Discuss anarchist praxis and philosophy. Don't take yourselves too seriously.
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RV's are superior to houses. They are cheap, mobile and easier to maintain. What are your toughts?
If your RV breaks down, and you can't afford to fix it or regularly move it, your home gets impounded, you are now homeless, meaning you are now a criminal, meaning you will soon be slave laborer for someone elses profit.
I like RVs as a kid that did not have to maintain them or fuel them.
As an adult, give me a full kitchen please. I've seen the big big RV homes, they did shows in Atlantic City, and even back in the 00s the prices made my eyes water so I can't imagine they'd be better now.
Cheap - mortgage level, not cash. They’re damn expensive. It’s a depreciating asset. Mobile - only if fuel is dirt cheap. You’re limited in where you can drive by their lack of maneuverability and severely limited in parking by laws and convention. Easy to maintain - no building codes mean no consistency, so you’re guessing all the time, and the build quality on these things is pretty awful. There’s no space to work, and it’s go the added pain in the ass of a whole truck to maintain too. And a generator. Built to last for perhaps 10 years, but with no provisions for renewal - a house roof with shingles lasts 25-50 years and is easily replaced. An RV roof lasts 10 years before sealing starts to give out if not less and needs structural disassembly to repair in many cases.
At the end of the day you’re cooking on a pull out camp stove and shitting in the bucket hidden under the couch. It’s no life for me.
Yep.
You want all these things for much cheaper and safer?
Get a shitty studio apartment and pay in cash for a motorcycle or e-bike that you can fit a tent kit into the cargo panniers/mounts for.
E bike you could store in the apartment. Well, if you trust it not to catch fire.
Pretty much.
At least in the US right now, a decent but cheap motorcycle like a Royal Enfield costs around the same or even less than a lot of E Bikes... more range out of a motorcycle, higher speeds, but more fuel and maintenance costs.
And you'd have to get insurance for the motorcycle, and get a motorcycle drivers liscense certification in most (all?) states.
... nothing compared to the maintenance time or costs an RV will give you though.
... Also if your RV is large enough, you might actually have to get a kind of special cert on your liscense for that as well, in some states, maybe?
A friend of mine worked as a welder at an RV/camper/trailer manufacturer and he said he'd never buy one. They only cared about quantity. Most of the welds weren't much more than tack welds.
Yeah its like space data centers. The idea is cool but there are problems we just can't solve, physics gets in the way.
Yea, its cool and convenient until you get t-boned in an intersection and become not only car-less, but homeless, and all your shit is broken.
I'm not sure I have heard anyone say RVs are easy to maintain before!
In the situation you are describing is the RV parked somewhere, or moving place-to-place? What is being done with the waste? How is water obtained?
They are cheaper to buy, but the quality and durability of everything makes them expensive. Things wear out or break fast. Everything is sealed with shitty sealant that is prone to cracking and leaking, and needs to be resealed every 3-5 years. If there is a leak, the moisture stays trapped and starts rotting out everything. The roofs are covered with a thin membrane that breaks down from the elements and UV, and can get holes ripped in it from twigs. Fuel to travel is expensive. RV parks are somewhat expensive. Poor insulation and inefficient HVAC. Heating and cooking (and water heating and sometimes refrigeration) with small propane tanks is inconvenient and somewhat expensive. Some full time RVers find it costs more than before they started doing RV full time.
There are good quality RVs that mitigate some of these issues (Airstreams and Class A), but they cost as much as houses in some areas in the US.
I'm very concerned about the prospect of combining my house and transport. Most places aren't really kitted out for hosting mobile homes for power sewage etc, the internet is a bit rougher. Etc
What happens when my house engine breaks down. They probably won't let me live at the shop.
Depends on what you mean by traditional housing. I, for one, hope to live in a place that's very dense, far more so than RVs could ever be. Mixed-use skyscrapers are far more environmentally-friendly (per person, of course), much cheaper (tiny energy costs, because your insulation is your neighbor's entire home; tiny transportation costs, because everything is within walking distance), and much more convenient.
Are there like anarchist RV squats / living spaces in other parts of the world? Atleast in Germany and some other european countries they are a decently common way of self organized living:
Mobile living has its issues. From having a mailing address to a long list of repairs or maintenance issues that will require you to find space to deal with. Pets can be difficult, kids are a logistic problem with no end. Also, your home will never increase in value, while costing as much as a mortgage.
Lots of people in my generation getting mortgages. That's a sensible comparison.
Counterpoint: Is the USA-style quarter-acre single family property really "traditional housing"? Seems more a symptom of the US brand of colonialist propaganda ("Manifest destiny") to me. It's a simulacra of a farmstead, and not really traditional at all.
Anyway I actually disagree about RVs. For what they get you, RVs are not cheap. 100sqft or so of claustrophobia. And not necessarily easy to maintain. And because they are motor vehicles, they have an expected useful lifespan that is probably below an order of magnitude shorter than your typical single family stick build. Essentially they're land yachts.
Three words: generator noise pollution
You can handle all day if you live in somewhere that doesn't need HVAC every night with those camper battery thingy and solar panels.
i agree that you have an opinion.. but im not goin past that.
good luck!
it doesn't apply to everyone but i think a very common need that people have is to feel settled. it may manifest in different ways from having some deep connection to the land to just wanting not to worry about moving again (and again). RV, caravan, houseboat type living will suit many but ultimately relies on other owners of facilities to provide parking, charging, waste disposal etc. it's fun and cheap and adventurous but for many or most can't be forever
In the US the only systematic avenue to entering the middle class is owning land. Not the fault of RVs, I just live in a dystopia.
I'm planning on building a solar yacht and country hopping and having a mostly sovereign life, like this guy.
sometimes, it's hard to tell irony online
I agree, but if you have kids or a lot of pets can be an issue. Also a lot of states are raging war against rv and not easy to find places to park them.
Edit: this comes from family own RV parks. You would be shocked how the cities and counties fight these parks being available. At the same time making it illegal to park one in a residential neighborhoods.