We live on cramped boats to save on soaring rents – the highs & lows for Brits living on water

this just ended up being more affordable for us to be able to live together when we moved up to UNI God’s honest to I’ve been terrified of a my whole life it’s either this or a van and we didn’t know how to [Music] drive we got kicked out of our last house was about 1,000s of roof it was ridiculous and also we had like the pipes were all broken so the downstairs is pretty unusable we have like we all got Nora virus living there as no Goods reason why live is because my son has play probably the most expensive career which is to become golfer I thought do I carry on renting a house or do I release that money to be able to show it all at him about a year and a half wanted to live outdoors went to own our own property yeah yes not no way of doing that in 1100 11 12 11 1100 1200 for a two bed uh go a house it’s ridiculous money so then then the rule is you double it right with all the bills and everything you double the rent and then that’s like the cost of that’s that’s no golf coaching every week I had been planning this for and saving up for this for about four or 5 Years anyway so it was my long-term plan but it was that situation that really did push me over be and decide okay right I’m going to make moves out [Music] when we were looking for renting it was it was just like oh we’re not going to be able to do it we not going to be able to live in brist and he was going to have to go into halls or something which would have still been expensive but then at least be able to go to UNI that would have meant that I would have stayed down in cble which I would have loved occasionally there’ll be things that go wrong and it makes it stressful just maintenance stuff like same sort of thing that you’d have with a house but it just it feels different cuz L used to another bik it’s a bit chilly sometimes but then in the summer you get baking hot I’ve struggle a lot with the mold and the dampness just the Reliance on the wood burner when it’s cold like before we had the burner in there’s like ice on in the inside of the walls thinking about like when you’re going to start the fire breaking down when it gets dark at 5:00 um in the middle of a canal is light either to having sort of like man like drag it down the canal got a bit of a disastrous weekend let’s go to hospital I ended up in a hospital we couldn’t find anywhere to Mo nowhere to stop so the map says there’s a t right half a mile easy the move the boat and then I’ll stop for two weeks and recover oh no no stopping and we did seven hours we did two tunnels I’ve never cried so much in my life dark 20 minute tunnel the is linkon tunnel bashed my boat a bit this is this is the wall in the tunnel then we did nine locks Camden lock everyone’s videoing so stop videoing just come and help overall probably like 20,000 so far with all the work we’ve done on it yeah oh yeah we we put work into it um you kind of got to learn as you go you got options you can either take a gamble with one that hasn’t had a survey you can get them for cheap but it could just be like a rust bucket it’s hard to tell I’d say like a good price for like if you’re like gambling maybe like 12,000 what we did is we look for one with a survey and all it had in it was like an oven really and we just been like trying to put like the walls in oh no spray foamed as well like the insulation is important and you need a wood burner for this kind of life so I bought this for 43,000 I got a marine mortgage you can’t buy a boat with a normal mortgage you could get a bank loan I think some do nearly 500 a month I yeah so extortionate interest so but it’s was the only thing I can do gas is um one bottle is £45 at last 6 months so my whole gas bill for the year is 90 quid the only thing I need to put the generator on is hot water and about 5 six to fill that up vetrol I’ve got solar panels which my my lovely dad has put on for me only last week he put those on to try and reduce the amount of money that I’m having to pay this would and and Cole worked out at worth £70 a week and then I was like I’m not winning this isn’t this isn’t why I’m here this isn’t working so now you take the fallen down trees and along the toe pass um the council when they cut down the trees they leave them in a part all voters to be able to you know help yourself so free word sometimes people do want to interact with the boats a bit more it’s a bit more in the public sphere than I know people to view a bit differently to houses it’s not the people it’s the water you know and uh alcohol as well the culture in Britain and the amount of pubs that you navigate by pubs we don’t go them go to them but um that’s that we meet at them you know cuz there just so many along the canal I think that’s that’s the biggest Danger on the canal is is people getting drunk and falling in I have heard someone jump on and PE off the side of the end so all his child are down and Fe it you do hear of people that get broken get broken into I have seen someone try and break into another play I’ve I that [Music] so yeah so this is my bedroom where um you can see the theme of gnome starts when we bought the boat the only bit that was really old and needed replacing was the bathroom and it was just oh we couldn’t use it so my son he was 14 and he’d never done anything you know DIY and he youtubed it and he literally plumbed in his bathroom put in the bath the shower the sink everything he did himself it was incredible my kitchen we’ve just modernized it a little bit but nothing nothing majorly done here my lounge with the wood burner that’s the only form of heating in there this is my laptop I do all my calls on it and my WIFI is that TP Link Box fantastic gives me 4G I do you get a bit of Cabin Fever sometimes you have to just literally stand outside to be able to remember there is actually a world but yeah it can get quite claustrophobic sometimes we paid the canal and River trust okay so you if you’re like a continuous Cruiser then you pay for a license each year and then that’s what it costs you got to move every two weeks we P 9 each a month you have to do 22 miles of these if you don’t sort of do enough mileage as a continuous Cruiser youve run the risk of having your license reduced to 6 months and then and if you don’t comply obiously it’s on they can take your license away I’m always on the boat so I I do worry even just going to the hospital I word I check myself out because I was like no I’m not leaving my boat two weeks ago I was stopped by a man as I was sailing I was stopped by a man who was screaming at me from the toe path that he just had his boat stolen and told me to look out for it and um about half a mile on I found it and I didn’t quite know what to do but so I pulled my boat up about 100 yards away and Di 999 and gave them the actual location and I was so chuffed that I reunited this guy with the boat cuz they steal them very quickly and they get them ready to go on the back of the trailer and they’re out and repainted before you know it so I don’t feel comfortable leaving the boat it’s everything I own is in here the best thing is that I I I can fund my children that’s the only reason I’m doing it um so Financial Freedom and the worst thing I I I get scared being on my own especially just being a woman on man I I do get scared yeah so that’s that’s the worst thing and how cold it gets in the winter that’s it but yeah everything’s physical you know I’m covered in bruises but you every morning you wake up and oh look there’s another one so you’re like you’re banging against everything and of course I’m getting used to the boat leaning so it’s the weight distrib tion so simple things like the sofa has to be on this side cuz all the built-in stuff is on that side I remember I said to my mom I was like I’ve got no electricity got no Plumbing um and uh I’m just I’m I’m barely making it but I’m just really enjoying it it’s a great life I’m so glad I started just like yeah I’m proud of you it makes every day quite interesting I would recommend it to anyone who is open to train and who’s openminded then yes def

