I Live In An Allotment House - Part One

Introduction

For the last two years I’ve been living in an allotment house outside my home city of Odense, Denmark - first and foremost with the clear aim of saving money and stretching my dwindling funds by not paying a rent. Begun out of pure necessity, the project has over the seasons both turned into a way of life and turned out to be very addictive. In this post I will try to relate to you a little of that lifestyle, focusing on the material and physical conditions.

A Very Short History of Allotments in Denmark

For the last century or more, allotments have been an integrated part of urban working class culture in Denmark.

Intended as a way of supplementing your income with self-grown vegetables and fruits, allotments have always been very popular with people of low income. During and after WWII a lot of people probably survived more or less because of crops grown in their allotments.

Though taking a prominent place in the public mind, allotments have in recent decades been associated more with holiday getaways than a way of sustaining life on a limited budget.

Allotments are usually organized by private democratic societies, membership is open and a set of rules and laws regulate the use of the gardens.

Though you can have a house or shed in your allotment garden you’re not supposed to live in it as your home. The building and maintenance of allotment houses is not subject to the usual building regulations, which normally spawns an abundance of very bad craftsmanship.

Wikipedia on Allotments.

My Reason for Going Lo-Tek

In August 2005 I quit my apartment in Århus and moved to Odense. My girlfriend was going to study in that city and I myself had come to a point in my studies where physical attendance at the University wasn’t required but once or twice a month (which doesn’t mean that I didn’t study!).

Inspired by several aquaintances who had done it, we decided to try living in an allotment house.

Another reason for doing it, is not having to pay the deposit and rent for an apartment.

Paying a rent doesn’t leave much money when you’re surviving on students’ loans and different kinds of government funding.

When you live in an allotment, you rent the garden, but you buy the (usualy very cheap) house, which means you’re free to alter it and even demolish and rebuild it. Yay!

Living in your allotment house is not quite the idea and it’s not quite according to the rules. But boy is it cheap!

The Physical Conditions

Living in an allotment house has had a huge impact on our everyday life.

First of all, living “off the grid” (i.e. without electricity) changes a lot of the things that used to be quick’n'easy, mainly vacuum cleaning and using electrical kitchen appliances.

Living Like the 1920’s

Now you mustn’t imagine that our house is a shabby shed in the corner of a cabbage field. Actually, it’s more like a real house, albeit on a small scale.

30 square metres in all, it has double brick walls and stands on a concrete foundation, and it even sports an insulated roof. There’s running tap water (except during the coldest winter months), but no proper sewage.

Heating is provided by a stove in the living room. The bricked chimney runs up the wall in the bedroom and thus providing some heating in there as well.

Cooking is done partly on a gas stove in the kitchen and partly on the firestove in the living room, to save gas and make better use of the firewood.

Lighting after dark is done by candles and oil lamps. End of story. And yes, you can read and study by candlelight.

Electricity - It’s The New Fad!

No electricity you say?. Er, well, in fact we do have a little. Last summer I installed some photoelectric (solar) panels on the roof. Since then, the system has provided enough current for us to charge 2 laptops, 2 mobile phones, as well as listening to the radio and occasionally using it to provide sourround sound for watching a film. Also, I run a nifty little antenna which connects to a radio mast about one mile away, meaning broadband internet without a telephone line. Very useful!

As you can see, some things are run “the modern way”, but the main systems we rely on on a daily basis can run on petrol, firewood or muscle power.

Outdoor Activities

Speaking of muscle power, cutting firewood with an axe is an activity that takes up quite a lot of time. This is not necessarily a bad thing though. When you wake up in the morning to a livingroom temperature of, say, 8°C (c. 46°F), getting outside and cutting firewood for a quarter of an hour really gives you nice warm start on the day!

Collecting vegetables and herbs for dinner is another outdoor activity, as well as fetching drinking water at the tap half a mile away.

Shower and Laundry

One thing I have learned is taking a bath in a bucket.

When living under these rather primitive conditions, you worry less about showering every day. Still, you wouldn’t want other people to think you’re dirty.

Washing yourself becomes an activity that can take 1 hour or more - from you put the large pot on the stove till you’re done bathing.

Doing the laundry becomes tiresome, as it involves riding the bike for a few miles with all the dirty clothes and then paying an obscene amount of money in a worn down laundromat.

I haven’t seriously considered doing the laundry in the house, but it might be a realistic possibility.

Economy

Not paying a rent has seriously improved my personal economy. On the other hand restoring and improving the house has swallowed quite a lot of money.

After about 12 months in the house, we had used as much money on fixing the house, as we would have used on the rent for a decent appartment.

The last five to six months, though, have been very very cheap and comfort can’t be increased much without “getting on the grid”.

Part Two:

In the next part of this post I discuss what this way of life has done to the inhabitants.

Comments:

If you would like to leave a comment, please do so in part two, which you can find here: http://www.henrikkarll.dk/recent-finds/i-live-in-an-allotment-house-part-two.