I wake up in the sleeping loft, to the faint noise of a chicken clucking. Sun is streaming in through the many windows of the house. I carefully climb over my sleeping husband to reach the loft ladder, and make my way downstairs. Relieve myself in the 5-gallon pee bucket in the bathroom (yes, we pee in a bucket!) and then start a tea kettle on our 4-burner (formerly RV) stovetop. I open the window curtains, sit down on our small sofa, and enjoy the view from our house: sun is shining on the lush green leaves of grape vines and plumb trees, the sky is a mix of blue with many puffy little white clouds, and birds are flitting through the yard.
We’ve been living full time in our tiny home in Eugene, Oregon for 4 weeks now. There are still boxes piled up in our living room, bare trim-less windows, and many more little projects to finish up – but we have everything we need to live comfortably here. Sometimes I marvel that we dreamed up this home, we had the crazy idea to pull it across the country to Oregon, and those dreams have come true! There is a nice simplicity to living in this little house. Most things are within an arm’s or a step’s reach, and there’s not many places you can hide if you want to get away from your partner. We’ve learned some important small living lessons so far, these are most relevant if you have neighbors in close proximity (not so much out in the ‘country’).
Make Friends with your Neighbors! We have met so many friendly people since we got to Eugene. However one surprise came soon after we pulled the house onto our rental lot in a city residential neighborhood: we completely surprised one of our immediate neighbors with our home, and changed the view from their house. What ensued in short was some un-neighborly exchanges, repositioning our house multiple times to try to satisfy all parties, anguishing and fretting, and finally a convening of us with our landlord and this set of neighbors. Turns out feelings had calmed by then and everyone was quite friendly and accommodating, and we all agreed on a final position for our house that would provide privacy and aesthetics for everyone. If you have a small home on wheels, consider these lessons:
- If you plan to move your mobile home to a new spot, talk with the closest neighbors beforehand to warn them- a surprise house suddenly pulling in will likely make the situation worse. Tell them what the house looks like and its dimensions (for instance it’s taller than a typical camper). Most neighbors will likely be fine with it (that’s what we experienced).
- Find out beforehand if they have any reasonable requests as to how to situate your house on the lot, but also realize that you might have to reposition more than once after the house is actually on site. Scope out your lot and how your house could be viewed from nearby, also consider how you can have the most privacy from your neighbors.
- Know your own requirements for the positioning of your house (e.g. south-facing solar exposure) and stay true to those throughout any compromises that are made.
- Aside from the actual position of the house, be ready to make other adjustments such as screening measures for added privacy.
- Be neighborly! The last thing you want to do is move into a neighborhood and start making enemies, because you’ve got to live near these people. Tensions may be high at times, and you might feel like “Hey, this is my house, I’m going to put it exactly where I want it so screw you” (sometimes we felt kind of like that). Better instead to breathe deeply, be patient, try to hear everyone’s input and concerns, and see if a workable solution can be reached. We managed to get there, and we feel much better for it!
When situating your tiny home there will of course be many other things to consider (How will I access the front door? How will I make my home fairly secure? Where are my hookups/utilities? etc.). But we hope you can learn something from our experience about how to be a good neighbor throughout the process.
Go Tiny 