Rural Home Living Advice For Prior City-Dwellers
Moving to a rural area can be empowering and quite freeing for many people, particularly those who were born and raised in a city environment. It might take you time to adjust to how much space there is, how dark it gets at night without light pollution, and how tired you are from all the fresh air.
However, it can also be that the very real practicalities and conveniences of running a household here take you by surprise. To use an example - it’s quite true to say that home maintenance takes time in a rural environment. It also takes effort. It also demands foresight and planning.
Miss something from the store? That could mean another fifty-minute round trip as you head to the store again, rather than just walking down the street. It might even be that you’re not even connected to normal sewage tunnels or have poorer broadband access because of your remote location. That might sound worrying to people who have relied on urban conveniences up until now.
So - let’s help you with some advice. Before long you’ll be enjoying your new home and running it to perfection.
Consider Essential Survival Utilities
Rural living implies living in an area where conveniences perhaps aren’t as well-geared as you would like. It could be that your house is situated in a remote, somewhat inaccessible location. This might mean that you need to use an Amazon or post drop-off point, such as a local post office ten miles away, rather than expecting delivery to your door. For some this is how life works, and the extra effort is more than worth the freedom and privacy.
Others find that more than picking up mail, essential survival utilities need to be considered. For instance, tanks direct can provide you with water tanks that can help you better irrigate your land and more. A septic tank may be installed underground and regularly emptied in order to ensure your sewage is cared for. This can also mean ensuring that the pipes don’t freeze over in the winter, a risk you may otherwise be running.
It’s true - some remote locations still use wells to access clean, running water, or they may need to bring home gallon jugs of filtered water in case of an emergency, as bringing a professional out in a matter of moments can be hard to rely on. Essential survival utilities need to be planned for an accepted when moving from an urban to rural environment, even with the small implements that may a difference. This is also helped by understanding:
Home Security Is Important
Remember that home security is important in a rural area. It might seem as though occupying a city is perhaps more dangerous thanks to the amount of people who could , theoretically, have negative intent. However, public lights, close neighbors, easy-to-install security systems, limited means of access to your property and more can actually make it tougher for a would-be trespasser to access your land.
In a rural area, most of this is not guaranteed. This is why you need to ensure that your locks are carefully applied, that doors in buildings are sturdy, that you have floodlights that light up with motion-detected activity. It might also be that home alarms or keeping in close contact with the limited but friendly community can help you report changes or suspicious activity in your area. We’d also recommend that you:
Mark & Border Your Land
It’s very common for open, rural areas, and especially the land you may own as part of your house, to be wide-ranging and unmarked. This means that people may intrude on your property without them knowing it, such as a farmer allowing his sheep to graze on your land, someone turning their vehicle around in your field, or people just coming to camp or wander through when walking their dog.
If you value privacy and property protection, it’s worthwhile to mark and border your land. You can do this using fences, signs, and even treelines or established hedges. What matters is that you clearly signpost just where your property is, and control access to it to the best of your ability. If you can do that, then your confused interactions with the public will be limited, and you can begin to use the land for the purposes you have already laid out.
Consider Rural Living & Surroundings
We need to consider the practical realities of living in a rural area. These aren’t supposed to turn you off this of course, because for some, many of these points may be net positives.
For example - it’s true to say that you will have less of an ability to meet random people in your local community. That being said, the community you are a part of will become much closer to you, because you’ll know everyone by name. This means that gossip usually spreads like wildfire around a village, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s pernicious or harmful. Furthermore, little conveniences such as having children and enabling them to get jobs at a certain age can be limited if they have to travel a long way to the nearest town or city.
It could be that post takes a little longer to get to you, that people have a hard time finding your place when invited, or that you’re more exposed to the elements more, meaning that de-icing your driveway with grit each morning is essential in the winter. It takes some time to adapt, but all of this can become your new normal - enjoying the slower pace of life for good.
Of course, sometimes, this means that additional costs must be planned for. For instance, a large road with pot-holes in it may not be up for repair by your local council or road planning authority because of its private nature. This means that you may need to raise funds from all of the local neighbours in order to ensure the problem is dealt with. If you can do that, you’ll be on a better course.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily enjoy rural home living, and that even a lifetime of city-dwelling can’t prevent you from making the most of your life here.
