Homeless In a Uhaul - Living The Van Life

what's up guys this is chad with living the van life up here in oregon my van has experienced catastrophic failure rendering me completely homeless but one thing that living in a van has taught me that's how to adapt and overcome and my goal is to adapt and overcome this situation by living in a u-haul truck my plan is to set up a fort right here in the back of the van cook a steak over a skillet and do some urban stealth camping right in downtown Bend Oregon so a couple days ago when the van started making some catastrophic noises coming from the transmission well it was time to load it up on a u-haul truck and a trailer and haul it down here to German transaxle of America which turns out they're one of the most reputable and experienced transmission shops when it comes to working on transmissions of Volkswagens which they did some work in my van previously a couple months ago and these guys are taking care of it under warranty and they've done really great work to help me out on that but still nonetheless I find myself homeless so what we've got here is a 15-foot moving band this is the best towing capacity that u-haul has for being able to throw my heavy Fanning in on one of their trailers and get it down here all the way across Washington it into Central Oregon safely the cool thing about having so much space is I want to be able to set up a whole entire fort inside there which is what I'm actually pretty excited about the cool thing is when you live in a vehicle you've pretty much got everything on board with you so what I did is I drug a whole bunch of stuff out of the van again and threw it in the back of the u-haul here so I'm set up here in a mall parking lot and I've taken the van and I've backed it up against this rock wall with the truck backed up against the wall I'll be able to slide open that door and I'll be able to organize everything inside which we'll do here in a minute I will note that I have no intentions of actually sleeping here in the mall parking lot I'm just here to set myself up so that I can move into an urban type situation and the whole idea is to be stealthy with the whole thing so I set up here in an open parking lot so I can get myself organized here in the back once I'm set up and organized then I will move more downtown in and get set up down there well sweet here we are inside the cool part is I have plenty of room to stand up I mean I'm 6 foot and I've got this is what the door but over here I've got a good foot above me man I can reach out I can't even touch either side I've got my folding table that I use when I'm out camping I've got my folding chair all my bedding stuff to cook with I'm just excited to be able to set this up this is cool now as you can tell out the back here this is where I've backed up to that wall so I can do all my operations in here and get myself all set up and the mall security who is cruising around and patrolling they don't have any idea that I'm even back here doing anything yeah here we all right let's get stuff set up here and let's see what we can turn this place into okay so like I said drag everything out of the van again and in a hurry I just kind of threw everything in here so get things organized here a little bit cooking utensils camera gear bedding everything we need to be able to live a little bit of van life right here in a u-haul truck it is expected to get quite cold tonight out here in Eastern Oregon I'm expecting it probably be about 28 29 degrees now you hope it doesn't have any insulation at all not that my Vanagon is anything special when it comes to insulated but it does have more insulation than what a u-haul truck does so I did bring the the mister heater I'm gonna set that up in here I did bring my little axe base layers hopefully it'll be nice and warm I just wanted to be prepared coming out here and doing something I put the bedding and stuff back here towards the back that way I can do the cooking and everything else towards the back here and then I can ventilate through the door so in a situation like this it's just as important to insulate underneath you as it is on top of you there's no insulation on this plus you're going to want some cushion to it underneath here I've got a mexican-style blanket then I've got a memory foam mattress pad it's like a two and a half inch and then I've got like a Sherpa fleece blanket that's going to go down and then I have my down comforter that will go down over the top of that it's starting to get dark up here the cameras gonna start fading bet is set up here fits nicely I still have lots of room here where I'll be able to do my cooking and stuff part of staying alive tonight it's going to be the mystery heater I've used these things for years you guys have seen it on lots of my other videos before I got my diesel heater now I'll talk more about the safety and the importance of safety when it comes to using heaters like this especially in a confined area so we'll get in more of that later right now I just want to organize stuff get things kind of set up because as I always say living in a small space it is important to be organized honestly this base for me is like living in a mansion compared to living in the small space of a Volkswagen van that might be a part of the lure to be able to do something like this this evening I've got my jet boil so I can make some tea I brought a bowl and the plate and some silverware and of course the skillet this is what we're going to cook the stuff on here this evening just over the bottle top burner and I brought lots of propane in case it gets really cold for breakfast we're gonna keep it simple since we're doing a u-haul urban stealth camp I'm gonna do some oatmeal squares bullets cereal I haven't had a bowl of cereal in a long time so better that actually be pretty fun the only access to this area in this space is this roll-up door in the back now I've thought this through and the only latch to this there is no latch on the inside so I can't safely lock myself inside here so I've got a couple options for that and I've thought that through we'll talk about that as well right now the temperature is still 45 degrees that's not too bad that's about eighty degrees Celsius it is calling for a low of about 28 degrees which is about negative 2 degrees Celsius so that's pretty chilly especially for being in an ice box like this hopefully the blankets do good hopefully we can make good use of the buddy heater ok daylight is fading quick so let's get a move on here I don't know what it is I remember as a little kid even thinking about various scenarios where it might be interesting to spend the night