You know, I’m almost perfect.  Almost.

Adding humility to my repertoire, I now have exactly ONE vice to my name…

…I watch “MTV: The Challenge.”

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I do.  I watch it religiously with my wife, and although the show is on Tuesday’s, we PVR it and have a standing Friday night date for The Challenge.

Some of you know what I’m taking about, right?

Look, we could debate Johnny’s GOAT status, or Nany’s irrelevance, or the need to get Camila back on the show asap, but I just don’t know that there’s time.

When I was living in the condo, and before I had a daughter, my wife and I had a great weeknight routine: I would work at the dining table while she watched TV, and I would make comments every-so-often that she would try to ignore.

Kardashians, Million Dollar Listing, Property Virgins, all those “kids and counting” shows that sadly seem to be in abundance, wife swapping, unplanned teen pregnancies that for some reason are documented for others to see, and of course, MTV: The Challenge.

After a couple seasons of making comments from afar, I found myself wandering over to the TV a couple of times per episode to check it out.

“Oh I just knew Zach was working with Wes!” I would tell my wife, and she shook her head, and told me to go back to the computer.

Some time around 2015, my wife said, “The Challenge is starting up again, and I think we should watch it together.”

That was a turning point in my life.

I was planning to take up one serious vice, so it was either crystal meth, or watching awful reality television that glorifies mindless morons.

I stand by my decision.

Off topic, but now that Laurel was eliminated, do you the balance of power will shift back to the Brits’ side?

Anyways…

There is yet another show that my wife used to watch which I just can’t stand, and if you read the title of today’s blog, you know where I’m going with this.

The first time I saw the show “Tiny House,” I didn’t quite understand.

“Is this a show about poor people?” I asked my wife.  She said that living in a tiny house was a “choice” that these people made.

“Right…..so this is a show about crazy people?” I asked her?

Guys, be honest, has your wife ever quoted your mother, or grade-two teacher, and told you, “If you don’t have anything positive to say, then don’t say anything”?

I get this all the time when she’s watching Million Dollar Listing, and I tell her that agents don’t negotiate on speaker-phone in a cigar bar or art gallery, or when she’s watching House Hunters and I tell her that the entire show is faked, and these people bought the house months ago and they’re now filming it in reverse, or when she’s watching a reboot of Jersey Shore, which for some reason, exists, and I tell her that I feel bad for these people because they’ll all be in jail or dead in ten years.

When it comes to shows about “tiny houses,” I’m a worse armchair quarterback than I’ve ever been.

I can’t shut up.  I cannot tell her how insane this is.

I mean, from a legal, governmental, or zoning perspective, I don’t understand, and the show does nothing to explain where, why, and how people can just set up a tiny house, let alone how they get water, electricity, etc.

But it seems that, as with fans of the Kardashians, which apparently is about really good people who do good things in society, I’m out to lunch on tiny houses as well.

Stop me if you’ve already seen this, but there is now a tiny house movement afoot!

Seriously, I was Googling photos of tiny houses a couple of weeks ago, and the first link is now about the movement on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_house_movement

The tiny-house movement (also known as the “small-house movement”) is an architectural and social movement that advocates living simply in small homes. 2018 International Residential Code, Appendix Q Tiny Houses defines a tiny house However, a residential structure under 400 sq. ft is generally considered a tiny home. The tiny-house movement promotes financial prudence, economically safe, shared community experiences, and a shift in consumerism-driven mindsets.

In an unrelated story, did you know that if you’re not a vegetarian, then you’re not serious about climate change?  It’s true.

Boy, there are a lot of movements out there these days, and I didn’t know that, one day, we would completely forget all the lessons we learned as children, including the one taught by thee three wise individuals:

I mean, I’m no architect.  I’ll admit that.

I’ve certainly never built a house before, although I did build some fencing in the summer of 2003….

So maybe I’m not the authority figure on this, and maybe the story of the three little pigs is a fairy-tale, but I just don’t know how feasible the long-term prospects of these places are:

Again, let’s ignore the issue of where you can actually place one of these “houses,” ie. the land in Toronto is so expensive that you may as well live in a dirt hole, before you buy land to erect a $75,000 tiny house.

But for both pain and pleasure, let me introduce you to one of the best-selling models in America.

I give you: the Cypress model, by Tumbleweed:

She’s a beauty, ain’t she?

Starting at a mere $68,959, and fully customizable, the Cypress comes in five different floor plans.

The Cypress “Equator L1” checks in at a hefty 155 square feet of living space, plus a 55 square foot sleeping loft, and a 26 square foot storage loft.

That is tiny house luxury!

