Yurts March 15 2010

I was up in Oregon Skiing with my daughter and her live in boyfriend. It was sort of a housewarming party(just the 3 of us) as they had just moved into their first home together. It costs about 700 a month to rent a house in the country(that is nicer than anything I lived in with my family until I was about 32). However, once I was there they began talking about Yurts and how they planned to buy one before they moved to Colorado where my daughter plans to attend College. I talked to them about friends of my during the 1980s that had owned yurts and then rented space on friends (or whoever would rent them a space out in the country to place their yurts) land. In the 1970s I had friend that owned Teepees that they placed on their land next to their home as a sort of summer or winter guest room for friends visiting. I even knew two guys that started a mountain sporting goods store that live in a two story teepee(the second story being a loft). It was the largest teepee living situation I ever got to experience firsthand.

So, I told my daughter and her boyfriend of my experience with yurts and all the good and bad things about them. First of all I said that I knew no one who had spent more than 5 years in a yurt. I also said that I felt they could rent a space for a yurt out in the country somewhere for around 250 a month. However, it is very important to live in a safe enough area to live in a yurt because anyone with a sharp knife can get in any time they want to by cutting through the several layers of canvas. Also, critters can be a problem so you likely need a cat to drive away or catch mice or rats. So you need a cat who is a ratter. Then if you are in a really wild area you need to watch out for porcupines and skunks which love to move under your platform that you build to put your yurt on that is usually about 3 feet off the ground. So, in the end you can multiply for as many years as you live in the yurt the 500 or so dollars a month you will save in rent. But then you have to also deduct the price of the yurt and building a platform for it from the end price. But if for starters you multiply 500 dollars by 60 months(without considering the cost of the yurt or set up costs) you have already saved 30,000 dollars toward buying land and building your own home there.