Inside the unregulated tiny house movement, where some people say builders do shoddy work or don't deliver at all: 'It turned into the Wild West'

Lindsay and Eric Wood.Frank Olito/ Insider

• Lindsay and Eric Wood had paid $65,000 for a $90,000 tiny house when the construction company went out of business, leaving their home half-finished.
• But that wasn't the only problem — they said what had been built had not been done so correctly. The house had the wrong tires and axles, and had a wrongly sized hatch.
• Other tiny home owners shared similar experiences, and their accounts point to a larger issue within the tiny house movement: Construction is unregulated, leaving owners vulnerable to shoddy work and companies going out of business.
• Zack Giffin, host of "Tiny House Nation," said the absence of a uniform set of guidelines for building tiny houses means some companies are cutting corners and delivering sub-standard work.

If you Google the term "tiny house," you'll probably find eye-candy photos of small spaces expertly decorated. You may find the hit Netflix series "Tiny House Nation" that shows everyday people easily downsizing their lives into mini-mansions.

But for some of the people actually living in the tiny house movement, that's not the reality. In fact, there's a side of the movement that many don't talk about.

Lindsay and Eric Wood, who run a tiny house consulting business to guide owners through the building process, were excited to join the movement after reading about downsizing for years. After spending thousands of dollars on their home, however, their contractor went out of business mid-build. They say they were left with an incomplete tiny house and sub-standard work.

Other homeowners shared similar experiences with Insider, pointing to a larger issue in the tiny house movement.