Tiny House Ontario

Night Time Goosebumps

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Laura

At 2:00 am, Dieter signalled that he had to go outside.  Hj turned on the upstairs lights and tottered down the stairs with him.  Then he turned on the downstairs and outside lights, including the spotlight out to the dog’s garden and since it looked clear, he opened the door to let Dieter out.  Dieter immediately rushed out the door barking and began chasing a large animal around the yard.  Hj was yelling “Dieter, Dieter, Dieter” and running after him.  At first we thought the animal was a fisher, but within moments we understood it was a porcupine.  A big one, of about 25 pounds.

Fortunately, Hj was able to get Dieter back into the house and the porcupine never made contact with either of my guys.

Can you see it?

S/he is right there under the sapling. Can you see our prickly friend?

 

The porcupine, I guess needed to relax after such a burst of commotion, so s/he stayed in the fenced area for about half an hour and then finally scaled up the fence and continued up one of the maple trees.  After s/he climbed up Dieter was brought out to go to the bathroom… ON A LEASH, this time.  He really did have to go to the bathroom but quickly did his business without further incident and came back in.

 

Dieter (doing his best Flock of Seagulls imitation)

Dieter (doing his best Flock of Seagulls imitation)

Dieter is, by the way, our most recent rescue.  He is five and a half and was adopted in December.  He had been living in a cage in disgusting conditions for the first five years of his life.  His owners were backyard breeders, who ran a small puppy mill.   He was the “stud”.   When he was pulled along with all the other dogs he was half the weight and had half the hair that he now has.  He was covered in fleas and suffered with tapeworm just as all the other dogs in the house.   He has made a stellar recovery!

Please adopt, don’t shop.  Dogs like Dieter make such grateful and wonderful companions!

 

Categories: Dog, Dogs, Forest, Ontario, Open your eyes, Tiny house, Tiny House Ontario, Wildlife | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

EEEEEEEEK! SQUEEEEEEEEEK! WORK!

Posted on June 18, 2014 by Laura

This past weekend I removed and relocated 19 very cute but very messy little mice from Tiny House Ontario.  I thought I had them all at 14 because I did not hear any noise but on the last day, I lifted the toilet and there was a  wonderful plastic bag and toilet paper home.  It was a mom with four tiny pink babies.

I removed her and her family easily right in the bag.  Since I know this is the access point for them, I then covered the area under the sink and toilet with a cup of cayenne pepper, a cup of cloves, and several types of essential oil which I understand they dislike the smell of.  Lavender, peppermint and clove oil was what I used.  I have to tell you, the bathroom smells heavenly to me.  Clearly, I am NOT a mouse because I could sit in there all day and sniff.

The mice made one hell of a mess.  It was seriously awful what they did in a five week period.  They found a five pound bag of niger seed which I use to feed the song birds and this was absolutely everywhere.  Further to this, they peed all over everything.  The entire house had to be emptied and washed.  All food, paper, tissues, towels, tea and coffee had to be disposed of.  They got into everything.  It took me hours to clean the place and it still smells of urine.

Mouse urine does not seem to be like urine from other animals.  I think it has a lot of oil in it because it was never dry in the area where they peed.  I normally don’t use a lot of chemicals when I clean but this time I bleached and then used oil soap to clean up the mess.

I the house still smells when I get back I will rub the wood and floors with pine essential oil but for now, after three days of work the house looks reasonable again.

Lets hope it stays that way.

mom and baby with niger seeds baby Male in trap

 

Categories: Forest, Nature, Off Grid, Ontario, Simple living, Tiny house, Tiny House Ontario | Tags: , | 8 Comments

Spring 2014 Update

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Laura

An short update on what is going on with me and Tiny House Ontario is here

Looks nice I think.

Looks nice I think.

.

Categories: Forest, Health, Laura Moreland, Nature, Ontario, Open your eyes, Simple living, Tiny house, Tiny House Ontario, View | 5 Comments

Ontario Tiny House Legalization…

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Laura

Update: Monday May 16, 2016

I am sorry to say that the tip that came to me about the Municipality of Highlands East was not correct.  I don’t think that the tipper meant any malice but they were simply misinformed and I passed on this misinformation to you.  I am very sorry about this.

I know it must have been a sad disappointment for at least one of the people who read it, because Dan wrote to the the Municipality of Highlands East and here is the note that he got back.

“Our zoning by-law has not changed and the minimum size of a dwelling is 65 square meters or 700 square feet.”

I am sorry Dan and others who hoped to make this community their home.

 

_____________________________________________

 

There are two bits of news that I find promising when it comes to the legality of tiny houses in Ontario.

