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?

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.

• 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.

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.

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.

Three words: generator noise pollution

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:

i agree that you have an opinion.. but im not goin past that.

good luck!

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.

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.

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.

I couldnt find anywhere better to post this, pls dont bite me.

If your RV breaks down (and/or if you just can't afford some kind of parking lot rent for it), 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.

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

I'm planning on building a solar yacht and country hopping and having a mostly sovereign life, like this guy.

https://youtu.be/7KB-q7ehzM0

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 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.

I managed to stumble into traditional home ownership by sheer dumb luck and its not the great achievement talking heads make it out to be. Its done more to make me hate the commodification of what should be a basic human right more than the year or so I spent homeless as a kid.

You get told by everyone that its the ultimate signifier of financial security and independence but all I found was a more insidious method of capitalist exploitation. Losing an apartment to rent hikes or eviction eats serious shit but I always managed to bounce back enough to secure another place before my ass was tossed to the pavement. I get my house forclosed on or lose it in a freak accident and I'm not only homeless by also financially ruined in a manner that would take a decade or more to recover from.

breaking bad

we need to return to nomadism

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.