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I have to post something so my account will not be blocked
I recently bought a little lake with a hut. It is in walking distance (5mins) to my house where my AirBnB apartment is located.
We have around 800 trouts in the lake.
There is electricity in the hut but no water. This means no toilet and no shower.
It has a living/ dining room and a bedroom that sleeps 2 persons.
I am thinking of two things to do with it:
Create an AirBnB experience. We go fishing and grill or smoke the fish afterwards.
Fishing is highly regulated in Germany but on private ground you can do whatever you want.
Create a second listing so people can rent the apartment and the hut at the lake.
They could use the amenities at the house and hang around, catch some fish or sleep at the hut.
It’s not about the water - there is plenty of it. It’s about the sewage. I can’t have people throwing toilet paper or foam into the stream nearby.
And it is a nature reserve zone so i can’t dig and lay pipes there.
These were featured on Gardeners’ Question Time last week, and we’re thinking about getting one for the top of the garden, so I don’t traipse mud through the kitchen when I need a pee. I understand they have dropped in price significantly, along with improved “compostability”! In the UK, Churches can get an ecclesiastical grant to put one in churchyards for their (ageing) congregations!
That still leaves Dirk with a shower issue. A solar powered water bag might suffice. I’d definitely go stay there, particularly for trout fishing.
We have two listings on our homestead in southern Vermont and one of them is a rustic set up like yours, a yurt.
We have a composting toilet. There’s no digging required. It’s Inside quite a pretty little outhouse structure that we built, with a toilet seat, and then half of a 55 gallon drum beneath. There is a urine diverter so that the liquids go into a different container. By diverting the urine there is little to no smell. People put sawdust is out on the solid waste each time they go, and I put lime on top of that every time we have guests leave. I dump the urine every time they leave too.
When the drum is just about full we pull it out, let it compost elsewhere, and put a fresh drum in.It works great.
We do have an outdoor shower, but only in the summer. We are booked every weekend now despite the lack of a shower. We do however have running water at the sink inside.
Part of our listing says is that if it gets very very cold (we’ll before zero F for multiple days) I may turn off the plumbing and give folks a big 5 gallon container with a tap to use for washing up. If you did that, and put in a composting toilet, you’d be all set. It’s basically what we have and we’ve got plenty of bookings!
You could offer the experience with the fishing that you mention, but with what folks might like more than that is if you got them set up with equipment and instruction so they could do it themselves. We are finding most of our guests or couples. They particularly like the yurt because it is rustic and unusual (and romantic… beautiful bed, woodstove, soft seating and textiles). But in both of our listings, it seems folks are mostly seeking out romantic time together. I’ll bet they would love to fish and fry up some supper!
Thank you so much.
I think i will just rent it out, even without the connection to the apartment.
I will install a composting toilet (there is another hut where I can place it) and I will place an outdoor shower.
Warm water is not a problem as I have electricity.
So you then have three options:
Rent the hut (for camping people and adventurers)
Rent the apartment (same as always)
Rent the apartment and the hut (best of two worlds)
I remember you posting your apartment before and I had bookmarked it. I love the Gummi bear lamp and the woodstock poster (I have the same t shirt) and the modern private bathroom so I would probably book the private room.
As others have said, renting the cabin would absolutely work and the composting toilet and outdoor shower won’t be a problem. You will attract a different, and in my opinion, very desirable kind of guest. Congratulations on the addition of this property to your home. Please come back and share the photos of the cabin set up when you get it done.
I’m curious, did you get a pop up from the site software when you logged in saying your account would be blocked? I know the software removed inactive accounts automatically but I didn’t realize users received warnings of some kind.
Ah cool, I was actually at the Woodstock 89 for the 20th Anniversary (and there was a lunar eclipse during it)! I was up there working at a summer camp, were you by chance doing that? A lot of people came from Germany to work there too. Also, my husband’s best friend works for a theatre company in Triberg Maybe we’ll stay at your hut when we come visit him!
Wow - I host in the heart of Oakland, Ca and have been inspired by the ingenuity and undaunted spirits of many folks shut out of a corrupted, broken housing “market”. It’s the generous sharing of ideas like yours - in responsive, collaborative forums such as this one - that fuel a very hopeful “homing” movement. All the best to you - and I love to stay In places like yours!
Maybe we’ll stay at your hut when we come visit him!