1. Garden Suites

2. UPDATE: the Municipality of Highlands East has lowered its footprint size to 500 feet.  Which is a perfectly reasonable house size and right sized for a lot of people.  (News of this came to me on November 19, 2015)  One tiny step forward!

 

Tiny house hopeful Anthony shared a bunch of research that he has been doing in his area.  He discovered that Garden Suites are allowed to be built in the area outlined in black in the below map of Ontario.

Each of these areas has rules unique to its own area.  But essentially what holds true to all of them is that if you can get someone to agree to allow you on their land, if you hook up your services to the main house and if you pay a nice hefty fee, you can park a tiny house in these areas. Yes I said PARK!  These buildings must be supplementary and they must be mobile.

With this said, please before you jump check the specific area, there are a lot of restrictions and you will need to know these.  You can’t fill too much of the green space in a lot for example and wouldn’t it be a pity to build a house 1 square foot too big after paying for all the hookups.

Also doing this will NOT be cheap.  These houses MUST be hooked in on the existing infrastructure.  No off grid toilets, there must be running water and electricity.  In other words, if you are considering building you have to add all of these infrastructural costs to your build. Further to this, you better have a LONG term lease with the land owner, even if this is someone you trust.  Once you spend the money for hooking your house to sewage, water and electricity you want to be sure that a fight over a cup of sugar won’t find you and your house without a place to live.

I want to note that while I am excited about the potential of this, there is a lot of leg work and money to make this happen.

If you decide to go ahead with doing this, please do so with your building inspector as well as a lawyer to draw up a lease agreement.  Remember I know something about tiny houses, but I  am not willing to take any responsibility if you fail to do your own homework for your own house.  I can’t possibly know all the individual codes for every township.

 

Garden Suites

 

 

The second point, and this is REALLY great news, just last night I heard from a counsellor from a very nice area in Ontario.  This person said that they are considering removing the minimum house size in the area that they are representing.   I sent back SO much information that they will have to spend quite some time reading the information I sent.  This said, it is totally worth my time to donate my time to this cause, because I want to ensure that tiny and small sustainable homes are available to anyone who wants to live this lifestyle.

When I know more, I will certainly share more.

We are getting closer every single day folks!

Categories: Building code, Community, Environmentalism, Ontario, Rules, Sustainable living, Tiny house, Tiny House Ontario, View | Tags: , , , , , | 38 Comments

Planning…

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Laura

On Thursday evening my friend Guillaume made the trip to Hamilton to spend the night with Hj and I.  His intent was not simply to have a visit with us but to discuss his own tiny house build.  His work as a chemical engineer has forced him through a few relocations, currently this involves a lot of hotel rooms and I can tell you from my own experience with work travel living in a suitcase is not nearly as glamourous as it might seem to those who have not done it.  Every hotel in every city, no matter where you are becomes the same disconnected holding unit.  Now, with his current location change he is keen to have a somewhat more stationary home which can be relocated when his career calls.  A tiny house, is clearly his best and only option.  However, the life appeals to him too.  He loves the idea of a sustainable lifestyle and has big (ahem, tiny) plans.  He is a person who is very connected to the Norse tradition and having a simpler life is strongly in keeping with his personal values.

We looked together through a lot of photos and talked about the long and short term planning aspects of owning a tiny house.  As well we talked about him building the house while he stays at Tiny House Ontario.  In fact, he will soon be buying a trailer and bringing it there to begin the job in earnest.


Laura and Guillaume

 

He will initially put the house in the clearing beside THO and once the shell is done it will be moved to its location at the rear of my land.  In order to park the house back there he will have to do some land prep, which is to say that he will need to trim back the shrubs along the tractor path.  They have grown back in since 2010 when we last cleared this route.  He will also have to put in a couple of loads of gravel and will get my cousin Kenny to smooth this in.  This will cost him between $600 and $1000 which is a reasonable amount of rent for him to pay for the year and the benefit to me is that it will be easier to get in there if there is a fallen tree or simply to walk back to the rear of the acreage.

The natural location for him to place his house is to go where Great Giant Clyde fell and was removed over winter.  The naturally made hole in the canopy is ideal because this will allow him to collect sun for his solar system.   I am happy to know that absolutely no tree will need to be removed in order to provide Guillaume with a little space to call his own.  His location will be about 1/6th of a kilometre  to my own house but we will be divided by the thick prickly pear line so we will both enjoy 100% privacy in our homes.  The other benefit is that he is open to allowing me to share all the steps he makes in the building of his home, so this will provide me with a lot of fodder for my writing.

In short, we are great friends and soon we will be great neighbours as well.

clyde-from-the-south

 

I would like to take this time to say goodbye to Clyde and thank him for creating space for Guillaume.

Categories: Community, Forest, Friendship, Neighbours, Off Grid, Simple living, Tiny House Ontario | Tags: | 9 Comments