Vancouver's ridiculous housing market forces a lot of people to live in small spaces to save money — but this is just something else.
A man identifying himself online as "007craft" shared a YouTube video (embedded above) of a living space he built inside an U-Haul storage locker. He claims he lived in the 10x10-foot room for almost two months.
"You basically need to be a ghost. If anybody finds out you're here, that's when you start running into trouble," he says in the video.
The space cost him $205 a month, insurance included. It fit a bed, couch, cooking equipment, clothing rack and even a "bar" to hold his booze.
The guy also shows off his 4K television in the video, which led many commenters to wonder why someone would shell out the cash for a relatively pricey TV while, you know, living in a storage locker.
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In a Reddit post detailing his experience, the man said he used the building's bathrooms and went to a nearby laundromat to wash his clothes. He would shower at a gym or community centre.
Staff knew he was using power in his locker, he said, and charged him $5 a month for it.
So, why would someone do this?
Our protagonist says he found himself homeless after returning from hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. At first he transformed his car into a livable space — and made a video for that, too.
"This individual was caught and immediately evicted"
— U-Haul spokesman Jeff Lockridge via CBC News
But the car wasn't doing the trick, so the man moved his belongings to a locker rental. He said soon after he began fixing it up, he realized he could live in it.
"Also I wanted to do it for fun," he wrote. "I made my car the coolest living space I've ever seen done to a car so I figured I would for my storage unit as well."
Although his Reddit post makes it seem like he had an undetected and lovely storage locker stay, the company told CBC News he was eventually busted.
"Though the video insinuates he got away with doing this, this individual was caught and immediately evicted from the facility in November, two months before the video was posted," U-Haul spokesman Jeff Lockridge said.
CTV News spoke to the former tenant, who it identified only as Michael. He says he now lives in an apartment in Vancouver's west end.
He plans to transform his new digs into a rock-climbing gym.
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