
Home in a Can: When Trailers Offered a Compact Version of the American Dream - samclemens
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/home-in-a-can/
======
Xeoncross
I built my own trailer, a "tiny home":
[http://tinyhousemansion.com/](http://tinyhousemansion.com/)

I filmed a several how-to videos and put them up on youtube. Not the most
economical (cost/resale-wise), but a great experiment and real-world break
from full-time programing.

My Tiny House is super insulated and energy efficient. The only leaks are from
windows. I wrapped the whole thing in rigid foam panels and lifted the metal
roof up an inch to keep the roof from ever getting hotter than the ambient air
temperature.

~~~
aculver
Just watched the video on your site and this is by far my favorite Tiny House
project I've seen yet. It's the first one I've seen that I felt like I could
actually live in that with two kids. Great job! Thanks for taking the time to
document the experience and share it with all of us!

~~~
Xeoncross
Thanks, I couldn't have done it without others who shared their ideas.

Building energy-efficient, non-toxic homes is important. Many of the ideas I
used for this Tiny House I plan on implementing on more traditional housing
structures.

Regular homes are supper-sloppy when it comes to conserving energy and there
is a lot of room for improvement (with little added cost) if the ideas are
implemented during the initial construction.

------
cornholio
Trailer living is stigmatized because it's what poor people can afford. With
poverty, come all it's correlated afflictions: substance abuse, limited
employment, low education and family planning, lack of role models, each
determining the other and trapping multiple generation into the same cycle.
I.e "trash" people, those who just don't seem to get ahead.

Trailer trash is a largely american stereotype because US had a car-centric
culture and early economic development that allowed even the poor to buy an
RV, while locking them out of the traditional property market. But the
stereotyping is against poor people and it's practiced in any society that
values material gain.

------
encoderer
What a $300k trailer looks like in Mountain View:

[https://www.trulia.com/property/5033711929-325-Sylvan-
Ave-28...](https://www.trulia.com/property/5033711929-325-Sylvan-
Ave-28-Mountain-View-CA-94041)

~~~
mythrwy
You'll have to be 55+ to buy it though (I think.. it's in a 55+ park).

------
vonnik
There's an odd moment in Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, his book about a
1960 roadtrip across the US, where he encounters a couple living in a mobile
home and sings the praises of it. Modern, mobile, allows the inhabitants the
freedom to follow their dreams and the job market. Truly another time.

[https://schlemielintheory.com/2014/06/18/the-restless-
ones-a...](https://schlemielintheory.com/2014/06/18/the-restless-ones-and-
uneasy-permanence-steinbeck-on-america-mobile-homes-and-rootlessness/)

~~~
philwelch
Trailer living used to be a lot less stigmatized than it is now. Even as
recently as the late 70’s, the officers in “CHiPs” lived in trailers;
something you never see heroic television leads do anymore.

~~~
sib
Also Mel Gibson's character in Lethal Weapon (1987)...

~~~
mikestew
Pretty sure Mel Gibson’s character lived in a trailer _because_ of the stigma:
“man, he used to be a good cop, then his wife got killed. Now he lives in a
_trailer_! He’s just given up!”

------
SN76477
When I was young living in South Carolina there were the trashy trailer parks,
but there were also nice tidy trailer parks for working class families.

It was probably a bit nicer than this 30 years ago

[https://www.google.com/maps/@34.897915,-82.4379351,3a,68y,28...](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.897915,-82.4379351,3a,68y,283.7h,84.57t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfIfcXKJ22LpGy30RcRlt2w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

~~~
SwellJoe
I didn't really do the math when I replied before, but if you lived in or near
that mobile home park and were a kid ~30 years ago, we almost certainly went
to the same schools at around the same time, which is pretty surreal. I don't
really run into many folks from my hometown in nerd circles (or anywhere,
really).

~~~
SN76477
Lakeview, probably in '88 I didnt go there long, we moved around a lot when I
was a kid.

~~~
SwellJoe
OK, nope, mine was Berea; same era, though. I knew a girl who lived on
Longforest Drive who went to Lakeview, and everyone who lived on Plano Drive
went to Berea, so I guess the line was somewhere in between the two. That's
wild as hell. Howdy, distant-past-teenage-neighbor.

