Stolen tiny houses?! Sadly, this is a real possibility with the mobile nature of tiny houses being built on trailers. One day they’re parked at a Whole Foods Market while you go in to purchase a yoga block, the next moment BOOM they’re stolen and driven cross country to be used as a Fair Trade Coffee stand.
Being a Tiny House Person, I’ve curated a list of the best ways to protect you and your tiny house from intruders and tiny house pirates:
1. Install A Deadbolt So You Don’t End Up Dead
Spend as much money as your GoFundMe campaign will afford. If you built the door yourself, reverse roleplay and try to kick in your door to test its strength.
2. Build A Smaller Door
My house has a 12 inch wide door making it extremely difficult to get inside. It also prevents me from eating too much tapas and missing my daily yoga.
3. Own Nothing of Value
If you don’t have anything worth stealing then no one will want to break in. Hanging arts and crafts you made outside will help robbers know to move on to the next tiny house. If you do possess anything of value, like a thrift store incense holder or vintage Polaroid Camera, then be sure to hide it in your dining table that converts into a couch that converts into a ladder that converts into a cigar box, built to hold your money because you don’t trust banks.
4. Hitch Lock?
Some would recommend using a hitch lock. I WOULDN’T. Hitch locks can be snapped like a chastity cage. I attach the hitch of my house to an old truck that’s missing its engine and is resting on cinder blocks, that way the house can move when you want it to but the truck can’t. It makes perfect sense when you don’t think about it.
5. End Your Relationships With Friends and Utilities
This way if anyone steps on your homestead you know they have bad juju. I do Tarot readings, burn sage, and lick crystals every morning to clear confusion and warn me when I might be expecting somebody, also to let me know when my abandonment issues will fade. The power for the tiny house is generated by solar panels and a large wheel that cranks electricity when you run inside of it.
6. Put Bars On All Two Windows
Protect both of your windows and never open them. This is also to prevent pet squirrels from getting out.
7. Design Your House Not For A Comfortable Layout, But Against Intruders
I built my house so the only “technical” room is the bathroom. This way an intruder would have to step over my composting toilet (AKA a Home Depot bucket) to enter the tiny house. The smell of Humanure should be enough to make them reconsider.
8. Create A Barricade of Yoga Mats and Solar Panels
Being a tiny houser, you own a lot of them. Just stuff them all against the 12 inch door and rotting toilet scraps before bedtime. This is one of the many reasons tiny houses violate zoning codes. (We’ll discuss zoning code loopholes next time!)
9. Hide In The Loft and Make PEW PEW Noises
If an intruder enters your domicile, getting past all of your shit, make gun noises. Although you don’t believe in guns, you can still pretend to scare them away. Personally, I don’t know what a gun sounds like but I believe it’s something like a cat playing with a box of organic crackers on a xylophone. I’d search online but I don’t have WiFi.
10. Go Ahead With The Paint and Poetry
It’s a dirty trick but when all else fails you can recite your poetry or read the Dr. Bronner’s label loudly until the intruder can’t bear it anymore. If in range, let the tiny paint cans you strung together swing down the loft stairs in hopes of hitting the burglars.
Stay locked in and stay safe!
Corey Miller lives with his wife in a tiny house they built near Cleveland. He is an award-winning Brewmaster who enjoys a good lager. His writing has appeared in MoonPark Review, Pithead Chapel, Barren, Cleaver, Lost Balloon, Hobart, Cease Cows, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @IronBrewer or at www.coreymillerwrites.com