Living RENT FREE in NYC - The Van Dwellings of New York City #VANLIFE WINTER

hello this is patrick with new jersey's outdoor adventures youtube channel here in brooklyn new york i met up with rob and his gang of van lifers here and he's going to give us a little bit of insight on alternative living in new york city hello rob welcome to new jersey outdoor adventures hey thanks for coming by this is uh as we've dubbed it van alley um it's a bunch of like-minded individuals uh kind of coming and going these are uh everybody is here right now but um van hale is just kind of a dead end street on williamsburg that i started living at in 2019 and uh i wasn't really ready for van life i bought the van wanting to work on it and have an apartment um my lease didn't really work out that way so i wound up just kind of living here and i ran into some other people and we've just been you know coming and going and i've been converting ever since so uh this is drew liz and cole cole welcome to maybe show you around their vans a little bit so this is my van it's an old 87 dodge explorer that i spend some time beating back to life occasionally um it barely sleeps me back here you're welcome to take a peek i have to go corner to corner on this bed and it's still pretty tight in my height but i make it work um we've got a little kitchenette inside you know refrigerator propane stove i've got a full shower in there toilet so really not feeling too restricted and the way i live and getting away with being in the city with no rent is pretty great this is a van that uh i'm working on currently with liz um it's about i'd say 60 done turn on these annoying switches but uh as you can see the walls are up this is the quarter inch ceiling that will eventually support um some cedar tonguing group planks um the max air fan is hidden right now but that'll be cut out and the whole idea of this van is to have um usage of space the transit kind of curves up and i didn't want to waste all the space of that for insulation a lot of people just kind of kill the walls so this is a great laptop storage and it's kind of hidden away you can tuck things kind of deep in there if you don't want anybody to find it back here there's definitely some work going on one of the signatures that i've adopted in every van that i work on i try and push people towards is a lot of people get windows all around their van but the lumar boat sky hat skylight if you were to close all the doors in here um you'd probably have more light than somebody with 360 degree windows because light comes from the ceiling i mean the sky so um the other thing that that allows when you stand on the bed you can pull yourself through and there's a nice roof deck on the top so you can stand up and uh you know kind of see what's going on um these are the cameras that you can see from the outside but it's a 360 degree view so you can see here there as well as there um this fan there is there so when you're in bed you know there's nothing you don't know about outside in case you're worried about any sound i use the push to slide drawer slides here so eventually there'll be cabinet faces on this this will be a door where you can access the diesel heater there'll be a hot water heater here this is the water pump switch very work in progress right now but something i really uh always push for is doing push to slides because you don't have to have any hardware one of the worst parts about any rv living is when you're in a tight corridor you're gonna get caught on stuff so with no hardware gives you a really nice layout there on this side again work in progress this is the nature's head toilet and then we have a bench on this which so this will be all couch cushions but this is giving you that extra storage um the dometic fridge it's the last part here pardon the coronas virus not included you have the ability to pull this out so when you're shopping you can pull the cart right up to your door and load everything right in give it a good old push back the cab is separated just by a curtain right now eventually there'll be a track that goes up through here so it'll be a full complete cover a little bit more of a tour this needs to be closed up but this is the diesel heater pump and fuel filter so the plants put some more insulation in there to kind of hide the uh the sound and the way that works is it's off a diesel tank now the van's not diesel so what you have to do is just unscrew this and give the old diesel fuel so you get some funny looks when you're at gas stations you fill up on one side then you come to the other side to fill up your two gallon diesel tank but it works and then go back here and see the start of the roof deck so this is a flatline vanco roof rack um it's cheaper to just buy a assembled roof rack you know that it's no diy sort of fall apart thing feels really secure when you're building some sort of deck on top but that's one of the cameras so it's a fisheye lens you can see it you get the full view back here so on this side it's your other camera and then the front you have it right on the top of the van the solar panels are 300 watts of renegy so it's three 100 watt renegade solar panels and that allows you to kind of jigsaw or what's the word um that allows you to tetris them together um so you get the maximum amount of space you can kind of piece them around your max air fan this is my van uh my van is a complete disaster right now uh i'm rebuilding vans uh for her so i'm rebuilding that right now i like to call it the pirate van because we're a one-eyed uh in the back just to maintain new york city law and uh you know have a van window so we'll skip that one uh call here cheers van alley captain yep um i don't really know how