Caretaker cottage/Sound reasonable?

[Joshie]

DH is in his early 70s and I've recently had health changes that have left me disabled. We're having problems keeping up with the mowing. (And, no, goats are too expensive and too much work.)

We have a small scale house (left over from strip mining about 70 years ago). I'd hoped to repair it but it's really beyond repair. I think we need to call the fire department and see if they'd like to burn it down.

The area around the scale house is a nice, flat area. There's a yard around there with some brush and a couple of nice trees. One could easily have a nice sized garden in that area. It butts up against a couple of fenced pastures.

Our next door neighbor has a couple of Junior College kids live in his basement. They study some kind of ag program.

I have been thinking about getting an older, used trailer and putting it where the scale house is now. We'd have to get electric service to the house but it's very close to the road (comparable to a city house's distance from the road). and put in a septic system. I know that our well services that area because our land was separated from the neighbor's within the last ten years. The neighbor even used our well until he had one put in.

Our county allows us to have a caretaker home on the property without splitting it as long as it's smaller than our home. Our home is very tiny so that's not easy to do.

My idea is to let either a couple of ag junior college students or a family (preferable, I think) live in the trailer. They'd be responsible for electricity and propane (or a monthly propane fee if they can't afford to fill tank) in exchange for mowing, moving hay, and fence maintenance. They could keep animals in our pasture. If they wanted to keep goats or something similar they could fence additional pastures.

Reasonable? Any idea about how much it'd cost to get electricity to the house or how expensive it is to put in a septic system for a two or three bedroom trailer?

It sounds reasonalbe if.......

You need to have clear expectations in writing that everyone agrees on. You say "Cut the grass". Do you want it mowed every week or when it goes to seed? They can have animals on the pasture. Can they put 10 head of cattle in a 1 acre pasture and let the cattle strip it bare? Are they going to provide insurance or are you? There's a ton of other things you want to have in writing.

Make sure you have it all in writing.

[Michael W. Smith]

How long can these people live here? Someone isn't just going to up and move in if there is no guaranteed period they can stay. But on the flip side, what happens if someone moves in that even though you did a background check on, etc and things don't work out. Will you be able to get them out?

And down the road, what happens? Things could continue as is for 10 or more years. But things could also change tomorrow. (You die or your spouse dies.) What happens then? And is that the only thing they get for mowing and other chores - free rent and the use of the land? Are there job opportunites in your area?

Things will work fine if you find the right people and have the right agreement. But things could also go horribly wrong that you have a huge headache on your hands.

[ldc]

Joshie, I've been the caretaker where I am for 15 yrs.; for the land in town, an elderly gent. and his dog. I live in a small house next to his. My house is an 18ft sq. The gent would never write anything down, nor his family, but the first 12 yrs or so it went great. Then there were hurricanes and his children and grandchildren (27 in all) - who don't help him- came out of the woodwork. So since Katrina it's all changed for me. Our churches set this up, but were unaware of his family situation. Anyway, as unusual as this situation has been, I know you can find a good fit, just be sure you know people who know the individual or family. For me, this has been a great thing in my life; I still was able to work during the day (teaching), and it let me help 6 of my elderly. I got to live in a wooded setting a short mile from my job. My family and life-time friends think I've become an indentured servant, but it wasn't like that at all. I just pitched in. Feel free to PM me any time. All the best, ldc