Tiny Houses Are Cool... But Kinda Stupid

Tiny Houses are super cool. 

To me, they reflect outside the box thinking, and are full of highly creative, thoughtful, and intentional design, as their builders attempt to solve the problem of making the most use of a small living space.  If you've not seen the documentary on Netflix called "Tiny," or the HGTV show called "Tiny House Hunters," I would highly encourage you to do so. 

In reaction to the "McMansion" craze of the housing market in the past couple of decades, a counter-cultural phenomenon has arisen in recent years consisting of people who yearn for a more simplified and less cluttered lifestyle. Instead of building and living in homes that are 3,000+ square feet, more and more people are attempting to live in homes that are 1/10th the size.  Tiny Houses are often custom made to order from a few builders who specialize in manufacturing them.  But, because of the small scale nature of the project, many do-it-yourself types often build their own Tiny House.  Tiny Houses are often built on large trailer hitches, as they are designed to be portable homes capable of moving with you.

But for all my admiration for Tiny Houses, I think Tiny Houses are also kinda stupid.  Here are 6 reasons I think Tiny Houses are stupid:

1. They are attempting to solve a problem we don't have.  If your desire is to live a simplified lifestyle by means of downsizing the square footage of your living space, there are already tons of homes across America under 1,000 square foot range.  If such is still too big for you, you can always live out of an RV or a single-wide mobile home.
2. Tiny Houses are basically nothing more than glorified trailers.  And, I suspect that one of the primary reasons that people build Tiny Houses instead of living in single-wide trailers is because those who live in Tiny Houses have upper middle-class tastes, and don't want to be caught dead living in a trailer park.  So think of them as "Middle-Class Trailers."  Most Tiny Houses end up costing about $100-$200 per square foot to build, and consist of higher-end materials and amenities.  Tiny House prices often range in the $30,000-$60,000 range to make, and are designed to look like a home in the burbs, just at the micro level. Which brings me to my next point.
3. As a glorified trailer, a Tiny House is looked at as a depreciating asset.  It's not like a real home. It's more like your car.  That is, they don't gain value, instead they lose value over time. Which means that if you ever desire to live in another home, you will be forced to sell your Tiny House for less than it cost to buy.  And, given the highly personalized and customized nature of most Tiny Houses, you are going to attempt to sell something that nobody likely wants to buy.  Which means you will likely be forced to abandon your Tiny House, or keep it is a glorified tree house in your back yard, so your kids have something to play with.  Either way, you are throwing away tens of thousands of dollars, and the last I checked, such is contrary to a spirit of simplicity.
4. Tiny Houses are technically "illegal" to live in. Most building codes across America require your dwelling to be more than 500-600 square feet. (Darn our communist government officials for imposing "living standards" on its people!) Even in remote places like Montana, you aren't just allowed to throw up a shack on a piece of land and live out of it.  There are minimum building (and plumbing) standards that everybody must adhere too. Unfortunately for Tiny Houses, they often fail to live up to such standards.  So what people living in Tiny Houses often do?  To some extent, they live "off the grid" illegally... or as very often happens, they end up parking their Tiny Houses in the back yards of family and friends.  Such is not a long-term housing solution, and thus non-sustainable (which is contrary to the purpose of Tiny Houses).
5. Tiny Houses are easy to steal.  Since Tiny Houses weigh no more than a couple thousand pounds, and are mounted on a trailer hitch as their base, anybody with a heavy duty pickup with towing ability could simply come by and drive off with your home.  And yes... it has happened.  I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to risk becoming homeless simply because a thief thought they would try to steal something a little more unique.  I mean, why steal a TV when they can not only steal your TV,  but the entire structure that the TV is connected to?  After all, they may want a cool tree house for their kids to play out of, while watching Sponge Bob on their new TV.
6. Tiny Houses make practicing hospitality difficult, if not impossible.  Their physical limitations make it almost impossible to have your own family, let alone have family and friends over for dinner, or to provide lodging to overnight guests.  Raising a family in one is down right impossible. Tiny Houses seldom have more than one bed.  Not to mention the unattractive fact that your indoor toilet is within a couple feet from where you are eating at or hanging out. Let that one stink (ahem... sink) in to your head for a minute.  And because Tiny Houses make it almost impossible to practice hospitality, I think there is something almost un-Christian about them.

So, while there are many things I admire about Tiny Houses, such as the building principles and concepts that go into them, and how it might provoke us to better incorporate such things into our own dwellings, ultimately, I think Tiny Houses are a short-term fad.  A cool fad mind you. But a fad, that at the end of the day, reminds me of the famous Saturday Night Live skit featuring Chris Farley, where in a crazy and wild fashion, he reminds the audience that he "lives in a van... down by the river."

But instead of admitting to such a thing, those who live in a Tiny House get a few more cool points for saying they have a living arrangement that is a bit more hip.