“I made it by myself,” Martin Schmidtt says, gesturing towards the oven inside a spacious kitchen/dining area. And it isn’t just the oven. The 62-year-old is one of a growing band of resourceful locals and foreigners who have built their own houses out of materials found on the island of Tenerife as rents skyrocket leaving them no other realistic way of affording their own homes. 

But while some on the island object to the construction of these makeshift homes in what is essentially a shanty town, Martin himself admits that his perfect life in the Canary Islands is being disrupted. Rumblings can be heard in the background, a short distance from the beach at El Puertito on the south-western coast

A new hotel for tourists is being built and Martin has noticed that endless construction – to ensure there’s enough space for everyone who wants to visit – is a phemenon everyone is having to get used to. 

From Heidelberg in Germany, Martin tells the Express that he has been working on his home, which also has a garden, shower room, bedroom and plumbing, for three years. He started out with just a caravan. 

The former factory worker explains: “I was working in Germany for 41 years. I worked and I had a breakdown, really, and then I decided to change something in my life. Then I found this place. I changed my whole life.” Martin adds that he grows his own food, and gets his water from a shared tank on site.

He obviously enjoys the reliably pleasant weather in Tenerife, and looks at a palm tree in the distance to gauge if it is too windy for him to go for a dip in the sea. However, the din from the hotel’s construction at the moment is “annoying” he concedes. 

“I have no stress anymore,” he says, despite the noise. “I can walk to the beach and spend time [on] my own. I was really sick [in Germany]. I slept three or four hours a night and had to take some pills for my brain. I don’t take any pills anymore. I can sleep eight hours, with no drugs or anything. Nothing. I’m really healthy. I’m 62 now, most people don’t think that. 

“Most of the time I’m on my own. My neighbours and friends here visit me. It’s a nice community. This is one of the last natural places here in Tenerife. You can’t find something like this anymore in Tenerife. It’s completely changed.”

Martin thinks that about 50 people live near him, and about 300 more nearer to the sea. A lot of these, he says, are Canarians.

He adds: “Flats are really bad in the Canary Islands. It’s very expensive because tourists pay all the [high] prices for the holidays. Normal Canarian workers can’t pay this price.”

Across a road, a man from Tenerife, who wishes only to be known as Miko, 47, is busy building a home for himself, hammering nails into panels of wood. He tells the Express that he and others are occupying the area. “We respect the nature. We don’t want these people building hotels everywhere. We deserve the place. We’re waiting for someone to come to talk,” he explains. 

“It’s so expensive in this period to find the rent. Everyone is renting for holiday, nobody renting for people here that’s the problem.”

He used to work as a manager at a hotel on the island until two years ago. “I’ve finished that life,” Miko says. “I don’t want to work anymore with tourists, with hotels, who make s*** on the sea and not preserve the nature. They serve s*** food to the people. Nobody is honest here.”

“The island is full,” he adds. “Too much traffic.” Driving around the site is Sharon Backhouse, 55, director at GeoTenerife. The group is campaigning to stop development in the area. She says: “A lot of these people stay here to block the activity. We’re putting pressure on the Government to protect this area. They’re just going ahead. All of that should be protected – it’s of international value.”

She alleges that officials are not taking action against the illegal dwellings so that they have an excuse to allow the development of the area. The Express has contacted the Tenerife Island Council for comment.

Sitting nearby in his homemade house is Mateusz Wędrowiec, 37, from Kujawy in Poland. “This is not much about tourists, this place,” he says. “This is people just living their lives. I’m staying here for half a year, then I’m going back to Poland. I’m spending winter here – I’m kind of treating this as my winter camp.

“And it’s all for free, that’s the funny part.” The musician then mentiones a problem with sewage outflows into the sea on the island, and laments the “big money influence” that means Tenerife relies on visitors.

Down by the sea is Adjona Cordoba, 27, who is from Tenerife and works for a car rental company at one of the island’s airports. He claims his father was the first to set up a home in the area, which his family uses for holidays.

He says: “You disconnect from life. Because we were the first, we got the [best] view.”

Activists say the impact of overtourism in the Canaries is causing a property supply, rental and environmental crisis.

Campaigners say 100,000 people marched through the streets of Santa Cruz, Tenerife’s largest town, last month demanding change. 

Adjona says he comes to his house for a break, but others live there permanently because they do not have anywhere to live.

“Buying a house here is too difficult and complicated,” he explains. “It is expensive.” He then details that the rent in the south of the island, popular with tourists, is around €1,200 per month.

In Santa Cruz, meanwhile, where a lot of locals live, it is around €800. People typically earn an average of €1,300 per month, Adjona adds. 

On his way down to the beach in his swimming gear is Greg Robinson, 50, from Hull. 

When asked what he makes of locals’ complaints about the impact of overtourism, he points out that this isn’t a problem unique to Tenerife or Spain. “It’s everywhere,” he says. “It’s [the same] in Whitby.”