this works but i moved in here two years ago uh not to van alley i lived in colorado eventually and got the van to do competitive skiing and when i decided not to do competitive skiing and wanted to move to new york i was looking at rent no that's not gonna happen so i just decided to take the old van and come here um that's about it um used to be another bed down below that has since turned into a garage i lived in here with a roommate but just this is all of life there's dishes on the counter because i made tacos this morning but didn't make anything for you guys because i didn't know you were coming but uh yeah a little workstation here for what i do every day a little fridge and all the whole battery set up in there just a mess of wires and fun stuff um other than that there's the garage i will get a sink eventually but i just build it as i get more money so i made the garage in the all nice for my toys because i care about them more than me and i'll make a nice sink living area for me next year when i get more money but uh yeah that's about it um in the garage obviously there's my old ski gear on the right and any number of sports for whatever ends up happening as i said i used to live in colorado so that's what we do did you ever winter here um i'm about to um i just ordered a heater i did a winter upping i did a winter up in canada and did pretty well without the heater but you know i am looking forward to actually being warm and not waking up in the cold because that's a big research term van life winter yeah a lot of people are always curious about what's it like what's your experience on that so when i started i moved into the van with no insulation uh literally a hammock and then a mattress on the floor and i found with you know that older guy who like does the he uses his propane to cook yeah so uh if you look online everybody does uh propane heaters mr buddies and things like that and like after i i think the the best thing about van alley is the amount of people i meet so i've met probably 40 different vans that have different solutions for uh wintering and you know the diesel heater is kind of the the way to go you know tapping off your diesel tank or really can they have fully convinced me to get a diesel heater being here everyone on this block has that piece of wood i stepped into a guy's van who had it and he was like 100 bucks and i was like 100 i can be this warm um you know i can show you like turning on the diesel heater but the sound's not really that bad um you can put a silencer on them and i mean for a video i made i have a pop-up tent i've showered on this sidewalk right here like in a pop-up tent and i pulled the the hot water heater or the hot water from my van into the like i was showering out in like a blm land but it's new york city no one cares literally no one cares stealth is not real no one cares about a little bit of sound coming from your car unless you're parked in like a super ritzy residential neighborhood where somebody's confused by a peep most of the time people are not going to blink twice at a little sound coming from your diesel heater so i run a diesel heater probably 24 7 during the winter and running it that much it's a cheap chinese diesel leader i've done this for two years um i'm away from the van sometimes and if you're not just doing van life in new york city and you want to go to europe they have idling laws if you have a diesel heater you don't have to worry about getting trouble for idling either yeah so that's one of the big things that uh wavasto does but um yeah i do a 24 hours diesel heater it lasts about three days um you're running about like 10 a week in diesel it's way cheaper than anything you'll ever pay for in an apartment and you go three months in you know these cold climates like i have to crack windows when i have the diesel heater on it's no insulation you'll still be fine it's the warmest thing there is what's the cost of living in an apartment in this city versus what it costs you per month in the van with getting water and heat and whatever amenities that you need yeah so vanilla is uh right on the water in williamsburg and the apartment right across the street uh is four grand a month for a one bedroom so i like to to kind of talk about that a lot when people are like you know oh you live in a van it's like i live on the waterfront in williamsburg for about 700 a month uh that's between like my band payment and anything else i'm doing um for the van just little upgrades uh 700 typically the max budget i spend between anything um for the van so it's it's nice to know that i'm paying the cheapest rent i've ever paid in new york like i used to live further down uh probably like 30 minutes away deeper into brooklyn it was like not so nice bushwick and i paid 900 for a room with three other roommates now i live alone for less than that and i kind of control where i want to go so if i want to be closer to domino park i live at domino park now and if i want to live at van li i live at van alley so i notice other vans down as you see down the street there these are other people that live here as well yeah so some people come and go some people uh so there's a van here that um i think he lives full-time with his girlfriend but this was what he was doing for a while so he just leaves it parked unique opportunity here is there's no signs for alternate side parking so i can park here for six months and whether i'm out of the van going to the workshop or back in long island doing something else i can leave the van here for months at a time and not worry about a ticket and that's you know a huge thing and you get a ticket 65 you add it to your expenses and you know it's still cheaper than any sort of new