You said "your neck of the woods", where are you located?

Unless you're in a Class A Neighborhood like Palmer Woods, Indian Village, Sherwood, etc,. the additional rent probably won't support the cost to build:(More profitable to take the build funds and buy another property.DM us if you'd like to discuss more...

The wood door above is Mahogany.

Yup for most of the Usonians the loads of wood used is cost prohibitive now and hard to source.However, I thought about this one as an example of a build with simple materials (steel and concrete block) that are not in themselves expensive to source that can achieve a beautoful design (with great effort of course by designer and builder) at low cost and scale.

The wood is pine or mdf, as opposed to oak.

In terms of the illegal 1 bed cottage... so this isn't uncommon in my neck of the woods (NYC) in terms of something similar (basement apartments, garage apartments, etc.) 

Hey Michael, It's a 6 unit building and the winter has been mild so far here in Chicago *knocks on wood*.

If you are looking to house hack in our local neck of the woods, I recommend reaching out to @Josh Green.

Today he drove over an hour into the woods for us to look at a mobile so my husband does not have to commute.

What if the smell was coming from a broken sewer line that was back-gassing into the unit, as well as leaking all around the foundation and rotting wood beams.