THEY can endure a constant battle with damp and mould, freezing temperatures at night and having to up sticks to move every two weeks.

But increasing numbers of Brits in UK cities, including London and Bristol, are rejecting sky-high rents and shoddy landlords to live on houseboats instead.

Canal-based liveaboards are mooring two-deep across London, where the cost of living has become unbearable.

Spiritual life coach Rhiannon Faulkner snapped up hers in a bid to save money so she could pay for her talented teenage son’s golf lessons.

Mum-of-five Rhiannon, 51, said: “It was literally the cost of renting that forced me to do this.

“We were in Berkshire before, paying £1,200 a month for a two-bedroom house.

“It’s ridiculous money and you double your outgoings with all the bills.

“So I’ve gone up the river. My children think I’m completely mad because I don’t know what I’m doing. Also, I’ve had a lifelong fear of water since falling into a canal when I was a child.

“But I’m just learning as I go along.”

Rhiannon’s son Dan Faulker, 17, is an apprentice at Windlesham Golf Club in Surrey and his proud mum called her boat ‘The 19th Hole’ in honour of his late father.

The term refers to the clubhouse where golfers gather for the obligatory drink after a round.

But, having bought her London-based narrowboat two-and-a-half years ago, life has been far from smooth sailing.

Earlier this month, she developed a serious infection that required emergency treatment.

But after a seven hour battle to moor, she only made it to hospital thanks to the calm thinking of her daughter Steph Faulker, 28, who lives in a house in Hertfordshire.

Rhiannon added: “I developed an infection from a biopsy and the GP said, ‘Get yourself to A&E.’

“But I couldn’t find anywhere to moor the boat – I still need to learn how to manoeuvre this thing. I ended up driving around for seven hours. I have never cried so much.

“We went through two tunnels, one of which was dark and took 20 minutes to navigate. I bashed the side into a wall.

“We ended up in the middle of a protest at one point.

“I did get to hospital but I couldn’t have done it without Steph, who calmed me down and called an uber once I reached dry land.”

Rhiannon says moving to a boat was a huge decision but makes financial sense.

“I bought this for £43,000 using a 10-year marine mortgage, which costs £500 a month as the interest is extortionate.

