We live off-grid in an area so remote cars can’t even get there – we have no indoor shower so we rely on ‘bayou’ water

A COUPLE has revealed what their life is like living in a houseboat in the middle of nowhere.

Tara and Keith Gaudet elected to live deep in the Louisiana bayou off the grid to experience a different way of life, but it is not one for the faint of heart.

Tara and Keith, who have one son, go back and forth between living in the houseboat and another home in Houma because of their work schedules - both "work in oil."

But given a choice, they said they would live full-time on the bayou. 

Peter Santenello, 45, spent the day with the couple to document their unusual way of life which he shared on his YouTube channel.

The area is so remote it can't even be accessed by car, only by boat, which means they have to be extremely self-reliant.

The houseboat consists of two rooms: a bathroom and a room that serves as their kitchen, living room, and bedroom — courtesy of a propane stove top, futon couch, and bunk beds.

The houseboat relies on solar panels for electricity, but also has a generator that can be used to power an air-conditioner if it gets too hot and swampy. 

The couple has a mounted TV but no cable or Wi-Fi, so they have to use their phone's hotspot if they want to watch anything on it.

Tara said the couple loves being so disconnected from the world, and that they hadn't even turned on the news in months.

"It would just upset me so much to see all the stuff going on," Keith said.

"I'm a lot happier not keeping up with that stuff. This is what we do, and we enjoy our lives," he added.

The other room on the couple's houseboat is the bathroom, which consists of a toilet, but has no shower.

Instead, the couple has an outdoor shower on their back porch, powered by water from the swamp.

Tara told Santenello that they use filtered "bayou water" for all of their needs.

HUNTERS AND GATHERERS

Keith also shared that the couple gathers most of their own food from their local surroundings as well, either from fishing, crabbing, shrimping, frogging, or hunting.

"It's very fulfilling for us to be able to catch our own food or harvest our own food," Keith said.

One of their favorite things to eat is a rodent called nutria, which Keith compared to a "really big rat."

"They're a very invasive species. They tear up a lot of these marshlands around here and they eat all the roots of the vegetation," Keith said. 

"And they dig holes in a lot of levee systems we have around here," he added.

During the video, Keith and Tara took Santenello out on the bayou to hunt for nutria, which Keith shot and brought back to their home to cook.

Tara made a stew with the nutria, which she paired with rice and hot sauce.

"Not bad. Not bad. It's got a lot of flavor," Santenello said after trying the dish.

"It's got some kick to it," he added.

Santenello described the texture of nutria meat as "different."

"I don't know what it's like - it's like nothing I've had before, to be honest. The texture's, like, gummy," Santenello said.

"How awesome is it that you can go out, catch a fish, shoot a nutria, come back to your camp, and cook it?'" Keith asked the filmmaker. 

The couple also makes their own wine from muscadine grapes.

"Any time we sees a new animal or bird, we say, 'I wonder if that's good to eat,'" Tara joked.

Other wildlife that they frequently see includes alligators, bald eagles, and snakes, many of which are poisonous.

"There's alligators everywhere around here," Tara said.

However, they do not deter the couple from swimming when they want to.

"They won't mess with people," Keith said.

"They will not come after you. I think they've had maybe two deaths [from alligators] in Louisiana in hundreds of years," he added.

FUN IN THE BAYOU

When asked what else they do for entertainment in the bayou, the couple shared that they have monthly "get-togethers" with their neighbors.

"It's usually like 20 to 30 people," Keith said.

"People like to get together, we do a crab boil or a crawfish boil and everybody wants to bring a dish," he added.

"Everybody gets together and just has a great time, and we cook some good food. We like to cook and we like other people to enjoy our food," he continued.

"Every time me and Tara go crabbing or shrimping, we're calling people, like, 'Hey, meet us at the house, we're boiling something."'

The couple also document their lives in the bayou themselves on their YouTube channel called Dat Louisiana Life.

"It's just us at our houseboat, us doing crabbing, fishing, and just enjoying the awesome scenery and landscape that we have around South Louisiana," Keith said of their channel, which has nearly 66,000 subscribers. 

"A lot of people, when they think of Louisiana, they automatically think New Orleans, Bourbon Street, stuff like that," Tara said.

"But we have a whole another world out here that we enjoy. Tell me this is not better than a city. This is God's country," she added.

NO CRIME

"We've never had any problems with anybody out here," Tara said.

"Everybody knows everybody. It's a whole different vibe out here, so chill," she added.

"It feels so removed from everything, so I get why they like this, [it feels like a] release," Santenello said of his day with the Gaudets.

"You seem very free out here. There's no crime, no police. It's a unique perspective, and I'm very fortunate to have gotten it," he added.

"It's just so peaceful. The bayou is more special than I thought it would be," Santenello said.