When her children grew up, a Belgian woman says she and her husband stopped getting along. So she gave him an ultimatum, he did not believe her, and she left. Then she borrowed money from a friend and bought a tiny house.
She shared her story during a tour with the @AlternativeHouse channel, two years after moving into a home that measures nearly 3 meters by nearly 7 meters.
“I Said, You Have To Change. If You Don’t Change, I’m Going Away.”
She says she lived with her husband until the kids were grown, and then the two of them stopped coping with each other. He was drinking too much, and she describes herself as very sporty while he is not.
“I said, ‘You have to change. If you don’t change, I’m going away.’ And he didn’t believe me. So I went,” she says with a laugh.
The house was not cheap, and she did not have the money. A friend lent it to her, and the price came to about €50,000 including the spot where the house sits. She calls that a nice price, though she adds that she now knows what would have been better. She says she looked at it, loved it and bought it.
The House Came With A Rented Patch Of Camping Ground
She owns the house, but the ground belongs to a camping site, so she pays rent on the land every year. She says that rent is €2,500 a year. The house was already there when she bought it, from a previous owner who had raised two children in it until it became too small.
Outside she grows a few raspberries, though the season is over, and she collects rain water for the garden and even for inside. She washes her hair with it and says it is very healthy. Her nephew built a better floor for the terrace, and in the morning she does yoga or pilates there. A small shed area holds her tools.
Inside, a sofa pulls out for guests, and there is a mattress she keeps as storage that once served one of the kids. Upstairs is a queen-size bed with windows on both sides, though they open only a little for ventilation. “I like it very cozy,” she says, and she can watch the full moon through the window.
Paying A Friend Back €700 A Month And Still Owing Another Two Years
She is paying the friend back every month. She says she pays €700 and has two or two and a half years left. After that the house is entirely hers and her only housing cost will be the yearly land rent. She compares it to paying for a regular home in the meantime.
She has just stopped working, having been a sports teacher, and she is heading off on a long trip to Thailand to stay with the very friend who lent her the money.
Freezing Winters, Frozen Pipes And An Electric Blanket From Her Daughter
Summers are very hot now, so she lives outside most of the day and eats outdoors. Winter is another story. She says the heat rises, so while she sits upstairs doing handcraft it can be freezing cold. Her daughter gave her an electric blanket.
The campsite also closes for part of the year. Every second winter she has to be away for about four months, and she says she leaves next week. Last winter was very strong. She says snow fell and the water froze, so she put snow in a pot to melt for tea. That winter she stayed with her daughters.
She pays about €500 for the winter to cover electricity and gas. The only heating that runs by itself is an underfloor system in the bathroom, which she sets to 5 degrees so it switches on when the room gets colder. She calls it a luxury.
Four Solar Batteries That Died In The First Month And Would Cost €4,000 To Replace
Behind a door there are four big batteries for the solar panels, but she says they stopped working in mid July, the first month. Replacing them would cost €4,000, which she thinks is too much, and the system would run only summer needs, not the winter heater.
Her hot water comes from a small gas-fed instant heater, and the shower is a standard one. Her fridge is large, and she says she is praying it does not break. She keeps her clothes in a small space. The kitchen and a dining desk fill the middle of the house.
Washing By Hand Or At Her Ex-Husband’s House
There is no washing machine. She does some laundry by hand. The camping site has a washing area with two washers and two dryers, but she says they do not wash very well. So she often takes her laundry to her husband’s house, her friend’s, or her daughters’. When the interviewer asks whether that means her ex-husband’s house, she says yes.
Her grandson is one year old and visits often, sometimes for the day. She babysits him two or three times a week and says she bathes him in a small tub.
Why She Says She Would Do It Again, With A Few Changes
Asked about the upsides, she says the financial side is the draw because it is affordable, and the main thing is being in nature. When the sun shines she is outside much more than she would be in town. She can hop on her bike, ride 40 minutes into town and see her daughter and grandson, go to the theater or the cinema, then come back to the quiet and peace.
She does not plan to stay forever. She wonders what life will look like at 84 and says maybe yes and maybe not. She would like to buy land somewhere in Belgium one day, but she says the law there is not yet settled for tiny houses. One path she mentions is that a tiny house can be parked in a parent’s garden when someone is caring for that parent. Helping with grandchildren does not count under that rule.
Lessons For Anyone Eyeing A Tiny House On Rented Land
Her story shows the trade-offs. A low price can come with land rent every year, a winter closure, a shortage of power, and chores such as laundry that an apartment would handle without effort. Before buying, it helps to ask what the land rent is, whether you can stay all winter, what heating really costs, and whether the local rules allow a tiny home to stay put.
She says she is coping well with her decision. “I’m really loving it here,” she says, especially now that she is free to go.
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