Letter to Karen

 Dear Karen,

Your idea of building a fantastic bus conversion with a built-in washing machine, clothes dryer, shower with 100 gallon water tanks, fridge, freezer, electric cook top, microwave and oven to live in permanently is utterly devoid of any sense of reality.

Let's take this apart one little bit at a time:

• Washing machine. This will use a horrible amount of water. At least 19 gallons per load. That means you will need to be plumbed in to a water supply. Sure - you can carry 100 gallons but that means also you'll need 100 gallon tanks for waste water.
• Clothes dryer, fridge, freezer, electric cook top, microwave, oven. Just how are you going to power them? If you went full solar you're talking about $3,000 of solar panels plus probably $2,000 of batteries or even more if they're lithium. That's $5,000 that could be put to other uses.
• Shower - unless you're into 3 gallon or less showering, the average shower uses 50 gallons a day. That's half of your 100 gallons. Two days and you're out. That's not very much is it?

Where are you going to park your bus conversion, Karen? I hear you say "boondocking". Where would that be? Are there any signs up anywhere saying "boondock here"? You do know that every scrap of land belongs to somebody? Then there are local bylaws and HOA rules where RVs are not allowed even on your own property. That means paying rent to park it, Karen. Not very boondocking is it? 

Oh, Karen, I forgot, yes - you can probably park it behind an abandoned filling station on Route 66 - until somebody sees you. Then it's (take your pick):

• A robbery and possibly a murder with or without rape from passing lowlifes.
• An unpleasant encounter with meth-heads or worse that live in the abandoned filling station.
• A policeman turns up in the middle of the night and tickets you - in your nightie - for illegal camping.
• The property owner turns up with a bulldozer and bulldozes your abandoned vehicle off his property or has it hauled to the junkyard by a wrecker.

So, Karen, where do you plan to park your bus conversion? Will you be squatting on government land? Yes - squatting - that's what "boondockers" are. Boondockers are squatters and while squatter's rights are a thing on paper they don't mean anything in the real world. Let me tell you, Karen, how it is in the real world....

In the real world people have guns and are very happy to use them. No court will ever convict a landowner who shot a trespasser when the explanation is that the trespasser threatened to kill them. There are no living witnesses. So, Karen, how do you plan to squat?

The next thing, Karen, are you going to spout on about getting full insurance for your dodgy conversion? Yes - you hired "professionals" many of whom will be unlicensed contractors but I hate to break it to you - no insurance company will ever insure your conversion as an RV despite what you read online. There are two reasons for this. First - the "RV" is still a schoolbus no matter how much you try to disguise the fact and hence not a purpose built RV. Second - the construction and planning was all done with no oversight by any professional body.

As for value. How much is your conversion worth? Is it worth the $5,000 you paid for the bus? Is it worth the $100,000 you spent to "convert" it? Is it worth more? Well, it's actually a $5,000 bus that you spent $105,000 on. That's all it'll ever be worth. No matter how much you spend on a $5,000 bus it'll only ever be a $5,000 bus.

So, Karen, time to get off your high horse and time to stop believing the garbage you see written on Facebook. You do know that the people that post the most and spend the most time on Facebook are the people that don't have jobs, real lives, money or the bus conversions they claim to own? Yes, Karen, that does include you!

Grow up, Karen!

The bus owner.