Evicted or driven out by rent rises, people are turning to caravans as a cheap option. Some love the lifestyle – but for others, it is cold and unsafe
ake Lee moved into a caravan two years ago and has never been happier. Before buying his static in Moray, Scotland, Lee was a Londoner. Fifteen years earlier, he’d taken out an interest-only mortgage – or, as he puts it, “one of these mortgages that shouldn’t have been given out”. “I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to pay the 100 grand I owed,” he says. Selling up would settle the debt – but leave him very little money to buy or rent elsewhere.
The park is quite diverse: Lee has thirtysomething neighbours on one side and ninetysomethings on the other. There are families, immaculately turned out couples, even a Little Lithuania: “This one Lithuanian family came in years ago, and they sort of gravitated around them. It’s brilliant.” Sheila, who does most of the talking, is in bits as she lays out their struggles. “It was awful. No water, no electricity, no sewage, nothing. Sleeping in a dark caravan. We’re just not getting any help,” she says. Sean is also at his wits’ end: “I am sick of being pushed from pillar to post by a system that encourages using people’s homes as investments.”
Sean is a builder and has been able to use his skills to provide basic plumbing, so they no longer have to live off bottled water and shlep their laundry to the launderette every other day like they did in the beginning. Still, things are far from perfect. All they have for heating is a tiny wood burner. “When you go to bed at night, it just goes out, and then you’re waking up to minus two in the caravan,” says Sean.
It didn’t end there. When Zoe moved in, her landlord said that utilities would cost her £40 a month. Soon afterwards, he tripled the bill without providing any evidence to justify the rise. Zoe emailed her local council for help, but they told her that caravans “don’t fall under our remit”. “These rogue landlords are exploiting people needing somewhere inexpensive to live and slipping through the net of accountability,” says Zoe.