September 1, 2026
The young man who knocked on my door selling pest control
I've been quiet here for a few weeks. I had a minor knee surgery and I'm still recovering.
I haven't been completely idle. I've spent more of the downtime than I'll admit watching timber frame construction videos, the kind where every joint is cut by hand and the whole frame goes up on wooden pegs. I don't know that I'll build one. It's a good way to spend a recovery though, sitting there running through what could go on the lot.
A rough-sawn hemlock frame just raised, in Weston, Massachusetts. Photo by Vermont Timber Works, CC BY-SA 3.0; this crop is offered under the same license.
If you're newer to all this and want a picture of what an ADU actually is, CBS Sunday Morning ran a segment on backyard homes in May, with Lee Cowan. It's a good overview.
Time to get back to it. Before the surgery, a young man knocked on my door selling pest control.
He was in his mid-twenties. Polite, sharp, straight to the point. He gave me the pitch, and somewhere in it he told me the real story. He turned his life around this past year, and the thing that turned it around was this job. A year ago he was in a different place. Now he's good at something, working hard, and proud of it. You could hear it.
Then he told me what he actually wants. Real estate. He rents right now, and he wants to own. Same thing I wanted at his age, and the same thing I got to do at his age.
Then came the part that stuck with me.
He's thinking about leaving. Not the neighborhood. The area. Maybe Idaho entirely. Not because he wants to go. Because here the numbers don't work, and he's doing the same math a lot of people his age are doing. The place he wants to build a life in is the place he might have to leave to afford one.
Sit with that for a second. This is a young man who fixed his own situation, found work he's good at, and started reaching for the next rung. He priced a house here, and the answer he got was: probably not here.
He's exactly the person you want to keep.
"Just move somewhere cheaper"
That phrase is on my deal breakers list, because it's a real argument and people make it in good faith. There are affordable houses in America right now. Wanting to own here is a preference, not an emergency.
I can't argue it away. What I've got is a young man on my porch.
The cheap houses are cheap because they're far from the work, and far from family. Telling a young couple to move to one isn't a solution to a housing shortage. It's what the shortage costs, and they're the ones who pay it.
I've written here about my own two sons. Both working, both still at home, both held back from starting a family by what a place to live costs.
When my wife and I were raising them, my father, my mother, and my wife's mother were a tremendous help. I honestly don't know how we'd have done it without them close by. I want that for my sons when it's their turn, and I'll be honest, I want it for me too. I'd like to be the grandfather down the road, near enough to spoil the grandkids and hand them back. None of that survives my boys having to move away to afford a house.
The young man on my porch isn't one of mine. I met him at my front door. He's in the same spot, and so are his parents.
It exports the strivers
This is what a shortage actually does. It doesn't only keep grown kids in their parents' basements. It sends the ones with drive somewhere else, because they're the ones willing to pack up and go make it where the math works.
And it isn't only him. The typical first-time home buyer in America is now 40 years old, a record high. In 2000 they were 32. A decade got added to the wait. He's what that number looks like standing on your porch.
I know the other side of this. Plenty of people around here would say we're full already, and that the traffic and the schools are the proof. That one's on the list too, and I can't answer it yet. All I've got is that the people getting kept out are somebody's kids. Two of them are mine. One of them knocked on my door trying to sell me pest control.
We hired him, by the way. He earned it in about four minutes flat.
I don't know if he stays. I'd like the answer around here to start being yes. That's part of why I'm building.
This is the fourth post on why I'm doing this. The first was about my own sons. The second was about why one more small home helps a family who'll never live in it. The third was every argument against all of it that I can't answer yet. This one is the demand side, in person. The reason a right to build an ADU matters is that there are real people, right here, who'd use the roof if it existed.
While I'm on housekeeping. I've kept a page of deal breakers since July, every argument against all of this that I take seriously. It started to feel one-sided, like I only write down reasons to stop. So there's a deal makers page now too, the reasons I think this is worth doing, each one marked with how sure I am of it. This post is on it.
If you're doing that math right now, or you already made the call to leave and could tell me what tipped it, I want to hear it. Leave a comment below, or message the Facebook page. If you'd rather keep it private, use the contact form. The people living it make this clearer than I can on my own.
One last thing, since this is supposed to be documented from the start, small beginnings included. One person has signed up for email updates. One. And I was thrilled. They're in Latah County, looking at building an ADU of their own, which is exactly who I started this for. If you want to be number two, the box is right below. An email when there's a new post, nothing else.
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