like to share with you the "My Own Tiny Home, the Tiny House Song".http://tinyhousesong.com/