The Trolls of Bjorkedal.
I’m keeping the wording factual and non-identifying to comply with review guidelines.
Norway is gorgeous. Bjorkedal is a village straight out of a statistics report, about 21 inhabitants per km² and a very wet place.
You can’t see the Northern Lights there.
In my experience, Moritsgarden was in extremely poor condition.
Or words that Google doesn't allow me to write.
A 400-year-old house and a plot of land stuffed to the brim with junk, which becomes obvious when you open cupboards, go down into the cellar, or step into the adjoining sheds. There’s even an old, still-full slurry tank.
I was here in summer 2025 for a few weeks as a work-exchange/volunteer. When it gets too crowded, newcomers sleep in the camper van.
The smell in the trailer, and in the wall cupboards, was like slowly rotting clothes: a persistent musty, damp odor that didn’t go away.
In summer, most textiles in the house felt dry to me, but the wall cupboards still smelled musty. I’m not making a diagnosis, but sleeping in that environment felt unacceptable to me.
This is an extremely wet, cool region (precipitation ~2200 mm/year and ~229 days/year). In that context, if living spaces are kept closed for long stretches and aren’t consistently heated and ventilated, moisture can linger and contribute to persistent dampness and potential mold issues. If you have allergies, asthma/sensitive airways, or a weakened immune system, you may want to be cautious.
Some of the mattresses were very old. In some cases new mattresses were stacked on top of old ones.
During my stay I saw people leave early, besause of issues around how rooms were assigned.
The house itself felt badly put together.
Whatever can’t be found gets bought again, usually cheap at the local hardware store / Biltema.
For anyone who takes environmental protection seriously, this is a living nightmare. Right next door (part of the place) there’s an old car workshop where, at any given time, there are 2–3 half-assembled cars sitting around, plus loads of dirt and trash. There are tires everywhere on the property.
Privacy: some rooms can be darkened, others can’t. In a few sleeping areas, curtains/blackout options were missing or insufficient, and I felt the need to be extra careful when changing.
There were no clear house rules, so everyone did whatever they wanted and cleaning didn’t reliably happen. The hosts openly said they don’t like rules, dirt was treated as “totally fine.” Food was left behind (sometimes open) and sat around for a long long time.
Pests were a topic during my stay. The hosts repeatedly talked about mice getting into the house.
There’s a sauna, which didn’t work and was used as a storage room. The hot tub outside needs a long run-up (Days) because it’s heated with wood.
Most people still seemed happy, probably because it’s cheap, and if you don’t look too closely or try to resolve issues through the hosts, you can ignore a lot.
Communication with the hosts can be frustrating: practical feedback (working, tools, basic living standards) wasn’t taken on board, even when it was straightforward and would have improved daily life and speed up the work prozess.
I can only strongly advise other work-exchange/Workaway travellers not to come here based on my stay. I met people who left early because they didn’t want to keep doing things that made no sense to them for a project that, from what I saw, didn’t produce clear results.
You have to pay for the trips to the supermarket yourself: about 40 km per trip. With enough people you don’t really notice it, despite ~22 NOK/L. The vehicle was old, rusty, small, and self-maintained, you can see and feel that.
If you want to go here: come as a paying guest. Stay max. 6 weeks. Be prepared to share one kitchen and 2 toilets/showers with 8–9 people. I would not recommend relying on the hosts for problem-solving based on my experience.