york city rent it looks like your days are numbered here there's what amusement park going up there is that is that going to affect this capability on this street yeah so uh a couple years ago um the city had purchased this building as well as everything uh to the water up to green point and uh they're creating a really nice park from domino park all the way down to the edge of green point so unfortunately one day very soon uh vanilla won't exist anymore but the idea that was born here is always going to kind of stay around there's people all over the city this isn't really something that's new it's just a unique opportunity that um you know what it's a risen and i uh i'm gonna take it to wherever it goes next whether i stay in new york city or you know wherever else but i don't really know what to say about that it's it's sad because like saying the realization out loud that like this one exists anymore will be like a sad day for for me for sure and can you give any tips to our viewers on someone that is looking to move into a van from an apartment some of the things that uh you had to overcome when you when you first started this yeah so when i started first started um doing my van in new york city people are like you're going home right you're going back to your van um i'm like you go to home to an apartment that has cockroaches and mice like i live in a van that's heated i pay less than you and i live on the front of the best view of the skyline of new york city so if you want to like start you know talking about that stuff um you just really have to let it go you have to let your friends who are just they're projecting onto you they're uncomfortable nature of doing it and they don't know what it is so if it's for you just do it i mean i bought a van and lived in a hammock for six months while i had no heat it's i mean i had a heater but i had a mr buddy and it was propane it was a mess um i lived in a hammock and you know i made it work i met some of the greatest friends i'll have for the rest of my life and that's really the community like no everybody in van life will do whatever they can to fix your problem like new york city is known for people like tripping and falling and everybody stepping over you the van life community wherever it is will call out of work that day to fix your problem because they know the struggle of you know converting that first step and once you make that first step and get into this alternative lifestyle your whole life changes and you stop working for the thousand dollar rent that you can't make and start taking your adventures out of the city and having your work-life balance like i live in the city to have a great social life but i also want to have a great life and go out and do things so um for anybody wanting to get into van life there's no steps just take the punch buy a van and sleep on the floor of the van until you're knowledgeable enough to to make it 100 where you're happy with and you as a professional skier you were staying in and out of hotels professional is a heavy word but uh yeah i uh i did the hostile thing for a while traveling around and eventually i gave up and bought this van and it worked well for traveling anywhere you want to go having the flexibility to do whatever you want to do and as far as moving away from here it will be a sad day i've only been here for two weeks and there's a lot of history i've heard tons of stories over the last two weeks of all the memories they've had here but you know it's an alley and we'll find a better spot yeah i like to think of it as vanilla it's not so much this specific place it's just the the idea that you can have a a community like this in new york city where everybody doesn't always socialize this is not my first my first van alley and it surely won't be my last we're all over the place and it's a good tight-knit community you can live in an apartment where you don't know your neighbors i know all five of mine and they're awesome and you have a youtube channel on van life is that what you're focusing on i uh i mean i just like to to show off anything that i've struggled on so if my rule is kind of like if it's taken me a long time to figure out then i want to share how i did it easier so the pers the next person who's looking for that issue can you know get there faster i appreciate you doing that for people that are researching this lifestyle having that content out there to help them out that's the whole reason why i do this channel is to help connect the dots there's a lot of people that want to enter this lifestyle that hit a lot of roadblocks usually it's family and friends that tell them no but the videos help help people see that they could do this they have a refrigerator they have water they have all the essentials that i need to feel comfortable living and thank you for sharing that content yeah yeah i'm uh i'm always happy to help anybody take the next step well this is patrick with new jersey's outdoor adventures youtube channel hope you enjoyed this video please like this video comment share subscribe i love it and we'll see you soon see you guys thanks cheers you

Channel: New Jersey Outdoor Adventures

Views: 2,004,110

Keywords: vanlife, van life, camper build, camper van, van build, sprinter conversion, skoolie conversion, transit camper, spinter camper, airstreams, van buildout, promaster camper, mercedes camper, ford camper, Van city, City van life, Van dwelling, Mobile workspace

Id: XlBUfZYzeM8

Length: 19min 25sec (1165 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/shitfuckstack999]

now THIS is what ALL homeless camps could be! Lol

[u/Former_Platform4874]

What is your contact number?

[u/oxymormon123]

Does anyone know where this is?