Today in complaining about Amazon:

To be clear, I don't have an issue with pre-fab houses, I just have an issue with Amazon selling prefab houses. In fact, I'll save you the read: I have beef (as the kids say) with Amazon. Didn't we used to shut down monopolies? I just--look, just take what I say with a grain of salt. A grain of salt you ordered online instead of just going to a store. 

I mean, look at Cowboy Jeff here. And what's
up with Lauren Sánchez? Sit in your own seat.

Someone's whole thing is researching the
history of prefab house. It's their passion
It's what they talk about at parties.

Pre-fabricated houses aren't like a new thing and Amazon didn't invent them. People used to buy house kits from Sears, and according to my extensive research of a few of the sites that came up when I searched "history of prefabricated homes," we--well, someone--can trace their history back as far as the Gold Rush, and the seventeenth century, and even William the Conqueror. And I mean, what are tents but prefabricated homes? Depending on your definition, they might go back millennia. 

This isn't me, but I kind of look like this
when I tell people I don't use Amazon.

So why then does it bother me that Amazon sells them? I'm beefing (again, am I using this correctly?) with most companies. Target, Walmart, Trader Joe's. Basically any business that caved to the racist demands of a felon most people didn't vote for. I think I can go to Costco at this point, and that's it. At least until they screw up. It's a difficult existence, but I do enjoy the "oh, I don't shop there..." I get to drop into conversations. Of course it's all smug and games until I need paper towels.

"I swear to God, Tim. It's been
three years. You need to go."

-Tim's former friend

Anyway, the houses they sell vary wildly both in configuration and price, from ten to forty thousand dollars and I'm sure that puts home ownership within the reach of some. I mean, I suppose you have to have some land to put them on, or a really tolerant friend who let's you put their in their backyard, but then as time passes they realize that it's not as temporary a situation as you led them to believe. Your friendship becomes increasingly strained, you stop speaking to one another, and eventually they ask you to move and then you--huh? What? I guarantee you, that this 100% happens.

Pictured: craftsmanship.

Ok, so the scenario involving Tim which I (very correctly) predicted above isn't the only reason I think people should avoid falling for these things. It's the sense that these are the housing equivalent of a flatpack bookshelf which, once assembled exactly as the instructions, uh, instructed, wobbles unnervingly and has left over parts. Every time. 

Sure it might be cheaper--well, relatively cheaper. Ten grand is an unthinkable amount of money--in the short term, but what about five years down the line? There has to be a reason these cost so much less than say, a traditional mobile home which, according to some more lazy internet research, are around a hundred thousand dollars. 

95% of the internet is uninformed
opinion. The rest is porn and ads.

And I suspect that that reason is shoddy construction. Admittedly, having never been inside one, I can't really comment on how well they're constructed. I'm just talking about things I know not of. But they cost a tenth of the price of a trailer, so something's not right here. And if everything else in American is any indication, these will be leaking within a year. It's part of a larger trend of everything being junk now. Everything. The further into the twenty-first century we go, the crappier it gets. 

Customer service gets worse, build quality deteriorates, and people keep believing in free delivery. Which isn't real. Amazon isn't selling cheap houses to solve the housing crisis. If they wanted to do that, they'd pay their workers better. They're selling cheap houses because they can convince people to buy them. Probably by exploiting the part of our programing that suggested that we can, and should, all own houses someday. Which would be great. I'd love to. But not like this.

"What? Amazon is great! I used to poop in a bag, but
now they grudgingly allowed us bathroom breaks."

-some Amazon employee