A family of five was living off-grid in a remote cabin in central Italy. Then the courts intervened CNN

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

The self-described idyllic life of a family of five living in an Italian forest with horses, donkeys and chickens has stalled after a court ordered the children be removed and placed in foster care.

The parents, Nathan Trevallion, a 51-year-old British former professional chef, and Catherine Birmingham, a 45-year-old Australian life coach and former equestrian trainer, were named in an order issued by a L’Aquila court as parents of the children – one eight-year-old and six-year-old twins.

“The family unit lives in housing hardship as the building has not been declared habitable,” the order states. “The members of the Trevallion family have no social interaction, no fixed income, the home has no toilet facilities, and the children do not attend school. The order is based on the risk of violating the right to social life in consideration of the serious and harmful violations of the children’s rights to physical and mental integrity the parents should be suspended from parental responsibility.”

Giovanni Angelucci, the family’s lawyer, says the family heats the home with fireplaces and uses solar panels for light and to charge their devices. The family removed running water to avoid microplastics as well as costs and instead draws fresh water from a well on the property. They don’t have an indoor toilet but instead use an outdoor composting toilet.

The family’s living situation came to light in September 2024 after all five were hospitalized for poisoning after eating wild mushrooms from the forest

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/23/europe/bimbi-nel-bosco-italy-courts-intl

[Delarage]

1. Could not read

But sounds like a good life to me!

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

2. Correct link

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/23/europe/bimbi-nel-bosco-italy-courts-intl

[ret5hd]

3. damn straight.

[hunter]

4. My grandma grew up in a place more remote than that in similar circumstances.

She ran off to California at the age of 16 with the first boy who took a fancy to her, shortly after my mom was born. My grandpa didn't find her, she rode off on her horse and found him.

You can't protect your kids from the big scary world by isolating them.

[stopdiggin]

5. does the family provide ANY kind of social interaction for the children?

Play dates, church, day camp, team sports? Or are they completely cut off?

I think adults have every right to make unconventional lifestyle choices ....
Becomes a little more murky when you're dragging your (unconsenting, and totally vulnerable ?) children along for the ride?

I'd have to know more about the particulars in this case to be comfortable rendering any sort of judgement. But - not willing to just give something a pass because it is described (third hand) as 'an idyllic lifestyle' either.

Fodder for a really good discussion .. ?

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[Bayard]

6. This doesn't sound so bad to me,

Assuming the kids are getting home schooled.

We heat with wood. I've lived with a well previously, as many country people do (I miss it here--city water chemicals taste terrible.) Plenty of people have composting toilets. If the dad is a chef, they're probably eating pretty well, other than those poison shrooms.

The people that bought the land next to ours were living in tents, before they finally brought in a couple old campers. No running water. A generator for electricity. Trash and garbage everywhere. I went in and talked to the county people. They said there's nothing you can do about it because they are, "camping," on their own land. They did finally clean up some of the trash a few weeks ago. Mr. Bayard has been talking to the guy some while he's putting up our fence posts. We hadn't fenced that field previously, but are now. One of their pitbulls came charging out at my horse and I last month, and he jigged, when I jagged. Broken ribs, when I haven't come off a horse in 40 years. But....I digress.

It doesn't sound like these kids are being abused any more than Appalachian or Native reservation kids in this country.

[SheilaAnn]

7. They certainly look happy and healthy to me..n/t

[usedtobedemgurl]

8. They all ended up in the hospital poisoned

From eating wild mushrooms.

I am all for living off the grid but not poisoning the family.

[Johnny2X2X]

9. This does not sound like a good life for the children

As romantic as it sounds, this is not a safe environment to raise children in. I'd be interested to hear what the kids think.

There is an author, Suzanne Heywood, whose parents raised her and her brother on a boat sailing the world and it was abuse to her. She spend days alone with nothing to do and it simply wasn't an environment a child could thrive in.

I would hope there could be some kind of middle ground. Where the children could get some vital social interactions while the home remains remote, but becomes more habitable.

[hunter]

10. I have to kick this because sometimes my parents were similar lunatics.

When I was a kid my parents, both artists, decided to move to Franco's Spain, mind you for no other reason then that they were artists. My dad liked Picasso, and my dad's mom had a Spanish Literature degree, spoke Spanish (a little too much of the Mexican sort) and wished she could travel to Spain herself. It was all very romantic. His dad was similarly enthralled and may have had some connection with Spain in the Second World War, channeling Nazi technology to the U.S.A.. He definitely had connections in Italy.

So there we were in Spain, and Franco's guys were, of course, watching us. Pompous men in uniform would stop by to chat. Unfortunately my mom was the sort of person who would always say whatever the hell she was thinking.

One night, after a somewhat uncomfortable encounter with one of these guys, my dad couldn't sleep, so we packed all our stuff in our Volkswagen van and took the back roads to France. Unfortunately my parent's money was in Spain.

We were living as indigent Americans in a French public park, people were giving us food, but they were very uncomfortable. So they gave my parents money for a full tank of gas and a car ferry ticket to Southampton, England.

In England my dad went to a Barclay's bank and they allowed him to open a checking account with an overdraft limit of, I think it was a hundred pounds, which was a lot of money then, and they got his money out of Spain a week or two later.

Thank goodness my parents never poisoned us with mushrooms and don't even ask me about what I think of hard-core rural living.

This is the twenty-first century. Everyone should have nice toilets, electric lights, and hot showers.