The Housemates  

By Teun Toebes (September Publishing £12.99, 256pp)

Here’s an ineradicably strange book that adds something interesting and possibly even important to dementia literature, the huge and burgeoning new genre that is never read by anyone suffering from the disease, only by their poor benighted friends and relatives.

Teun Toebes is a young Dutch nursing student in his early 20s who, finding himself short of money and without anywhere to live, took the opportunity to move into a nursing home and experience the daily life of its elderly residents.

He wouldn’t be a nurse or a carer, he made absolutely clear to the people running the home — he would be a housemate, approaching his fellow inmates as an equal, albeit a 21-year-old equal who could leave the establishment any time he chose, which they obviously could not.

He’s an odd one, Teun: long-haired, not very masculine, but very empathetic, and obviously as well suited to a nursing career as anyone can hope to be.

And while his course rattles along in the background, we soon realise that he is learning as much about his future vocation through his unusual living arrangements as though his lectures and essays. His book tells us what we, those of us who are not of this age yet, need to know.

One of his first, most pertinent points is that care homes are not sufficiently ‘homes’ for anyone: they are bland, institutional and sterile. They are prisons for the afflicted, who, let’s remember, have committed no crime and do not need to be punished. 

Why, he asks, are so many of these ‘homes’ run for staff and shareholders rather than the inmates? ‘I don’t want everything in my life to be managed by other people,’ one oldster tells him.

In the context of the care home, this sounds like dangerous rabble-rousing, rather than just a completely valid request for a little respect.

Teun makes friends. He learns that just because people have dementia, doesn’t mean they lose their capacity for feeling things just as strongly as they did before, or that they’re gaga all the time, or that they haven’t noticed that they have been shipped in from their comfortable homes to this high-security prison, always positioned on a roundabout or in a bleak business park.

(Why are care homes often positioned in the most grim, inhospitable places? Because those places are cheaper, of course. The bottom line is everything.)

Teun starts to get angry. Why can’t he change the awful institutional curtains in his room? 

Because only one supplier of curtains is permitted. Their designs are awful, and they charge an arm and a leg because they have the monopoly and that’s all they care about. 

Why can’t more items from the oldsters’ former homes be brought into the care home? Because of health and safety, usually. Health and safety — which scarcely matters in the outside world — trumps all other considerations in the care home.

Why is the TV on all the time? Because no one cares if anyone is watching it or not, and it’s deemed to keep the oldsters quiet, if not happy. Teun rapidly comes to the conclusion that we have to completely rethink these places and their priorities, as soon as humanly possible.

I know of three or four oldies currently banged up in HM Prison Carehome, and the one thing they all have in common, other than being very unhappy, is that they keep asking their relatives when they can return to their real homes. Is this what anyone wants for their end of life? Is it what we want for the end of ours?

Teun finds an ally in Niels, one of the nicest (and thus most popular) members of staff. ‘We both agree on the need for change, because we wouldn’t want to grow old in a nursing home like this.

So what exactly needs to happen?… We almost always conclude that we want to be treated normally, in an environment that’s as normal as possible. We want to be able to go out, have a cosy, cluttered room and eat leftovers whenever we fancy. No gates, locked doors, sterile floors or temperature-controlled food.’

Teun’s book is written throughout with a puppyish lightness of touch: it’s a young man’s book, for sure, so when he gets polemical, you genuinely sit up and take notice.

What effect it will have, if any, is hard to gauge, but it has been widely translated and become a bestseller across Europe. There’s nothing here that we didn’t know in our hearts, but sometimes it is good to be told. We can now consider that we have been told.

It might have a population of only 50 people, but Adrian Bennett made his dream come true by moving from Bradford, England, to the tiny dusty town of Silverton in the NSW outback.

The reason Adrian moved his wife and three children to the other side of the world to a rural village on the NSW/SA border? Because he is a Mad Max super fan, and he wanted to build a museum in the rural area where the second movie, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, was filmed.

The English family moved to the country in 2006, and while it was always their intention to open the museum, Silverton became their home four years later when the Mad Max 2 Museum was finally erected.

Despite having such a small population, the town has a stretch of road with several galleries on it, including The John Dynon Gallery, and of course, Adrian and Linda’s Mad Max museum.

The small wacky building is instantly recognisable as a museum dedicated to George Miller’s post-apocalyptic movie.

It is a must-see for any film buffs, as it is filled with a large collection of photographs from the movie, character costumes, and an impressive collection of original and replica vehicles from the flick – including two interceptors.

While speaking to Adrian, it is clear that he is obsessed with the movie franchise, and building and running the museum was a dream come true for him.

‘Some people think I’m joking when I talk about how much I love the movie,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.

Adrian first saw the action movie when it was released in cinemas in the UK when he was 18-years-old.

His wife, Linda, said she wasn’t one bit surprised when he came up with the plan to relocate to Australia and start the museum.

