Would you live in an ambulance? How this Vancouver couple has done it for 2.5 years

Raychel Reimer shows off her "tiny home," a converted ambulance in this screengrab. (TikTok)

Vancouver — A Vancouver couple is revealing how they’ve lived rent free in one of the world’s most expensive cities for 2.5 years—and it’s not the usual first response.

Raychel Reimer and Nick Hurley have repurposed an ambulance into a tiny home, which is featured in a video that’s been viewed more than 1.2 million times since the pair posted it to TikTok last week.

In the video, a supposed stranger—who turns out to be Hurley—asks Reimer how much she pays for rent, to which she replies “Oh I don’t pay anything.”

What follows is a 60-second tour of her “tiny home on wheels,” which Reimer explains is 80 square feet.

The tour demonstrates the space is big enough for a bed, a closet hidden in a bench, a kitchenette complete with a foot water pump and a toilet.

“I always say I have everything a normal house has, except just smaller,” Reimer, 29, said in the video.

Speaking to CTV News Tuesday, Reimer explained that she and Hurley bought the ambulance in 2019 after returning home from working abroad.

The couple met in Vancouver in their early 20s, and lived together in an apartment in the Riley Park neighbourhood prior to 2017, when they decided to quit their jobs, sell all their belongings and travel to Cambodia to teach English.

They were inspired to pursue tiny home living when they came back to B.C. years later with a tight budget.

“We found the ambulance on Craigslist,” said Reimer. “I made a joke kind of like ‘Wouldn’t it be funny If we lived in an ambulance,’ and my husband was like ‘Actually, that would be pretty great.’”

The pair paid $6,000 for the ambulance, and another $6,000 to convert it into their home.

Reimer says their home has only faced serious hardship once while the couple was on a 15-state trip across the U.S., and the ambulance broke down in San Diego. Even then, the fix only cost $600 USD.

“Our ambulance has been one of the most reliable vans that we know,” Reimer said.

The couple recently drove their home back to Vancouver from Mexico, where they vacationed for four months.

“We’re kind of in a work, save, travel, repeat cycle,” said Reimer, who is now looking for seasonal work with her husband.

She says being a part of the “van life” community has opened her eyes to all the possibilities and different ways of living.

“Some people run their own companies from the road, there are software engineers…sometimes the person you call at an Amazon call centre is taking the call from their van,” she said.

Reimer says her lifestyle isn’t for everyone, but she hopes people will pursue whatever works for them without fear of judgement.

“It’s okay to live differently. People don’t have to understand your lifestyle.”