The Houston Gang

I've got a tent for sale.

Buying an old motor home or tailer would be a LOT cheaper than staying in a hotel for a few months. Lits available for under $6000. That's 2 months in a hotel/motel, and you have a kitchen to prepair food instead of having to "eat out". Lots of trailers for under $4000

On Saturday, September 2, 2017 at 10:29:26 PM UTC-4, snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca wro te:

orhood, but "all of the sudden", the water is receding in their house. The y are driving around now, but mostly looking for other places to live. Apa rtments are lasting (literally) just several minutes when put on the apartm ent finder pages or on someone's facebook page. She responded within 15 mi nutes of a posting on a facebook page, and she was already aced out of the unit.

ey were considered "moderate" flooding with only 4-7 feet of water in the n eighborhood, and only 2' in their house. No word on when they will have a meeting, but she said the govt folks are pouring into the city.

really have a direction for another several months.

Yep, $4000 grand and it's sitting on your lot, ready for you to move into. I guess they come with delivery. Water's hook up, sewer, electricity, all up to whatever lenient code the city allows during this stressful time. Yep, lots of inner city lots/streets have room for a bunch of trailers *and

• the houses that are being rebuilt.

Sure sounds good on paper, especially for those who were barely getting by before the disaster.

On 02-Sep-17 10:37 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote: ...

None of the above will be in the $4K except perhaps trailering to your location. It's not likely the city will allow one to put it on the lot even in these circumstances, though, altho it makes common sense that rarely has any place in government, particularly in code enforcement.

It would be good to think it possible but I really doubt it's feasible

-- and, of course, if it were, overnight those $4K trailers will be $10K or $15K...

Some of the Houston crowd can update -- at one time 30 yr ago when was still consulting down there some for Shell Development, there was little zoning but code enforcement was fairly far along. I'm guessing they've added more reg's since.

FEMA is paying for hotels for those flooded out of their homes. $4K would be way too much for a big percentage of families to pay. FEMA provided trailers for flood victims during the aftermath of Allison

On 03-Sep-17 12:13 PM, Leon wrote: ...

But would they let a homeowner put one on the lot itself and a private trailer rather than FEMA in one of the designated locations is the question???

On 03-Sep-17 12:57 PM, dpb wrote: ...

I've yet to hear anything from mom's side of the family down there...some scattered from Port Arthur to Baytown to Victoria and then another batch in The Valley mostly between Harlingen and McAllen/Pharr...

I'm presuming having not heard means they're all at least not either dead or missing...when Mom's last sister down there passed, we've had little direct contact with the cousins and all their families.

I do not know the rules, I'm sure it depends on the location. BUT I recall seeing the trailers everywhere, mostly in driveways.

The "valley" may have not even gotten any rain, some 120 or so miles south of where the eye went in.

If it's designed to be a house trailer or RV and if it's on your property, why would there be an issue?

Are you suggesting that in Houston it's illegal to park your RV in your driveway?

Yeah, I'm certain those in the valley aren't being affected by Harvey; the "northern branch", not so much -- they were pretty much in the middle of it. The aunts/uncles I did know fairly well and first cousins are pretty much gone; it's all their families left...

I do remember back in 50s at one point grandparents were flooded where they were between McAllen and Pharr. They farmed, had citrus and small dairy. It's higher between there and the coast so only place for water to go was irrigation canals and they were totally flooded too, of course. Took over six months as I recall before all the ground was above water again--killed all the citrus trees and of course no crops were left and took another full year before had any production at all plus the 5+ yr to reestablish the groves. All in all, "not a good thing".

A house trailer would be an issue just about anywhere but a RV trailer might be different. OTOH, if you're living in it, the gendarmes might get a little tight-lipped about it.

Not allowed here (dumbass HOA).

I would not buy any property that was afflicted by an HOA. Of course the town here thinks it's an HOA so I really need to look into moving.

It's getting hard to buy without an HOA, anymore. Developers use them to protect themselves during build-out, then dump the mess on the homeowners. Ours may have gotten the message that we're not interested (haven't heard from them since the last annual meeting but this year's is next Saturday).

