A New Hampshire Woman in a Tiny House Was Evicted from Her Parents’ Backyard

For a couple years now, my Mom has made the joke with me that at some point when I buy a house and have a decent yard, she's going to sell her property and then just have a "Granny Pod" put into my backyard.

If you're not sure what a Granny Pod is, according to FamilyHandyman.com, "is a tiny home built or placed on the same property as the home of someone who will look after the occupant. Now, ideally, I'll end up meeting someone, getting married, and having kids -- so I've always been 100% down with the Granny Pod idea. My mom is one of my best friends, so she'd be RIGHT THERE, plus, it'd be like having a built in baby (and dog) sitter -- everyone wins!

BUT. After hearing about this, I'm not too sure it'll be that easy -- a local New Hampshire woman, Brianna O'Brien, put a tiny house on her parents' property, but after 6 months received a good ole eviction notice.

Now, granted, there were A LOT of things she could've done differently, because according to Insider Presents, she originally started planning on working with the local zoning board to get her house properly zoned in her parents' backyard in Hampton Falls, but decided not to after doing some crowdsourcing. She said that other people who also live in tiny homes on wheels (like hers was) told her that keeping it under the radar as much as possible was the best play, since "the red tape is so difficult."

Now, I feel like there are times where yes, keeping stuff under wraps to avoid all the difficult red tape may be the way to go IF IT'S SOMETHING MINOR (which I honestly can't even think of right now) -- but you're talking about YOUR HOME. Like, WHERE YOU LIVE. If there's ANYTHING I feel like you'd want to follow to a T to make sure that it's all copacetic, it'd be making sure your home is 100% compliant.

Here's what I think is kind of bogus, though. She got thrown under the bus by a neighbor who happened to see the tiny house (which Brianna hid in the bushes, again, in her parents' backyard -- not the neighbor's) and notified the zoning board.

I can see if Brianna was throwing wild tiny house parties nonstop and disrupting the neighborhood, but it seems like she was pretty much just keeping to herself, in her own tiny home, ON HER PARENTS' PROPERTY. So why the bus chucking? If she's minding her own business, why not everyone else mind theirs regarding her? (Again, though, if there's ONE THING you should make sure you're 100% compliant with, I'd think it's where you rest your head every night.)

Insider Presents noted that Brianna pled her case in front of the Hampton Falls Zoning Board of Adjustment to legalize her tiny home, but she was denied, still evicted, and left her tiny home (still on wheels) in her parents' backyard and moved out of town. Which, I mean, if she was willing to try and make it right and go through the red tape she was told to avoid, why deny her?

And most importantly, WHAT ABOUT MY GRANNY POD PLANS FOR MY MOM?! While I figure that out, check out last year's Top Tiny Houses according to Living Big In A Tiny House on YouTube.