“My gas bill for the year is £90 and I don’t use electricity as my dad put on solar panels the other week.

Read more: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/27952699/broke-brits-canal-boats-london/

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43 comments

  1. This is the new underclass, when canals were used for transport, hundreds of thousands of canal people lived and worked on boats like this

  14. Berkshire Hathaway Mr Warren Buffett, come on we all like this guy he is the darling billionaire Democrats billionaire in the United States.. when the world was hurting through the pandemic, Warren Buffett other billionaire buddies buying up housing don't buy a mobile home in a mobile home park. You know Warren if it has wheels by it. In the United States he bought up seniors mobile home parks all over the country and doubled the rent ….
    Curious do you have your own particular billionaires in Great Britain that have caused what this little video is about.
    The USA has screwed itself doesn't matter who wins the next election and I know it's a big deal for you people across the pond…
    We have taken in enough immigrants on top to 40 million we already have, the United States will no longer be recognized in 15 years or less. The erasing of middle-class across the world, was discussed by about 200 gentlemen and this is what you get..
    Stick with sending illegals to Rwanda, start manufacturing something.
    Last video I watched discussion of a war your country could not go to war you cannot fight a war for more than a couple weeks. Russia is not a harm or threat to the people in the USSR impact you need the resources and look at how you're living while the handful of investors in the industrial War complex has manufactured 3 trillion in arms since January 2022 …
    Only thing going to say this planet is all out nuclear war and start over and look much like the trailer with the taped up Windows.
    In about another hundred years to planet it will be healed,.
    And perhaps mankind would have learned some lessons.

  16. Capitalism needs either sufficient supply or price regulation. Otherwise it descends quickly into slow class warfare and then feudalism. Greed being insatiable by nature, there is no other outcome in the long run.

  17. Just a cautionary note, given some of the prices that were mentioned in this piece, a decent new boat can easily cost you a quarter of a million. The prices exploded with the problems around COVID – easily a fifty percent price hike for older second-hand boats. And living on a boat is no romantic idyll – essentially imagine it as being camping and think if you want to do that, on water, for the rest of your life.

  20. Britain has lousey planning laws, designed to destroy nature to make builders rich. We need high quality, detached apartment blocks, set it traffic-free, wooded parkland with fully integrated public transport. Not impossible at all; they have been doing it for years in Europe

  21. The sad thing is many of these are not boat savvy they just live on boats and don’t move much so the hulls don’t get properly maintained. The boats are only 6mm steel plate on the sides and they rust and suffer from electrolytic attack from poorly maintained electrical systems. City centres such as London have no facilities to maintain these boats and there are increasing sightings of sunken craft.

  22. Middle class ‘uni’ kids…..’spiritual life coach’……’costume maker’….’fire prop maker’…….so convenient to attend a pro Palestine march too…😂😂😂. Not the lot of the working classes. No sympathy.

  24. I looked into this 40 years ago, they mentioned all the real challenges, it's cold, damp and insecure. OK if your 20-40, ideally work from home, beyond that I imagine the environment really doesn't work well for you. I know mosquito's love these sort of environments too, so as the world warms up, they might be an issue.

  25. Why choose to live in an expensive city that is beyond your means? Do you really think the law of supply and demand is going to make an exception for you?

  31. Here in France there are no river licences to pay for or mooring charges in the canals. Locks have pontoons with free electricity and water, as do most towns and villages to attract visitors.

  32. The issue with posts like this are that they paint a picture whereby it is assumed that you simply buy a boat and move onboard. As a continuous cruiser you are bound by the terms of your license, you are required to move every 14 days (maximum duration or as per the stipulated length of time per mooring). Many especially in and around London seem to think moving a 100 metres or so is acceptable. If you have to be in place for work or school then options are to have a residential mooring which will incur additional costs on top of the annual license fee (which is different if you are a CCer or have a home mooring). One of the main reasons CRT are hiking the CC license fee is due to the continuous moorers who clog popular moorings persistently. I am a CCer and abide to the terms, it is a great way of life but should not be seen as simply an alternative form of cheap housing. Many will find that life on the waterways can be hard especially in winter, it is not for the feint hearted. If you want water, fuel, gas or coal or to dispose of sewage then you move to get these (With the exception of the fantastic fuel boats that service some of the network)

  39. Glad I bought land and built a safe space. Bent council rules but 21 yrs on I'm still here and whilst not fully legal I'm going nowhere.

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