I'm staying in an RV with 6 members of my family during the coronavirus pandemic. Here's how we're making it work.
Matthew Wilson
- Before the state-ordered lockdown, I left New York to be with my family in Florida.
- My family lives in an RV camper while my father is temporarily working in the area.
- Living in a camper comes with its disadvantages, such as less space to yourself, but we're making it work by turning the living space into a bedroom and staying as organized as possible.
A few months ago, before the state-ordered lockdown, I left New York to be with my family in the South. My family usually lives in a two-story house in Alabama, but they have been staying in an RV camper while my dad works in Jacksonville, Florida. He builds apartments across the Southeast for a construction company.
My family is close-knit and we wanted to stay together, especially through these tough times. There are seven of us, including me, and though I'm lucky to be surrounded by family right now, it can be tough to share a space that's smaller than my parents' living room. But somehow we are making it work.
We're staying in an RV park in the small town of Starke, Florida.
Starke in many ways feels like a town cut off from the rest of the world. Surrounding the town are long stretches of green nothing, and you have to drive miles to get to the nearest interstate. It's a sleepy town that's even more empty now that people are staying indoors.
The impact of the coronavirus has been felt here. Starke is in Bradford County, where there have been 76 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and two deaths, News 4 Jax reported on June 21. The local Walmart has limited how many people go inside. Some restaurants have reopened their dining rooms after being closed for months, while others only offer drive-thru or take out options.
The RV park is usually packed with snowbirds coming from across the country for a little Florida sunshine, but for a while, the park was less crowded and started to look more like a ghost town, which made it easier to social distance. This past Memorial Day brought a crowd of people as restrictions started to lax.
The camper is big enough to sleep eight people but is still small and crowded.
At one end of the RV, there is a master bedroom where my parents sleep. A room with four bunk beds can be found at the other end. The dining room and couch also let out into beds. The camper has one kitchen, one bathroom, and a small entertainment area with a TV.
I share the camper with my parents, three siblings, and my grandmother.
Things can get kind of cramped during the day with such a big family. My 17-year-old brother and 16-year-old sister are both out of school for summer and maybe the foreseeable future due to the pandemic. My 23-year-old brother is disabled and also lives at home with my parents, and my grandmother has lived with us most of my life. Let's just say personalities clash, especially when I'm working from home.
During the day, I'm usually working from the dining room table …
Before the school year ended, my sister and brother did their school work there as well, turning the area into a makeshift office. The nearest electrical outlet is on the other side of the room, so during the day, you have to be careful not to trip over the spider-web of chargers spread across the floor.
Living in a camper helps you realize what is essential to your life. My belongings are now in two states. Due to limited space, we have to pack light. At the camper, I have a week's worth of laundry, my laptop, and iPad to keep me entertained.
... and at night, the dining table turns into my bed.
Transforming the dining area into a bed is quite the process. It takes 10 to 15 minutes every morning and night.
Coming home from New York, I'm used to living in small spaces. My bedroom in Brooklyn is barely big enough for my bed, but this area is still pretty cramped.
My 40-year-old self will probably hate me when his back is so sore he can barely move. The cushions on the camper bed aren't the thickest and at times during the night, it can feel like I'm sleeping on, well, a table.
When I have phone or video calls, the car becomes my makeshift conference room.
My family, like any other, can be loud at times, especially when grouped together in such close quarters. I'm also one of those types of people who doesn't like when others listen in on my calls. For those important calls where I need complete silence and privacy, going out to the family SUV has become a Band-Aid solution.
The living room, kitchen, and dining room is all in one space so there's limited room to cook dinner. It means we have to be both creative and organized.
Often my family will use the outside grill and gas burner rather than the indoor kitchen to fix meals. We often cannot use the microwave and air conditioner at the same time without tripping the circuit breaker and killing the power to the entire camper.
Staying organized is essential to camper living. If we cook a dish, we usually clean up afterwards immediately. Counter space is limited, and the sink is barely big enough to hold a pan. It's times like these when I daydream of having a dishwasher.
Limited space in our refrigerator and pantry restricts how much food we can buy.
Having a small kitchen isn't the best when you're trying to limit how often you go to the store. Space for frozen and refrigerated items is more limited.
This requires more frequent trips to the grocery market. While we're there, we keep our distance from others and take proper precautions to ensure our own health and safety, as well as the health and safety of workers and other shoppers at the store. For example, we carry hand sanitizer to put on before and after we leave.
Thankfully there's hidden storage space in the RV too: My mom stocked up on canned food products, which we store in the outer compartment of the camper.
Sharing one bathroom with six other people can be a hassle, especially at night.
The bathroom feels more like a closet. I think even airplane bathrooms are bigger. Taking a shower, I often feel like Will Ferrell from "Elf." The hot water barely lasts five minutes most nights, requiring turning off the water in between soaping your hair.
One benefit of living in a camper is that the special RV toilet paper (which is used to avoid clogged pipes) is stocked in a different section of the stores at Walmart, and so far in our experience, it hasn't been ransacked.
Due to our close proximity, there's a real concern that if one of us gets the coronavirus then we will all get it.
It's a real fear as I watch the number of people affected by the virus grow in the country. I'm young and relatively healthy, but what if I unwittingly transferred it to a family member? My grandmother is 69 years old, and both my brother and mother have underlying health problems. If one of us got sick, it would be catastrophic for the rest.
To avoid this, we continue to keep our distance from others, and diligently wash our hands and use hand sanitizer. My family is very conscientious about health, and my mom is always watching the news for the latest updates on proper guidelines to make sure we're sticking to them.
There's no washing machine or dryer in the RV, so we take a trip across the park to wash clothes.
Fortunately, there's a laundry room at the RV park, but seven people washing their clothes is a lot of quarters a week. There was a fear among my parents and grandparents that the RV park would close the laundromat due to the coronavirus restrictions, forcing us to go to the one in town. But so far, it has remained open.
The RV park closed the playground and basketball court due to social distancing guidelines, but both have reopened.
During the first few days of being home, I would play basketball with my siblings to stay physically active and to enjoy the warm Florida air. But for two months, the park shut down its communal locations to make sure we stay healthy and well. During that time, the nearby hiking trail was a source of comfort for afternoon strolls.
Both have reopened, but whether they will be shut down again remains to be seen.
The community pool has been limited to 10 people for social distancing.
Staff at the park monitor the pool area to make sure the residents are following its guidelines and that the pool's not getting crowded.
For almost two months, the community pool was closed to residents as part of the guidelines, which I completely understood. The park has older clients that would be more susceptible to the virus if they caught it, and we all have to do our part to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Despite these restrictions, my family has found new ways to entertain ourselves.
As much as they can get on my nerves, it's nice having my family nearby during these difficult times – even if we are stuck together in a tin can.
Even when the pool, basketball court, and parks were shut down, we still found indoor and outdoor activities to keep ourselves entertained while staying safe and continuing to social distance. We've had family movie nights, gone on picnics, and even roasted marshmallows over an open flame.
Sitting in a circle and sharing stories while eating s'mores with my family, I could almost forget there was anything wrong in the world.
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