‘The first thing he said to me when we met was, “Have you seen a movie called Mad Max?”‘ she said.

‘So when we had been together forever I wasn’t surprised [he wanted to move to Australia].

‘And I always thought it would be nice to come out here, he was always planning it in his head.’

Despite their clear passion, the couple said many people thought they were mad to start a business in a town that has a population of just 50 people.

‘There are two comments I remember from certain people and one was, “You’re a bit of a financial genius aren’t you, starting a museum in a town with a population of 50 people?”‘ Linda said.

‘And I said, “Financial genius? Yes, this town gets hundreds of thousands of tourists.”‘

Adrian said that on top of the town being popular for tourists, Australia needed to have a dedicated Mad Max museum.

‘They needed this museum, it didn’t make sense not to have something like this,’ he added.

‘When we moved in 50 people were living here but I said yes, the financial genius gets 160,000 tourists coming through [the town every year].

‘If I got a dollar off every 160,000 people coming through I’d be doing alright wouldn’t I?’

While it costs $7 to enter the museum, there is also an abundance of merchandise on sale.

However, the couple said despite their success, it has never been about the money for them.

They’ve just always wanted to live comfortably while living their dream of owning a Mad Max museum in the outback.

‘We have never been driven by cash, we just want to live comfortably, for me I’m living the dream anyway,’ Adrian said.

Linda added: ‘It was built from a passion and if this door shuts tomorrow because no one was coming in we still wouldn’t sell up.’

A adventure-thirsty couple from Canada have told of how they ditched their city life for a remote island in Panama and they have no regrets more than one year on.  

Mark and Bethany Sikora were living in Calgary, Alberta, but sick of the sub-zero weather and increased cost of living, the duo started looking for an alternative place to put down roots. 

In January 2022, the Sikoras came across a TikTok about life in Panama and within three weeks they had sold or given away almost everything they owned in a bid to relocate to Central America. 

To get residency in Panama, expats can invest $200,000 in local real estate and Bethany, 30, told DailyMail.com that ‘we essentially sold our 1,000sqft bungalow in Canada for two acres of land with 10 structures on it.’

The Sikoras’ island plot – which they found within three months of moving – includes a house, two guest huts, an outdoor kitchen, a greenhouse, a chicken coop and a boat house with its own dock.

There is also a storehouse that contains a solar energy plant and rain water collection system, so they don’t have to be hooked up to main supplies. 

In terms of their location, the Sikoras live on a remote island called Isla Cristobal in the province of Bocas Del Toro in Western Panama.  

The lush outcrop has about 800 residents and it is only accessible by boat. 

The closest international airport is Bocas del Toro and it is about a 20- to 30-minute boat ride from there. 

In terms of making money, the Sikoras decided to market one of their guest houses on Airbnb and it is currently available to book for $94 per night.  

Bethany says the response to their island property has been ‘incredible’ and in the coming months they are 90 per cent booked. 

To generate extra income they offer a number of tours around the area, from dolphin-watching excursions to waterfall treks. 

While Mark focuses on the Airbnb and keeping that running, Bethany works remotely online as a recruiter in the U.S. and Canada.

The couple also generate a small amount from a relationship-focused podcast that they run called Pillowtalk With Mark And B.

Touching on the type of content they offer, Bethany said: ‘As most relationships these days are bringing trauma or baggage into relationships, our goal is to promote healthy conversation around that with solutions and examples for other couples.’

Looking ahead, the Sikoras’ aim is to be completely self sufficient and from their plot, they are able to fish for dinner and grow their own produce. 

Currently their only outgoings include $99 per month on internet, $35 per month for their cellphones and they get groceries every one to two weeks from the local town. 

The cost of food varies depending on how many guests they have staying. 

Asked what she misses most about life back in Calgary, Bethany mused: ‘Oh man, there is truly nothing like Alberta beef. Steak in Panama is just not the same. 

‘I also really miss driving. Cars were always my thing when I was in Canada and now we only have boats.’ 

When it comes to Mark, Bethany says he has ‘sunk in hard to island life and doesn’t seem to miss a lot.’

She continues: ‘We were intentional about this move because we wanted to get away from the media, politics, etc. 

‘He was a big podcaster before we left running a program called Lorehammer, which is focused on the game Warhammer. I think the break has been good for him. When he’s not working, he spends his time spearfishing or making new hiking trails around the island.’

On their TikTok channel the Sikoras have made it clear they do not plan on having children. 

For now they have their hands full with an assortment of animals which include two dogs, four cats, and a number of chickens.

While they say their off-grid lifestyle is ‘a lot of hard work,’ the Sikoras say they ‘still find time to play’ and they 100 per cent feel they made the right decision with leaving Canada. 

Asked to sum up Isla Cristobal in three words, Bethany concludes: ‘Paradise. Peaceful. Serene… You’ll just have to come see it for yourself!’