Cat and human look for an (alternative) house

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You might have heard about me, but most probably not. I am not famous or anything, so let me introduce myself once more. I am Beatriz, I am a part German part Brazilian (depends on the situation) and I recently moved to the wonderful country that is the Netherlands, where I found Smokey, my entirely dutch cat.

When I moved here as any Brazilian moving to Europe I thought it was all flowers. It pretty much still is, I am glad to say. But one thing. One tiny thing that I miss a LOT from the huge city that is São Paulo. And in the whole country of Brazil, for that matter. That is how easy it is to rent a house. On the other hand is nearly impossible buying one, and that is easier in the Netherlands. But for people starting is hard to come up with the amount of money to buy a house.

I am no economy PHD and I am far from being an real state agent. What I am is a regular person trying to get a place to live and I have background doing that in both places. And what I know is that there are housing problem in both. Ok, we all know that, so what?

Well, most recently – in the last 24 hours – I got back to my previous status of “looking for a place to live” again for reasons that I won’t clarify here. After a few hours looking at those terrible pictures in the real estate sites I started thinking in a different way. I mean, what we talk about is going to a different society, to the society 3.0. I work in an innovative company that uses social capital as a exchange and think more of abundance instead of scarcity. So why not apply that to my daily life?

In my “alternative way of living” research I found one, that I have been looking for a while now, is the tiny houses! I found the website tiny-house.nl and god, I am in love. First, it is a mobile house, in 23 years I have lived in 19 different addresses – going to the 20th, so that is a big point for me. Second, it’s ecological and it self-sufficient, so I wouldn’t need to connect it to anywhere, it is actually mobile and doesn’t harm the world we live in – which is very important nowadays. Third, it is cheap. How cheap? 35 thousand euros cheap. Nope, I don’t have that kind of money lying around, but it is easier than to get 300K. Math doesn’t lie, folks.

Now, of course there are cons. You can’t possibly have a whole family living in a tiny house. Nor have big parties inside. After all the house is only 10m² The laws regarding it also don’t help much, the concept is so new there are barely laws about it at all. But as real estate is a problem also for the government, there is an interest in making things easier. Or that is what I’ve heard. And what I really, really hope for.

In conclusion, there the good parts, the bad parts. I hear is not for everyone, but if definitely think it is worth a try. It is also not the only solution to facilitate living, there is also co-living initiatives that I will talk more about soon. Truth is writing this article I realised why tiny houses strike a cord with me. As a 90s child my dream house (and life) was the Thornberry family, please tell me someone remembers that!

I guess the nomadic lifestyle has always been a dream of mine – and talk to the animals. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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