Oh, That Can’t Be Good!

 

Just what you don’t want to see pulling into the site next to you. A cheap-ass used FEMA trailer behind a $70,000 truck with a contractor’s generator in the bed!

Because of low standards, questionable materials, potential bio-hazards, little to no maintenance, and hard use FEMA has this rule about only using these two-bedroom temporary-housing units once before they sell them off. But not to the public because they don’t want to take on the liability, they will only sell them in bulk to ‘investors’ who then sell them on, as is, to uneducated buyers.  Sure, these discarded trailers can be picked up cheap, but there’s a good reason for that! They were cheap to begin with.

Notice that the manufactures are so embarrassed about how poorly these things are built they refuse to put their name on them. And since they are designed to be parked cheek-by-jowl with water, sewer, and electric hookups they have no tanks or 12V electrical systems which, along with very few windows (Windows cost money!) and a dormitory style fridge, makes them an exceedingly poor choice as a camping unit.

If you look close at the very right edge of the photo you can see that these particular people set up one of those Coleman ‘privacy rooms’ for toilet and shower function and they carried water from the campground’s single central spigot in open-topped 5 gallon buckets.

Just think of how comfortable and practical a tent-camp they could have put together for only a fraction of what they paid for that useless trailer!

Fortunately this couple only used the generator for about a half-hour twice a day, (to run a microwave maybe?) and left after a couple days.

Could have been a lot worse! Could have been one of those 45 foot, 4-slide, residential fridge-freezer, 400 watt outdoor entertainment center, roof bristling with three antennas and two different kinds of satellite dish coaches that have to run the generator constantly just to say alive.