I assume you realize that that was a sarcastic response to Clare's $4K housing solution. I sure wasn't being serious.

I remember temporary exclusions being made from time to time.

I read the City Codes (you can look them up easily if you are asking as mor e than a talking point) and they are very specific regulations on number of axles, length of trailers, specifics on equipment, equipment trailers, and on a on. So a dual axle RV falls under the City Codes, as does a dual axle trailer of any type, including livable trailers.

It is illegal to park any vehicle, trailer, piece of equipment, implement o f anything that resembles those examples off an "improved" surface. So you can't just haul out trailer and put it in your backyard or alongside the h ouse. Any of those things has to be parked on asphalt, concrete, or "other wise improved" surfaces. The intent is that they don't want grandparents t railer hauled into the front yard (or backyard)of a subdivision and have it sink in the yard up to the axles.

Not to park it, but to leave it for a length of time, yes. We have a limit on how long they can stay if they have dual axles. We have another ordina nce that keep people from hooking up to electric, sewer and water services for more than a few days. No one wants to hear the generators running all night, see oozing sewer pipes, the lights hanging off the sides of the trai lers so the occupants can sit outside and drink beer. Citizen complaints c an greatly shorten the time allowed to have a living unit on your property.

To be clear, some RVs are too large to be allowed. IIRC, Houston's length ban is 20'. No one wants to see some weekend warrior that is used to drivi ng nothing large than his minivan trundling down crowded streets, or trying to back into a narrow driveway jackknifing the trailer while he blocks the streets figuring out how to back a trailer he uses twice a year. And some people guests just don' know when to leave.

The biggest problem that we had here before all the mountain of ordinances were passed was that people drug trailers into their driveways and used it as a permanent bedroom for their elderly relatives, unruly teenagers and ev en party houses to watch sporting events. Pretty convenient; you have plac e to watch the event, a fridge for the beer, and even weatherproof conditio ns to do it in. Some of those trailer stayed in the driveways for YEARS, Y EARS, axles rusted solid, non working brakes, and sitting on cinder blocks since the tires had long rotted out.

Most likely there will be a great amount of leeway and discretion shown in trailer use and placement due to the incredible severity of the housing sho rtage. In the hundreds of briefings and updates that have followed in the l ast tend days, I did catch one where the FEMA guys responded about the trai ler availability and use and he said they were proceeding quickly but caref ully, adding that they had "learned a lot since Katrina".

Guess we will see. I don't think anyone knows exactly what is going to hap pen on any long term aspects of this situation yet. I have been in touch w ith my sister quite a bit and at last the water is out of her house. But t hey are still pretty much on their own, hauling out all their furniture and belongings by themselves. All the aid is still focused on relocating peop le, feeding them, and secondary searches of houses and debris, cleanup, etc .

Robert

My first reaction is, under the circumstances just suspend the regulations for three to six months. Upon second thought, after the allotted time how do you get them moved out? Nothing good would come of it.

On 03-Sep-17 11:57 PM, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote: ...

I'm certain you're right; they'll have to make it up as they go...

I figured by now there would be similar ordinances in place as other municipalities have and that confirms my suspicions.

Hopefully they will be flexible for an interim period while folks are putting the primary residence back into a livable condition and then work on cracking down on the violations some time well into the future when there has been ample time before being too heavy-handed on enforcement.

Will be a good comparative test case to see what FEMA has managed to absorb from the Katrina fiascoes and are able to pull off. At least Houston isn't saddled with totally incompetent local mayor that was more of an obstruction than help...

I was. When my kid broyher's house burned down that's excatly what he did. He picked up an old RV and parked it in his yard untill the new house was built. Her used a camping sewer cart to take the effluent from the trailer to his septic tank.

Stoll lots of cheap RVs for sale in Florida - might not be something you want to park in a fancy trailrt park beside some guy's 2 million dollar rig - but it's dry, warm, and enclosed, with a kitchen and head.