in like as a little kid I've ever thought about how cool it would be to like hide in the rings of clothes in a department store and when the doors closed and you have complete roam of the whole entire department store overnight I always thought something like that would be cool or what it would take to actually live in an airport for like 48 hours or even beyond that so to me this is a kind of one of those challenges of like well can you actually live in a u-haul can you do it in an urban type scenario kind of one of those little kid wonderment type scenarios I feel like at least for me anyways you can push the limits of what you can get away with after all we're not doing anything to hurt anybody so it's all for fun and games I think one of the other cool parts about building forts and stuff like that when we were kids was you know being able to bring the creature comforts of home into your fort and I actually had an extra bag of these sitting in the van so I snagged them out of there but these are some LED string lights and they're USB powered and so I figured it'd be cool to kind of wrap the inside of the u-haul here with these very lights and make it feel a bit more like home so we'll probably set those up that'll be pretty cool these are some LED lights that I bought off of Amazon for like seven dollars and I think it's like a 30-foot strand it's USB powered and so what I've got I've got my anchor battery charger that I use for charging up cell phones and camera gear it's a USB charger and so I just plugged the LED lights right into that and voila we've got power and it hangs here and it'll run for freaking ever on a battery pack like this then plus I can charge my cell phone on it as well so score on the LED lights you can pick some of those up at Amazon they work great for camping anywhere you can just plug them into a little USB battery charger and USB source and get to go so that has been a game changer here in the back of the moving truck the cool thing is there's no windows there is no way for anybody to see anything going on inside here so we can light this thing up like daylight and nobody will ever know the difference all right well it is now dark out it's time to move ourselves out of this shopping mall parking lot and get ourselves into a spot where we want to cook the food now my theory is I want to cook the food in a different spot than where I'm going to sleep and that's mainly just so I'm not doing too much activity for a long period of time in one spot so yeah let's go see if we can find a spot to cook our food because I am getting hungry it's been a long day in a quarter-mile at the roundabout take the first exit onto Southwest Simpson Avenue I've actually got myself into a parking lot that is right behind downtown and this is perfect as you can see behind me here I actually backed in so that the door opens to this big wide open park that is dark so really there's not anybody back there it is the perfect spot to be able to be urban be stealth we're gonna cook our meal right here in the back let's hop to it so I want to go ahead and address the concerns that I know all of you are having as soon as I pulled the buddy heater out and started it here inside the back of this u-haul truck and of course anytime you've got an open flame as well as propane etc in a confined space you want to take extra extra precautions I've been using the mr. buddy heater for a long time over the years of doing van life and fully understand the hazards and the risk that you take of running such a heater the great thing is is that mr. heater has been around for many many years and they rate these particular heaters as safe for indoor use also inside their heater they manufacture in a low oxygen shutoff sensor which is very important as well as a tip over sensor which is great if you bump it and it falls over onto a blanket and you don't realize it it'll shut off so of course do we want to put our lives in the hands of an $80 heater and hope that that low oxygen sensor works I certainly don't want to rely solely on that so in my van I actually have carbon monoxide alarms set up in my van so what I've done tonight is I actually grabbed one of those carbon monoxide alarms and brought it with to have here as a backup to the no oxygen sensor so we've got backup ok well I know a lot of concerns are well what if your carbon monoxide is faulty of course you want to test it and make sure that the batteries so we've tested it it sounded back to us ok cool I still don't trust you so not only did I bring one alarm but I also brought two alarms this is another carbon monoxide alarm this one actually also has a digital readout on it so if we start seeing any sort of carbon monoxide built up in here that is going to let us know and of course we're going to test it boom we know that one's working even beyond that I don't believe that these u-haul trucks are any sort of air tight but I am going to open up about um maybe a half inch to an inch worth of space underneath the door just to get a little bit of oxygen in here help keep it fresh and whatnot so anyways I wanted to address those concerns because it is very very important for interview out there doing any sort of camping with heater in a confined space any of it just make sure and take the extra precautions and take life into your own hands and don't rely on something else so anyways now that we've got that covered check this space out this is like living in a tiny house my Volkswagen is a fraction of the size of this so it's pretty cool to be able to have this all set up and move about I can't wait to get to cooking some food and just chillax and enjoy yes and here we are being able to kick back live a little bit of u-haul life which is pretty cool it's definitely an adventure and of course it's always great to save on hotel costs in a situation like this but even beyond that it's pretty cool to be able to expand the adventures into trying out something like living in a u-haul truck some tortilla chips and some queso dip do a little pre funky and relaxing before I cook up the state life is good [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] just a reminder of what we're doing where we're at and how we're doing it in the middle of a parking lot downtown dinner is cooking right inside there this is the ultimate urban stealth camp adventure right here yes so of course with cooking in a confined space like this the food cooking is going to be putting off steam and certain amount of smoke in it etc so basically what I did is I crack the bottom of the door about six inches and that works good for underneath but then also at the top where everything's gonna be