Tony 'Turtle' Hampson lives in a tent on a friend's driveway
© AFP/File Greg Wood DAMPIER, Australia (AFP) - Instead, he pays 300 dollars a week to an accommodating friend who lets him live in a tent in his driveway and use the bathroom in the house.
"You can't get places to live here, and we have to pay what they ask," Hampson tells AFP as he enjoys a beer after a long day of loading and offloading supplies on boats.
"You come home with 1,600-1,700 (dollars) a week so you can't grovel about 300. But you can get a house for that in Queensland, a good house. It's outrageous."
Hampson, who sleeps on an inflatable camp bed and whose kitchen is a microwave perched on a plastic table outside the tent, is one of thousands of workers living in the resource-rich Pilbara affected by the housing shortage.
Houses in the area regularly sell for more than one million dollars, a benchmark more usually reached in the upmarket suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, while rents can be more than 3,500 dollars a week for a house.
In Dampier and nearby Karratha, a caravan parked in the driveway or backyard of a home is a familiar sight and many workers camp in the open.
The accommodation shortage is one of several unwelcome social problems to affect Western Australia as a result of the demand for raw materials from Asia which is fuelling the mining boom in the state.
"Infrastructure is crumbling because of the boom. Accommodation -- all these services are just crumbling, health, education, law," said Gary Slee, a member of the Karratha and Districts Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Slee said much of the problem was trying to attract and retain government and small business employees such as teachers, childcare workers, hairdressers and waiters.
"They can leave and get a job with the mining boom in a resources company and housing is so poor for them, so why stay? And that is across the board."
All the major Australian mining and energy companies are present in the Pilbara -- BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Woodside Petroleum, Fortescue Metals -- and all are ramping up production to meet surging demand from Asia.
"I predict that it's probably going to get even tougher here because there are these huge projects still coming on stream," Slee said.
Brad Snell -- the president of Roebourne Shire, which takes in Karratha and Dampier -- agrees the situation is likely to worsen as China and India's insatiable demand for iron ore and gas places the area under greater pressure.
"What sort of girl would come here?" asked Nathan Waller
© AFP/File Greg WoodThe population explosion has resulted in an estimated 6,000 extra workers living in temporary accommodation camps provided by the companies, pushing resident numbers to more than 20,000, he said.
"There are all kinds of unintended consequences," said Snell.
But Snell is keen to point out that the boom is not all bad.
"There are good things as well. It gives kids a chance to get apprenticeships that are not really available in cities and farming towns," he said. "It's certainly not all doom and gloom but there are certainly pressures within the town."
Snell said where once mining workers would bring their partners and families to the area, many were now employed on a fly-in, fly-out basis which means they leave town every fortnight for time off.
The result has been a marked gender imbalance in towns like Karratha, prompting a Perth woman to establish an online dating service specifically aimed at helping men living in remote areas to find love.
Angela Nathan said her "Meet a Mining Man" service has had a huge response since it was launched in May to bring romance into the lives of the fly-in, fly-out workers.
"There are currently great opportunities within the resources sector, but the downside for many mine workers is that the time away from home affects their ability to form and maintain personal relationships," she said.
Back in Dampier, workers questioned their chances of making a love match.
"What sort of girl would come here?" asked Nathan Waller, a 24-year-old casual wharfie who lived under a tree on his arrival in Dampier.
©AFP