~~~
SN76477
I did go to Berea high school for a short time. 9ths grade I guess. I hung out
with the nerds :D

~~~
SwellJoe
I only went to Berea for middle school, but lots of my friends from middle and
elementary school went to Berea for high school (as did my older sister...the
line moved in the interim). A dude named Mark...whose last name I now cannot
remember, is the only nerd I can think of who went to Berea. Most of my
friends who went there were ag kids in 4A ansd the horticulture program. We
both had C64 BBSes and ran warez and did various illegal shit with phones.
And, later, I think we both had Amigas (I know I did, but I think Mark got
one, too...but we'd drifted apart a bit by that time).

------
dlbucci
I think a lot of people who would be satisfied with a small, cheap home such
as a trailer. I mean, I felt like I had the space of trailer in my first
apartment, but it sure as hell wasn't as cheap. It's just a shame they have
such a negative connotation (with pretty good reason).

~~~
mod
They've been rebranded "tiny homes" and now they're all the rage.

Granted, you are expected to build your own if you want it to be cool, but it
has all the hallmarks of a traditional trailer.

I'm not knocking tiny homes nor trailers, to be clear. I think they're a great
solution for folks wanting to own a home on a budget.

~~~
j2bax
I’m sure there are a large range of mobile home building quality but the many
that I have ever been in have had thin walls and cheap finishes inside. Maybe
it’s because of the price point they need to hit for their target market. Most
tiny homes I’ve seen have had high quality materials and finishes. Maybe
people convert the cost savings of building themselves to building with higher
quality materials (for tiny homes).

It’s also worth mentioning that most tiny homes I’ve looked at were far lower
square footage than a typical mobile home.

All this to say tiny homes are not imho rebranded mobile homes. They are a
different beast altogether.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Maybe people convert the cost savings of building themselves to building
> with higher quality materials (for tiny homes).

Building your own construction project is generally not a cost savings, in the
same way that growing your own food is not a cost savings.

~~~
walshemj
DIY House building can save a lot of money and a higher quality build at least
in the uk

------
bungie4
Technology needs to be refocused into making homes more affordable to the
working class instead of creating more profitable McMansions.

------
a3n
These days trailer parks are disappearing, because the land is too valuable.
I've thought about renting a small trailer in a trailer park, if it saved
enough cash, but buying one risks not having anywhere to park it. Times
change.

~~~
mlinksva
Land isn't too valuable, rather there's very little zoned to allow for trailer
parks, which can be very dense and thus a great way to use land that's
valuable but not so valuable as to support skyscrapers
[https://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2014/05/mobile-home-
impedim...](https://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2014/05/mobile-home-impediments-
and.html)

------
hasbot
Many of the active outdoors people I know (mostly mountain bikers) are
superkeen on converted Sprinter vans. I think as more active boomers retire,
there will be a resurgence of small RVs.

~~~
chiph
Winnebago just introduced a new model - the Revel - for people looking to
travel/live like this. I'm not sure how Winnebago is getting enough 4x4
Sprinters to build them, as Mercedes apparently wasn't prepared for how many
of them Americans are buying.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQzZo00kYw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQzZo00kYw)

I don't really care for the floorplan, but the concept is attractive - being
able to travel off the beaten path, irregardless of the weather conditions.

------
creeble
Trailer, RV, and mobile home living is experiencing a huge resurgence, largely
because of the 10k baby boomers _a day_ entering retirement.

Unfortunately, while many of those boomers are just wanting to check out the
experience, many have found that their "retirement plans" aren't able to
include a regular home. This is partly the subject of this book:

Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century

[http://a.co/htj0AfR](http://a.co/htj0AfR)

~~~
a3n
I took one for the team, and clicked. It goes here:

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/039324931X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_dp_t7...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/039324931X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_dp_t7NrAbC0JXDVZ)

Interesting that the shortened link is http, while the destination is https.
Is that usual?

Ah, and I just noticed that a.co goes directly to amazon.com, so I suppose
it's their own shortner. Of course I didn't know that before I clicked.