rising too it can escape out this area as well [Music] [Music] well guys if this isn't living the u-haul life and I don't know what is we got ourselves a steak up in here Wow hold on time out first bite freaking phenomenal that means I need to dig through the trash find the label to this so I can explain exactly what this special piece of meat is hold on a second okay so the butcher in the market actually told me about this and told me that it would be a very different flavors and on that first try yes so what it is it's a dry aged Oregon Country beef and this is a ribeye cut Wow so I explained the process basically they hang the meat in this this unit and it dries it hangs for two weeks there was a couple pieces of meat that you can see hanging in it that was curing as well this is delicious anyways enough talking about it I want to enjoy cheers to you guys down here is to some urban stealth camping in the back of a 15-foot moving truck in downtown van Torian with a wonderful meal to be able to come out here and mix it up a little bit hopefully take you guys on a little different adventure I hope you guys are enjoying it because I know I am that is so tender there just cuts right through it like nothing incredible the meat yeah I can't say it enough it is delicious the ten barrel Brewing Company pub beer lager it's not that similar to like a like a rain here or a Mont ucky maybe a Miller High Life similar to that occurs nice and light it's cool to try something local here in Bend the brewing scene is off the hook there are so many local beers right here from this region I'm trying to cut my pieces into small as possible so I can enjoy every single bite yes indeed I'm gonna finish up my meal here enjoy it while I can shut this thing down and we're gonna drive to another spot and see if we can't find a spot to be able to camp for the night we'll see what happens from here and see if we get ourselves downtown but I'll catch you guys after I finish my meal here [Music] another concern that I wanted to address with a moving truck like this there is no latch on the inside so while I'm in here I'm not able to secure myself inside here the only latch is on the outside so I thought this through and I went to Walmart and I picked up a ratcheting tie-down strap and my thought was that I could hook it up here to the top of the door and then the other end of it wrap around one of the side boards that are meant for tying cargo down inside here and then with that I can just get a nice tight cinch on the door and nobody from the outside is going to be able to get in and that least keeps me protected from somebody deciding they want to come crawl in bed with me in the middle of the night should work pretty well got my bollocks base layer I'm going to put on down below this is the heavy duty Australian merino wool base layer merino wool socks also Bible X I bought these on Amazon a great thing about wool as it is extremely warm but it also wicks moisture away it is right about 32 degrees Fahrenheit which is zero degrees Celsius I do have a flashlight here that I'm gonna keep this under the bed and also just because you never know I've got my Schrade survival knife you guys just see me use this quite a few videos I'm gonna also keep this here close by the bed the other thing that I like to do in these cold weather situations you do like to put a stocking cap on and then I also do put my hood over the top of that I find myself staying much warmer when my head is worn them as well so ok time to crawl into bed so at this particular point in time I do not have the mr. buddy heater on I'm actually quite comfortable with my base layer I'm much happier sleeping without the mr. betta heater if at all possible just because of the risk that it does bring I'm gonna hunker down here for the night see if I can get some sleep all right guys we'll catch you in the morning [Applause] [Music] oh the joys of urban stuff campaign that's what you get to wake up to it sounds like we're in the middle of a landfill right now Oh garbage trucks street sweepers recycling trucks Oh morning guys it did get cold we got to the point where his marginal I would definitely wouldn't want it to be any colder than what it did get but it was manageable that's for sure I wasn't to the point where I was shivering just a Bed Bath & Beyond down comforter nothing special nice and cozy though that's the thing the streets are busy now it's broad daylight so I got to throw this roll-up door out and try to be as inconspicuous as possible but all right this is a good snake out of here let's see what we can do [Music] well and that was a success I was able to get out of the truck uneventful II didn't attract any attention nobody's stopping around looking alright I'm gonna go find a spot where I can sit and enjoy some breakfast some good old cereal I know it's simple but I haven't had a good old bowl of cereal and quite some time so I'm excited for that well guys I've got some really good news German transaxle just called the van is officially done which I want to give a huge thank you to those guys they got my van in diagnosed it as a warranty issue and had it back to me within two days time and that's doing a full rebuild on the transmission once again so huge thank to those guys I know it's hard to keep these old vans on the road lots of things to go wrong and the fact that they took care of me under warranty that was a pretty respectable of them that means it's time to call this u-haul truck adventure a wrap I know this video was something completely different than I've been doing here recently but if you guys liked it make sure to hit the like button make sure to share it with your friends and definitely leave your thoughts and your comments in the comment section down below if you've made it this far in the video consider subscribing I'd actually be pretty stoked to have you guys on board as a subscriber anyways guys I'm gonna hit the road peace out keep on trucking [Music] you you you [Music]

Channel: Living The Van Life

Views: 2,180,701

Rating: 4.8714437 out of 5

Keywords: Living The Van Life, Living, Life, Live, Lived, van, camping, camped, camper, camp, cook, cooking, survival, surviving, survived, RV, campervan, wild, outdoors, car, truck, vehicle, volkswagen, vw, vanagon, westfalia, vlog, vlogging, vanlife, chad, offgrid, off the grid, adventure, travel, traveling, snow, winter, ice, cold, weather, prepare, freeze, freezing, preparation, food, prep, explore, exploring, homeless, uhaul, moving, bend oregon, Bend, Oregon, urban, stealth, city, sleeping

Id: m_5zTdfR7B0

Length: 36min 33sec (2193 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 26 2020