The house itself only weighs 12,000 lbs, and unlike traditional real estate, like houses and condos, you know you’ve made it to the big time when you describe your dwelling by how much it weighs.

I never thought to ask the listing agent of my house how much it weighs.

Shame on me…

Here are a few photos of the spacious main floor:

I know, right?

Sign me up!

Tough to visualize, I know, so how about a floor plan?

They had me at Great Room.

A bit of an exaggeration, I know.  But considering what Toronto Realtors do all the time – calling Coxwell & Gerrard “prime Leslieville,” I think we can let these great people off the hook for their 38 square foot great room.

The upper level is somewhat impressive, I must say:

No, you can’t stand up there.  But who needs to?

A buddy of mine moved into a condo in Kensington back when we were younger, and his bed was in a loft up above the bathroom.  He had to climb a ladder to get in and out of bed every night.  I always asked him how the ladies felt about the setup, but he was one of those really annoying people who had “class” and didn’t talk about their conquests.  Ugh, so annoying.

From this angle, you can see the 26 square foot “storage area” as well as the air conditioner:

Birdseye view of the place that totally sane people call “home”…

These little beauties can be financed for as little as $435 per month, with a 20% down payment, at a paltry 7.6% APR.

No, that’s not a typo.

7.6% APR, which is what we in Canada call an “interest rate.”  So suffice it to say, this isn’t cheap by today’s standards.

Of course, if this model is too large for you, Tumbleweed makes a Roanoke model that’s a mere 129 square feet with a 27 square foot storage loft.

Oh – and it only weighs 9,000 lbs, so it’s easy to pull with a bunch of dudes.

Cynicism and sarcasm aside, the tiny house movement is afoot.  So too is breast-feeding your children until they’re 12-years-old, but what’s afoot is afoot, dammit!

Want to know how small municipalities are dealing with it?

How about little-known Bainbridge Island, population 23,025?

Just outside Seattle lays the small hamlet, and according to their local newspaper, tiny houses are all the rage, and the township is exploring how to deal with them:

It’s not a big thing on Tuesday’s city council agenda.

But the topic may draw big, big interest.

The Bainbridge Island City Council will take up the issue of “tiny homes” at its study session Tuesday, March 5.

Tiny homes are seen as a potential answer to the skyrocketing cost of single-family homes. They are typically described as dwellings less than 400 square feet in size, built to resemble a small cottage. Some are constructed on a permanent foundation, while others are set on wheels and can be moved from location to location.

The ones on wheels are described by advocates as being different from motor homes, or towed trailers, because their construction more closely resembles a conventional house.

Municipalities across the country have been grappling with how to allow, or not, tiny homes within the framework of existing zoning and land-use laws. Some cities have allowed tiny houses as accessory dwelling units, or on residentially-zoned lots if the homes are placed on permanent foundations.

A number of counties in California have permitted tiny houses on wheels if they are used as caregiving dwellings and are placed in the back yard of an existing home.

In other areas of the country, including Oregon, tiny houses have been used as dwellings for the homeless.

The potential for tiny homes was explored last year by the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force.

In its report to the council last July, the task force recommended that the city explore tiny homes and tiny homes on wheels as a strategy to increase the amount of lower cost housing on Bainbridge. The average value of a home on Bainbridge is $660,520.

(from the Bainbridge Island review)

Do you think it’s long before we start to see this phenomenon in Toronto?

What do you think of this place, and be honest?

I know I have a propensity to mock, but if this movement really is afoot, can you see yourself living in here?

The roof looks like real cedar shingles, and compared to the look of the Tumbleweed model above, this thing is actually kind of aethetically-pleasing.

This is a 112 square foot bachelor with a 48 square foot storage loft.

It weighs only 6,500 lbs, which compared to the ones above, again, is quite light.

There are no interior photos, but the kitchens come with the same standard appliances: stovetop, microwave, fridge, and it has hot/cold taps for laundry like the Cypress model above too.

The wood exterior is all made from an environmentally-friendly process and uses only pieces of wood rejected from construction sites, timber mills, and lumber yards, and therefore is completely renewable and does not increase the user’s carbon footprint at all.

The brochure advertises that this “sleeps three comfortably,” as it’s really all about the interior layout.

Anybody who knows anything about real estate can tell you that!

So what do you think?

Could you live in this tiny house?

Any plans for retirement in here?

I hope not.

Because I made all that up, and this is a goddam kid’s playhouse that I found on Wayfair:

Just teasing this morning, folks.

On Wednesday, I want to show you some of the smallest houses to sell in Toronto, after a couple of readers emailed me on the weekend about a $399,900 detached house that was featured in the Globe & Mail.

Stay tuned!