Rodrigues Housing Timeline Clarification
I’ve noticed there’s a lot of misinformation floating around about the Rodrigues family’s housing and moving history, so I thought I’d try to put together a basic timeline and clear up some of the confusion.
All of this information is available on Free Jinger, which is the primary source for Rodrigues family snark history. Registration is required to access some of the forums, including the Rodrigues subforum, which is located under “Quiver Full of Snark.”
How the Rods were discovered
The Rodrigues family first came to Free Jinger’s attention around 2012 / 2013, when a snarker spotted their distinctive van in the parking lot of a buffet restaurant in West Virginia. The snarker found the family’s blog, and that was essentially the beginning of Rod snark.
A couple of important points that seem to get confused: the Rodrigues family was already living in West Virginia when Free Jinger discovered them. And the blog was started when they lived in West Virginia not New York.
We know David and Jill were originally from New York State, but Jill wasn’t blogging during their time there, so there isn’t nearly as much information about that period.
We also don’t know for certain why they left New York. There was speculation that they may have had some sort of falling out with a church, but as far as I know, that was never confirmed.
The Looneyville rental and the RV
When the Rods were first discovered, they were living in a rental house in Looneyville, West Virginia.
They were eventually evicted from that house, although I don’t believe the actual reason for the eviction was ever established.
Around the same time, David and Jill decided to enter full-time ministry. They purchased the RV and began traveling to churches to raise financial support for their ministry through what they referred to as “deputation.”
For roughly the next year, the family lived in the RV full time.
During that period, they were also looking for a permanent home. According to Jill, someone at one point offered to help them purchase or possibly give them a house located on very rocky, hilly property. They declined the offer.
Of course, that version of events comes from Jill, our famously unreliable narrator, so who knows what the actual circumstances of that offer were.
The Honaker Lane house
Eventually, the Rods found and purchased the house on Honaker Lane in West Virginia. They had a mortgage on this house, they didn’t get the house for free. We know they had a mortgage because mortgage information is public record.
Buying the house did not mean they stopped traveling in the RV. They were still doing deputation and continued traveling extensively for several years. The difference was that they now had an actual home base to return to between trips instead of living continuously in the RV.
The Honaker Lane property also had a garage, which gave David space to establish the family’s printing ministry.
So during this period, they owned and lived in the Honaker Lane house while also spending significant amounts of time traveling in the RV. They were not living in the RV full time for all of those years.
CPS and the events of 2019
This is where the timeline gets especially muddled because there are documented events mixed together with a lot of snarker speculation.
In 2019, Jill publicly posted about the family being investigated by CPS.
Shortly afterward, she posted photos of the two youngest girls at a doctor’s appointment. The girls were posed smiling with the doctor, and Jill made a point of saying that the appointment had gone well and that the girls were healthy.
Not long after that came another memorable Rod post: the family “crying and praying at Burger King,” which was a very on brand Rodrigues family activity during their West Virginia years. Jill didn’t explain exactly what they were crying and praying about.
Then, not long afterward, Jill announced that the family was moving out of West Virginia.
Naturally, snarkers connected those events and began speculating that the move might be related to the CPS investigation.
There was also speculation that a change in West Virginia law involving homeschooling and families under CPS investigation may have played a role in their decision to leave.
That part is important to distinguish from the known timeline: none of this was ever confirmed.
The timing certainly caused people to wonder, but Jill never said that they were leaving West Virginia because of CPS, and as far as I know, there has never been documentation establishing that as the reason for the move.
The move to Ohio
After announcing the move, the Rods listed the Honaker Lane house and loaded the family back into the RV while they searched for a property that would give them more room to expand the printing ministry.
They eventually found the Ohio barndominium and put in an offer.
The offer was accepted, and they entered approximately a 30-day closing/escrow period. During that time, the Honaker Lane house sold and closed.
That meant there was another relatively short period when the family was living in the RV while they waited to take possession of the Ohio property.
They closed on the barndominium in January 2020 and moved in. Again, they have a mortgage on the barndo and we know that because it is public record. You can verify this for yourself by searching for property records. You’ll need to find the county name and navigate the county website to find the information. I’m not posting the name of the county because of doxing reasons but it’s easy to find.
So, the basic housing timeline is:
New York → rental house in Looneyville, West Virginia → eviction → approximately one year living full time in the RV → Honaker Lane house in West Virginia → brief period living in the RV during the move → Ohio barndominium
The biggest misconception I keep seeing is that the Rods spent years and years continuously living in the RV. That isn’t what happened.
They lived in the RV full time for roughly a year after losing the Looneyville rental. After purchasing the Honaker Lane house, they continued traveling extensively in the RV for their ministry, but they had a permanent home in West Virginia to return to between trips. They then lived in the RV again for a relatively short period while transitioning from the Honaker Lane house to the barndominium in Ohio.
EDITED TO ADD: There are a couple of other occasions where Jill mentioned CPS investigations, one of which occurred in the RV. I only included the 2019 investigation because there is a lot of confusion around that and the housing timeline.