We spend day with hippy couple ‘allergic to modern life’ who are being evicted from the Hobbit-style mud hut they built from tree trunks
Carer Kate Burrows and husband Alan moved off-grid to escape modern technology... but now live in a hut complete with laptop, mobile, car and washing machine
WHEN Kate Burrows invited the media into her mud hut home this week, she was keen to explain how her ”allergy to modern life” meant the council is wrong to turf her out.
Showing off the haphazardly decorated “Hobbit house”, she and husband Alan gushed about their self-sufficiency and insisted that mod cons make her feel ill.
So it was a surprise when The Sun visited them yesterday in woodland outside Chumleigh, North Devon, to find them cosied up on their handmade four-poster bed watching Netflix on Kate’s Galaxy smartphone.
Kate, 45, explained: “When you live in nature you get tired. Sometimes you want to just chill out with some Netflix or listen to The Archers.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, she and Alan are also big fans of Black Mirror, the Channel 4 sci-fi series about the dangers of modern technology.
The gran-of-one has diagnosed herself with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). She says she suffers flu-like symptoms when in contact with things like wifi, mobile phone networks, cleaning chemicals and even paint.
To escape the harmful horrors of their rented flat, Kate and Alan, 47, fled to the forest 19 months ago.
They created their simple mud hut – complete with outside loo — amid trees on land they own in the Tarka Valley near Kings Lynton.
Despite her illness, brave Kate allows herself a few home comforts.
A generator powers not just their smartphones, but a personal computer, laptop, a washing machine and a radio.
They also own a Renault Scenic for popping to nearby Barnstaple for their weekly shop in Sainsbury’s.
But Kate insisted: “We DO live our lives off the grid.
“But that depends on your definition of what that means.
“We’re not connected to the mains water supply or the sewage network.
"Chemicals, perfumes and electrical signals set me off.
“It is like having the worst flu ever.
“I can cope with one or two of those things, but not loads.
“Living in a town is too much.
“The chemicals and wifi builds up in my system and makes me feel terrible.”
Alan added: “Kate gets really bad when she is surrounded by it, but she can cope here in the middle of nowhere away from it all.”
“If we were rich I’d buy a private island.
“But we’re peasants and proud of it.
“So we do what peasants have always done and built our home out of mud.”
The hut took the couple, who have been married for nine years, six weeks to build and cost them £2,000.
Before they took up residence here, Alan wore a suit and tie for his job as a photocopier and printer engineer.
But Kate was miserable and claims her illness made her housebound.
She said: “I have had allergies, eczema, asthma and psoriasis.
“I had hundreds of symptoms. I couldn’t cope.”
Her GP suggested it might be fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition.
But Kate concluded it was MCS and she is adamant that the radical change of lifestyle has worked wonders.
She said: “I didn’t realise until I moved here that it was all the chemicals which made me sick.
“No one has ever diagnosed it properly.
“Doctors don’t recognise the condition yet.”
Kate had bought the freehold land with money from the divorce from her first husband a decade ago.
She said: “I have no idea what he’d think if he saw my life now.
“Alan and I met after I left him.
“We were married within a year as we were so deeply in love — nothing has changed.”
Neither claims benefits and Kate makes some money selling handmade wicker baskets locally.
She is also a part-time carer, which means that once a week she has to endure sleeping in a warm comfy bed at a patient’s house.
Alan is mostly occupied with keeping the hut going and looking after their menagerie — 12 chickens, four geese, a dog named Buffy, and eight goats.
Looking around, it’s easy to see why it takes so much effort to maintain.
The couple have used all sorts of odds and ends to plug gaps in the flaking walls.
Shelving is splintered wood.
Fabric, carpet and twine hold logs together and the skylight is an old tyre.
There is even a patio door, sourced from a friend’s demolished conservatory, which leads on to a balcony made of old wooden pallets.
The walls are made of a mixture of mud, sawdust, straw and water.
Kate said: “Everyone thinks if you need to buy a curtain rail you have to go to B&Q but we made one out of a hazel pole.
“I know we’re bonkers but we’re very happy.”
They have the support of their six children from previous relationships.
Kate’s sons are Spencer, 26, a chainsaw carver who makes wooden mushroom sculptures, Zack, 21, a carer, and 18-year-old Billy, who is at college doing A-levels.
Alan’s children are Edward, 20, who is training to be a teacher and students Jenny, 19, and Natasha, 17.
Kate said: “My kids love our life.
“They are always here helping out and mucking in.
“Alan’s children find it a bit far out.
“They are normal people who live in modern houses and like having things like wifi.
“They don’t visit us as often but we love seeing them.
“They are very happy for us even if they do find our house a bit strange.”
A typical day for the Burrowses starts with a cuppa, made with water boiled on a gas cooker.
Kate recently planted tea bushes but for now she makes do with supermarket teabags.
Then they tend to their livestock.
She said: “Our dream is to be as self-sufficient as we can, producing our own sustainable food.
“Soon we’ll be making our own goats’ cheese, tea and growing vegetables.”
Of course, until this dream comes true there is always Sainsbury’s.
After mucking out the animals they might wash, using either a bowl and jug or firing up a customised immersion heater for a bath.
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The bath is in a corner of the living room.
Outside is a metal barrel which they fill with water and light a fire underneath.
Kate said: “The bath takes forever but I have a job so have to be clean at least once a week.”
I am even shown the toilet they also built — a mud-walled outhouse atop a compost heap.
Kate said: “I know people think I’m mad, but I think it’s mad to use clean drinking water to flush waste.
But now North Devon Council have ordered the Burrowses to tear their home down because it went up without planning permission.
They have until December to move out.
Kate said: “I love this life.
“It was always our dream to build our own place here.
“Even if I wasn’t ill I would want to live like this.
“It’s really important that people like us are allowed to live sustainably on their own land without causing any damage.”