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Comment by Noos | Hacker News Reader

Imagine what will happen if you get the flu. You're suddenly stuck in a tiny living space, on a street where you know no one, and can't leave the van for fear of discovery, at 3 in the morning. You're going to spend the night vomiting with only a tiny cassette toilet and what ever plastic bags you can scrounge up to hold it in, and if it's strong enough, you might be too weak to even drive.

Now go and read that site's health and hygiene, realize the owner never even considers this a possibility, and that his own van doesn't even include a cassette toilet. That he can only defecate during a store's business hours, and he uses a laundry bottle filled with bleach to pee into if he needs to urinate in the middle of the night.

You really want to listen to this guy?

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If you're so sick you can't drive, and you don't have a partner with you, wouldn't you be in a similar position if living in a house? Is throwing up in a bucket that difficult? How often in your life are you "too weak to even drive", and how often does that situation arrive without days notice so you can get near help? If I come down sick, I typically get 24-48 hours warning. And in decades, I've never been truly bedridden or unable to drive.

Why can't you leave your vehicle when sick? What's the fear of discovery? "This guy is really sick and needs our help. But wait, he was secretly sleeping in a stealth van - let him die!"

You strike me as particularly risk averse!

Some tree planters live in the bush for months.

I knew a tree planter who lived in a tent within a tent and inside the outer tent was a dozen jugs piss. He never bothered to empty the jugs until the camp relocated.

Also, it’s not impossible to defecate without a bathroom. Tree planters I knew would deficate in the bush a million miles away from a bathroom and they’d wipe their bums with sticks and leaves - they would do this regularly and brag about it. They enjoyed to defecate in front of people too and that’s how you knew they wern’t lying about the sticks and leaves.

If you were sick, you would lie in yr tent until you were not sick puking in garbage bags. If you got too sick someone could drive you into town.

Some people are just hard like that and guess what - those are the people that are going to want to live in a van and save $$$ on rent.

See, this shit is why I refuse to have tree planters as roommates.

Want to know what generally happens when a person living out of an automobile feels a fever coming on? They check into a cheap motel.

The lifestyle temporarily regresses into a costly and luxurious first-world domestic one when they're too ill to live in their preferred mode.

Your post is uninformed FUD as far as I'm concerned. Anyone living in a van by choice should be able to afford a cheap motel for a few days - and should budget for it, since sometimes the van breaks down and needs to check into a far more expensive motel of its own, the mechanic's garage.

- Someone that has spent multiple years in aggregate living relatively comfortably, by choice, out of vehicles and campgrounds.

Just because it's not for you doesn't mean it's not for everyone.

My brother has been living in a van for years and he loves it. Yes, there are tradeoffs, but when you are saving the cost of renting, and gaining a lot of freedom WRT your location, some people are willing to give up a lot of comforts.

It's not for me, but I think it's great for people who can tolerate it.

My point was the moment something relatively minor that happens to us all, happens to a van dweller, it becomes a major crisis. The things we take for granted, like being able to go to the bathroom when we want, or live without fear of police knocking on the door and demanding we suddenly up and relocate because we've broken laws, don't exist for this guy. If he gets into an accident on the road, he just imperiled his entire house.

And he's doing it for what? The great experience of having to sleep every night in a wal-mart parking lot or a side street? Not being able to live in one place, invite his friends over to his house, have a long-term girlfriend, and more?

Living in a van is hard. It doesn't become less hard because a yuppie does it as a voyage of self-discovery, or makes a pretty web site about it.

editing my language some. I'm sorry, I get really strident about things like this.

I lived on a boat for a few years. The experience is almost interchangeable with van dwelling. The biggest destroyer of boats? Docks and other boats.

One of many things I took away from that life is that I was truly free. The only money I was required to pay were cruising permits, annual registration, and insurance (you'll want it if you're not a complete idiot). Having to move everyday was a minor, minor inconvenience.

Am I missing something that's exceedingly lethal to van dwellers but not traditionally-homed humans?

Worse case, you drive to the nearest ER. Worst case, call 911 or stumble out onto the street and ask someone to do so. No different than if I had a heart attack in my house.

Reacting to this so negatively is ignoring the billions of humans around the globe who live in much more rustic conditions and (largely) manage not to die.

I have no experience in this but it occurs to me that the van won't be inspected to the same standard as a building permit inspector or some such.

Imagine you screw up the ventilation and have a carbon monoxide problem, or, you screw up something electrical and put yourself at risk of fire. I suppose there are a lot of spotty contractors out there that still manage to do their thing on more traditional dwellings too, but DIY in the tight space of a van seems like some of the things described are not without risk.

Granted. But these things aren't rocket science.

There was a time when everyone managed to get by without building codes. Sure we had a few fires and collapses, but statistically speaking they were still outliers.

Don't let the 1% risk of bad hold you back from trying good, is my only point.

Lol. Living in a van isn’t hard. If you’re going to be judgey at least pick a topic you know something about.

