Hey everyone, it’s Natali here. I need to talk about something that’s been weighing on me since January when I made the move, and I owe you all a proper explanation about the house situation and why I’m not there anymore.

The Dream That Started It All

Let me take you back to when this whole thing began. I was living in England, working, trying to make a life there, but feeling pulled back home. That’s when my mum, a family member, and I hatched this plan to build a house in my hometown in the Czech Republic. It was supposed to be perfect, get me back home, near family, in a place we built ourselves with our own hands and vision.

The setup seemed straightforward enough: Mum bought the land and hired the people to build the outer shell and frame. Me and another family member were supposed to be responsible for everything else, all the interior work, the systems, the finishing touches. I threw in what money I could scrape together and got materials with help from the amazing people on the wishlist, because let’s be real, I simply didn’t have enough disposable income to fund a whole house build.

Sounds like a solid plan, right? A family project, everyone contributing what they could, building something together.

Yeah. About that.

When the Cracks Started Showing

First major problem: the guys who built the frame were absolute idiots. I’m not being dramatic here, they genuinely had no idea what they were doing. Thankfully, my family member was skilled enough to find ways to work around their shortcomings and make things functional despite the mess they’d left us with (wonkey shaped door frames, poorly placed holes for the stairs, of shaped hallways, incorrectly built drainage). But that was just the first red flag, and I didn’t realize it was a preview of what was to come.

We managed to get the studio half-built. And I mean HALF. If you’ve seen it on stream, you know it’s still not fully floored. The upstairs bathroom? Still doesn’t exist. It’s just… not built. And here’s the kicker that affects every single day, I still can’t drink the tap water.

Why? Because I still don’t have a salination system. No water treatment system. No osmosis system. Nothing that makes the water actually safe to drink. And remember the whole #getthepump campaign? Well, I’ve already burned through that pump BECAUSE it’s been working overtime, compensating for a broken system that never got properly fixed.

Rock Bottom Had a Basement

Then, as if the house issues weren’t enough, when I moved back to the Czech Republic, I was robbed. They didn’t just take a few things – they gutted my life. Kitchenware, computers, technology, hard drives with years of content and memories. I had to completely reset so much existence from scratch. They didn’t take it all, just the things of value (and a new toaster which wasn’t expensive but you know, toast), and you have all recently seen me campaigning for toast again. Toast matters!

To every single person who helped me during that time – I cannot thank you enough. You literally helped me rebuild my life when I had nothing. I wouldn’t have made it through without your support.

But here’s the thing about building on unstable foundations, the problems don’t stop. Years down the line, issue after issue kept mounting. I still don’t have the disposable income to finish the house properly. Every day became this horrible anxiety lottery: Will the boiler fire up today, or has the untreated water finally destroyed it completely? Will I run out of water in the middle of the night again because I can’t drink from the taps and have to rely on bottled water?

The stress became unbearable. Constant. Suffocating.

The Move I Had to Make

In January, I moved into a flat around the corner.

I know some of you were confused about this, wondering what happened. The studio is still there, it’s still in the family, and I still go there and use it for streaming when I need to. Mum and the other family member are sort of still there, keeping things going. But I needed distance. I needed to step back from the stress of that place before it completely destroyed me.

Here’s the complicated part: I couldn’t just rip everything out that I’d put into the house and leave. I couldn’t take the kitchen equipment and leave them with nothing, no way to cook, no running water setup. That meant I needed completely new kitchen stuff for the flat. Again, thank you so much to everyone who helped make that possible, there are still a few bits left on the wishlist if anyone wants to chip in.

The Weight of Unfinished Dreams

I still have all the materials and stuff needed to finish the property on the wishlist if anyone is interested in helping. There’s so much I’d love to complete:

I’d love to finish the studio properly so it’s a functional space for the times I do go there and stream. Imagine having a fully floored, properly finished creative space instead of this half-done shell.

I’d love to get the water systems installed so that me, or anyone who’s at the house, can actually use the tap water. You know, like a normal human being in a normal house.

I’d love to put up some proper fences so the dog can run loose when I visit without constantly running into the neighbour’s property. Speaking of which, that neighbor has been filling my garden with literal shit and garbage because I can’t afford to put up the fence to stop them. It’s degrading and infuriating, and another nail in the coffin that made me flee, but what can I do?

Maybe one day I’ll go back to living at the house permanently. Maybe. But I would need to finish it first. There are just so many reasons why it’s too much to be there right now, the stress, the constant problems, the feeling of failure every time I look at what’s still not done.

Seven Years Without Tap Water

Let that sink in for a moment. Seven years without being able to drink tap water in my own home. Seven years of buying bottled water, of rationing, of running out in the middle of the night, of this basic human necessity being a daily struggle. On top of everything else that’s gone wrong in my life during that time.

When I started this project, I never imagined I’d be in this situation. I thought maybe a year, two at most, before everything was finished and functional. I didn’t think I’d be having anxiety attacks about whether the boiler would work or if I’d have enough water to get through the night.

What the House Did Give Me

Despite everything, I want to be clear about this: the house got me back to the Czech Republic. It got me home, near my family. And that part is wonderful. It really, truly is. I’m grateful for that every single day, even on the hardest ones.

But the cost has been higher than I ever anticipated, financially, emotionally, psychologically.

Starting Over (Again)

For now, I have the flat for the next year. It’s small, it’s simple, but it’s mine. It’s somewhere I can rest my head without wondering if the water will work tomorrow. Somewhere I can try to psychologically rebuild after years of this grinding stress. It’s a chance to breathe and figure out my next steps without drowning in constant crises.

The house is still there. The studio is still there. I still go and use it. This isn’t me giving up on everything we built, it’s me recognizing that I need stability in my life to function, and right now, the house can’t give me that.

To Everyone Who’s Helped

Thank you to everyone who has ever helped me move forward. Whether you contributed to the wishlist, sent encouragement, bought content, shared my streams, or just sent kind messages when things were dark (like when there was a fire after the fuse box was improperly installed)  I want you to know I appreciate every single one of you more than I can express.

I just wish I had been able to cross the finish lines. I wish I could show you the completed house, the finished studio, the working water systems, the fenced garden with the dog running free. I wish this story had a different ending.

But I’m still here. I’m still fighting. I’m still creating. Just from a different address now.

How You Can Help

If you want to help with finishing any part of the house, the studio, the water systems, the fencing, (or help me with the much cheaper task of getting my feet on the ground in the flat)
anything,  please check out the wishlist: https://www.amazon.de/hz/wishlist/ls/5AVFN9WQ7UQ2

Or send Amazon vouchers to: [email protected]

Or use the crypto wallets on the site they have all been updated.

Every little bit helps, and every little bit gets me closer to maybe, someday, being able to live in the house we built. Or at least having a studio I can be proud of.

But ultimately, this post is just to give you the full story about why I’m not at the house right now. Why I moved in January. Why you might see me streaming from a different space sometimes. Why this whole thing has been such a journey.

Thanks for listening, everyone. Thanks for sticking with me through all of this chaos. Thanks for being the kind of community that actually gives a damn.

I’m still standing. Still fighting. Still here.

– Natali 💜