How to Build a Bender Home

When you're suddenly homeless, a refugee or a transient, shelter is one of your main concerns. If you have access to natural materials like trees and rocks, you've got a good shot at making a temporary home called a "bender." This writer lived in one for over three years when she was homeless in England. Although called "benders" in England, they might be called another name where you live, such as "hut." Read on to learn how to build a bender home.

Things You'll Need

• Machete
• Bowsaw or other saw (optional, but makes life easier)
• Many fist sized rocks, depending on how big your bender is
• Plastic sheets
• Covering material like tarp, old tents and old parachutes
• Measuring tape or rope with knots in it to mark of inches or feet
• Very heavy object like a hammer, ax or a large rock to make floor and bender pole holes
• Rope, shoelaces or something to tie poles and keep them in place
• As many young, green tree trunks as you need to make at least three arches
• Human helper (optional)

Instructions

1. Beg, borrow or steal at least a machete. Preferably, get together a machete, bow saw (or other hand saw), rope, meausring tape, an ax and a large, heavy object to help flatten ground. If you can get a helper, too, this will save on the work.

2. Search the woods for young, green tree trunks for the arches. You can use deadwood for the straight poles, but young wood that bends and does not snap must be used for your support arches. Check the trunks by trying to bend them before you cut them down.

3. Thank the trees and then cut them down.

4. Strip off the branches. You can leave some strong knots or a half inch of the branch on to act as hooks to hang possessions on.

5. Find the most level patch of ground you can. If the ground isn't level, you must make it level by pounding it flat with your blunt object, such as a large rock or a piece of metal with a rounded bottom.

6. Measure and mark where your post holes should be. Make sure they are more or less in a straight line. You need at least three arches 3 feet apart (six holes).

7. Dig the holes more easily by pounding a stake or narrow rock into the ground at least four inches deep. Make the holes wider than the width of your tree trunks.

8. Place a few fist sized stones into the holes. They will help keep the poles in place even if the ground gets muddy.

9. Get two green tree trunks of more or less the same length to make up an arch (or bend). Get your rope ready by sticking it into your pocket or your teeth. Stick one trunk of your arch into one hole and the other trunk into the opposite hole. Bend the trunks down so they form an arch. You need to tie this arch together in at least four places. Repeat until you have at least three arches.

10. Weave your straight trunks or poles in and out of the arches so that they stay in place by themselves. You need at least one on each side. This makes your arches stronger.

11. Lay down any flooring material that you have, such as a thick plastic sheet. Some people prefer to lay down wooden pallets and then lay the sheet over top, but you do have to be careful of rats and mice taking up home in the pallets.

12. Cover your sturdy wooden frame with any materials you can get your hands on, including old tents, tarp, blankets, large towels or an old parachute. If you need to, hold long materials in place with rocks.

13. Move in your possessions and collapse.

Tips & Warnings

• Another way to help smooth the floor is to run a hot kettle or hot iron over the ground.

• Recycle whatever you can. You can find great things in dumpsters or scrap heaps around construction sites. Worse comes to worse, go into bombed-out buildings for materials.

• Air out your covering materials whenever you can to let the sun and the breeze dry them so they don't get too moldy.

• Don't expect everyone who promises to help you build your bender actually show up.

• Don't take more trees than you need.

• Don't skip using the rocks to support your poles, or the poles will suddenly shift when you least expect it.

Resources

• Steward Community Woodland website for more information