> Just because it's not for you doesn't mean it's not for everyone.

Your argument appeals to the subjective (and I do love the idea), but the parent's points are more about the objective (flu, health implications, hygiene, etc.); also, having to pee into a bottle at night is definitely not for everyone.

From reading about van living, people often have a bucket for emergency defecations. And people on the road say they often go months and months without needing to use it. Toilet issues seem to be the greatest fear of people going into van living, but eventually discovered to be a non-issue, from recaps I've read.

Every time you buy anything at a store, you get a plastic bag. In an emergency, just crap in one of those. Place the used paper on top, tie the handles together, and find a dumpster. Really not that terrible.

Some people use $50-100 portable toilets, but others favour what is essentially a bucket with a toilet-styled lid, lined with multiple heavy duty plastic bags, and then filled with cat litter or dirt.

> Every time you buy anything at a store, you get a plastic bag.

In some countries that is true, in others you have to choose to pay for a bag, so most people don't, instead they re-use their existing (non-plastic) bag.

The UK for example charges 5p for a plastic bag and this has had a significant effect:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/30/england-...

People have different lifestyle preferences and there’s no reason to put someone down because they’ve made different trade-offs than you would.

Those trade offs are unsustainable. They are something the very young do without thought of what life will be in that situation five or ten years down the road. or even in the moment. His entire "what happens if the van breaks" section boils down to fix it yourself or call AAA. The fact that maybe it might take multiple days to fix the van, requiring you to live in a hotel or motel never seemed to warrant a notice. The expenses of what can go wrong can be very serious.

I've never seen these lifestylers put serious thought into what goes wrong. They rely on youthful immortality to carry them through.

again editing for language and adding content.

> They rely on youthful immortality to carry them through.

To be fair, having your small, mobile house suddenly become less mobile is typically not a disaster - unless it happens in the middle of a desert, or in the middle of winter. Someone living in a van in Hawaii or California is likely not going to be in serious danger if their engine suddenly seizes up, or if an axle breaks.

Plus, if the alleged savings from not paying rent are actually put away into some sort of savings account, staying in a hotel or motel for a week or two while the van is repaired isn't likely to be a tremendous setback.

It honestly doesn't seem any more risky than living in an apartment - which can flood, catch fire, or otherwise become un-inhabitable as easily as a van, and are more difficult to repair and harder to move your stuff out of.

I think your point about sudden illness or injury is a much more serious problem facing a would-be van-dweller.

A week in a motel is less than what someone so inclined would save on renting a house. If the van is broken, it's immobilised, like a house... If something breaks in your house or with your car, you likewise fix it yourself or call in an expert.

How much have you looked into this subculture? There are people of all ages and they indeed put serious thought into contingencies. There are retirees, there are young travellers, college kids, remote workers who like travelling around. There are people with nothing in their bank account who can't afford to live another way. There are others with money to burn, but just wanting a lifestyle change. Some are solo, some as couples or with a family, others with pets.

It's not for everyone, but then not everything is.

What honestly frustrates you about it? Do you wish that you could overlook the fears and take a risk yourself?

What honestly frustrates you about it?

I was wondering the same thing as I got ready to reply, then I realized it’s probably a case of extreme Worrywartitis, and a reply would be wasted. Some folks can throw some tools and a tent on the motorcycle and head off to Alaska for a month. Others will have to pack until they can’t see over the handlebars, because what if? I’m more of the former. If it breaks, I’ll fix it. If I need parts, I’ll put the tent up and wait for FedEx. If I am in a situation that I can’t get myself out of, I’ll fire up the satellite communicator. But in general, if things go wrong I’ll figure it out somehow. Always have. Might not at some point in the future. Hopefully it’s a dramatic end.

Takes all kinds to make a world, the nonchalant and the less so. Problem is, the latter often can’t leave the former alone about it.

I guess then, can that author delve deeper and wonder what sparks that worrying, especially on behalf of other people? Is it a case of "I'm too scared to do it, so I want to talk others out of it so I'm not the only one left safe at home and missing out?"

I think you are not familiar with the circumstances that the majority of the people on earth survive through. Living in a van in the US, assuming a moderate income, sounds far preferable to what many others endure.

What I think you are assuming is that this lifestyle goes hand-in-hand with poverty, in which case the people living it would probably be worse off if forced to sacrifice an even greater portion of their income on living expenses. Why would an older person, assuming equal income, be worse off in a van in the case of a medical emergency? Just call an ambulance like anyone else would.

And by the way, old people practically pioneered the art of van living -- it's called an RV!

> I've never seen these lifestylers put serious thought into what goes wrong.

Then you're not looking, because even as an outsider with a casual interest in this lifestyle I've come across many thoughtful resources online as well as candid accounts from people actually living in vans.

If you're not into being totally nomadic a variation would be to own a bit of property where you can park your home. Unimproved property can be very affordable.

Note: Isn't mixing bleach and ammonia a bad idea? Probably bad to be pissing in a bleach bottle then.

Just get a hotel room.

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