~~~
gruez
it's shortner that adds the poster's affiliate link.

~~~
mikestew
Or a shortener that _hides_ the referral link, depending on one’s perspective.

------
RickJWag
Can't have a conversation about trailers without mentioning James Carville's
famous double-wammy.

"Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll
find."

With that one quote, he smeared one of the victims of Bill Clinton's predatory
sexual attacks AND insulted low-income Americans.

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Carville](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Carville)

------
naskwo
[http://kipcaravans.nl/en/model/kip-
shelter/](http://kipcaravans.nl/en/model/kip-shelter/) This has been a staple
of Dutch stereotypes for decades.

------
SwellJoe
I think about RV/trailer parks a lot, as I live in an RV and travel a lot.
It's a really fascinating part of the American experience, and it is pretty
uniquely American, as well. There are, of course RVs and trailers and mobile
homes in other places, but America's reverance for the "freedom of the road"
or whatever gives the whole community around RVs and trailers a different vibe
(even compared to Mexico, where a _lot_ of the RV parks are owned by US ex-
pats, and Canada).

The part I find maybe most interesting, and most troubling, is the way
classism plays out even among the set of people that live in RVs. I've noticed
a distinct set of phrases rich/white people who travel in RVs use in reviews
to describe parks that are inhabited by poor people or people of color, which
is a subtle bit of red-lining among RVers. And, this reinforces the division;
parks that want good reviews from the wealthy travelers take steps to prevent
poor people from staying in their parks. Imposing a trailer age restriction is
the most common and most effective; poor folks can't afford a new RV. It's
maybe even _more_ pronounced among RVers because the rich ones don't want to
be associated with "trailer trash", even though they have a lot in common with
them.

But, I think the explosion of housing costs have led to an interesting shakeup
in the market. RV manufacturers that historically targeted the high end, where
retirees would sell their house (or use the equity in their house) to buy a
monster luxury motorhome, a few years ago started making lower end trailers
again. Winnebago even makes trailers again, which they didn't do for a couple
of decades.

There's also a strong bit of nostalgia in the market that's somewhat new.
Manufacturers are looking backward for design ideas; partly to make low-cost
options again, and partly because the industry got lost in the woods for a
long time just making the biggest and most expensive thing they could because
that's where the money was. I'm pleased to see the change because old RVs were
often beautiful or charming in ways that modern fiberglass rectangle boxes
distinctly are not.

One thing I've also noticed: RV park prices in major cities have gone through
the roof, while availability has gone way down, in the ~9 years I've been
traveling. I used to be able to arrive in a city and get a spot in a park
within a reasonable distance, without a reservation. No longer is that true.
Austin is maybe the most pronounced difference. It was always a favorite
landing place for me because it's a major city with a couple of RV parks in
easy biking distance to downtown. Those parks have doubled their rent and have
months-long waiting lists now. It's not as pleasant to travel in an RV as it
once was, even just a few years ago, if you like visiting bigger cities. And,
I think that's because so many people have been pushed out of
houses/apartments and into RVs. That's an alarming trend, I think.

~~~
creeble
Trailer age restrictions, I haven't heard of that.

We bought a pretty old (1986), small (15') travel trailer that we've been
working on in order to explore some bits of California and hopefully other
parts of the US we haven't seen. And yes, there is a _huge_ bit of nostalgia
in the market: We were shocked at the prices of 'classic', partially-or-fully
restored trailers like Shastas and Aristocrats. You can buy used "fiberglass
rectangles" with more amenities and generally better construction for far less
(but they are, as you say, not in any way charming).

Check out the 5-year history of the stock of Winnebago Industries (NYSE: WGO).
I think that's a lot of baby boomers hitting the market.

~~~
SwellJoe
"Trailer age restrictions, I haven't heard of that."

You will. California is _awful_. Particularly the bay area. I ended up having
to park over an hour and a half away from San Francisco when I visited. I'm in
an old Avion travel trailer these days. When I first moved into an RV it was a
newish motorhome, and I never ran into the trailer age restriction. But, I
think there's actually two things at play: Parks that never had such
restrictions in the past have added them in recent years. All the parks I used
to stay in in Austin had no such restrictions in the past, and all but one
does now. This is, I think, a reflection of the growing class divide among
RVers and the growing desire among wealthy RVers, who do it by choice, to not
be associated with or share space with poor trailer residents who do it out of
necessity.

It is most pronounced in major cities. It's rare to find this restriction at
parks that are out in the country. Also, obviously, city, county, state, and
national parks have no such restrictions. So, it's usually possible to find a
good place to park it, but it's surprisingly difficult to get a spot somewhere
close to a major city.

It's been such a frustrating problem for me that come spring, I plan to buy a
newer rig just so I don't have this problem anymore. I _like_ to be able to
visit major cities with my RV. It pisses me off that I'll have to give my
business to parks that participate in ugly classism in order to do it, though.
I've also considered going with a big old bus and just putting a gazillion
solar panels on the roof and huge water tanks, so I don't need to be in a park
at all.

------
kingmanaz
800 through 1000 square foot Aladdin or Sears Roebuck-style kit homes would do
far more to affordably beautify the typical America neighbourhood than 1960s
style trailer homes replete with turn signals up top and flattened tires
chocked below. A visit to the outskirts of the average mid-sized American city
will soon cure anyone of nostalgia for trailer-laden communities.

IMHO, homes should be smaller and designed by architects rather than
efficiency experts and with an eye toward past stylistic precedents (gothic,
craftsman, prairie, stick, etc.)

