New and overwhelmed (with cats)

[jisincla]

Hello, I am new here and, as noted in the subject line, very overwhelmed. I have zero experience with either building or camping, but now find myself in a crisis situation with an enclosed cargo trailer as a possible, and right now only, temporary solution. I hope people here will be patient in giving me easy baby-step guidance, because I really don't know what I'm doing, just know I need to do *something*.

Situation: I am a disabled person living on SSI and food stamps and in an old house being rented with a Section 8 housing voucher. The landlord does keep up basic maintenance and repairs on the place, but it appears increasingly certain that there are serious problems (mold, likely asbestos, assorted other old-house yucky stuff) that would probably cost more to fix than the house is worth, making it more feasible for me to move out and for the landlord to just unload the place. All this takes time (terminating the lease with proper notice, finding a new place that will accept a Section 8 voucher plus pets), and meanwhile I have just lost my seventh cat in just over three years, and am afraid to take my remaining cats back into that house. Right now we are staying temporarily with my mom in another state, and as usual when we are away from home, the cats' and my own asthma symptoms are noticeably improved. Even my goldfish, which I just got last fall, had fin rot and missing scales at home, and have improved dramatically since we came here. But I need to go home to start the logistics of packing and paperwork, and then I do not expect it to be easy to find a new landlord who will rent to a Section 8 tenant with multiple dogs and cats. We may be in the trailer awhile.

The trailer: I have a Haulin cargo trailer that I bought about ten years ago, after my dad died, to haul stuff out of his apartment. For the next several years it sat in my mom's driveway being used as storage. A couple of years ago I went into it, found it and its contents to be clean and dry after several years of Michigan weather, and decided it would be a good emergency shelter because I was already concerned about my house. I emptied out the things that were stored in it, found someone selling a trailer window on Craigslist, and found a local trailer repair place that put the window in for me. I also had them put in a little port to run in an extension cord, with the idea that it would be used in the driveway so I could run an extension cord from the house into the trailer. Inside, I got some slide bolts and put them in the side door and at the top of the ramp door in back (I use that door to get my wheelchair in and out), and I got a block and tackle pulley thing from Harbor Freight Tools so I can pull the ramp up to close it from inside the trailer.

I towed it home and put it in my driveway, dragged a futon mattress and a couple of particle board bookcases and a lamp into it, and for a few weeks last summer the cats and I stayed in it. Then it rained and I discovered the new window leaked. Then the summer was over and cold weather came in and we had to go back into the house.

This spring when we came back to Michigan to visit my mom again, I towed the trailer back and took it to the place that put in the window. They fixed it so it doesn't leak. We've had some torrential rainstorms since then, and the trailer has stayed dry. I am still concerned that the plywood panel the window is in, which has water stains, might now have mold growing in or behind it. So one question is: How to find that out?

Next bunch of questions involves what need to be done just to make the place a safe and habitable shelter so I can take it home and get to work on longer-term problem-solving. Since I do not want the cats to go back into the house, at all, I figure anything that cannot be done with cats in the trailer should be done before we leave my mother's house. So what would that be?

Insulation? I read in the cargo trailer forum here that pink or blue sheet insulation is recommended. Where is the best place to buy that at a good price? How does one go about putting it in? Again, I need really basic step-by-step instructions, because I have no experience with this kind of thing.

What about the floor? Last year I got some stick-on tiles at Ollie's and put them in, inexpertly, but my main concern at that time was to prevent the trailer floor from rotting if a cat threw up on it. No cats happened to throw up in the trailer before the weather drove us back into the toxic house, so I don't know how my inexpert tiling job would hold up to cat puke and mopping. And does the floor also need insulating against cold?

How about the doors?

And the ceiling? I gather that to insulate the walls, I need to remove the panels, put in the insulation (how?), then replace the panels. The ceiling doesn't have any covering, it's just bare metal. What do I do there?

So then let's suppose I manage to get the thing properly insulated and the floor adequately moisture and puke-proofed. Can we take it home and can the cats and I stay in it while I continue to work on the interior? Or is there anything else that cannot be done with cats inside?

Finally, are there antennas for trailers that would allow cell phone and wifi signals to get inside? Last summer during our short stay in the trailer, I learned that signals don't transmit through a metal box very well, even without insulation. I have a wireless router in my house, and my laptop is able to connect from the driveway *outside* the trailer, but not inside. I've looked in truck stops and seen all sorts of CB and television antennas, but nothing for phones or computers. Especially given my total cluelessness about construction, and great need for detailed guidance with pictures, I really think I'm going to need my laptop to work in the trailer.

Any and all help and encouragement would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Jim Sinclair and cats and dogs and goldfish and even a snail

[mezmo]

Check out the Cargo Trailer Conversions section of TnTTT: http://tnttt.com/viewforum.php?f=42

The best advice for now is to check out the various threads on the topics you've mentioned. You
can learn a lot from the posts of others.