Latest news with #FlemmingHansen
News18
02-05-2025
- News18
158 Barrels Of Human Waste, Unpaid Taxes: Couple Behind Famous Eco Resort In Sweden Flees To Guatemala
Last Updated: Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk created the eco-friendly retreat, "Stedsans", in Halland, southern Sweden, after feeling the "call of the wild" in Copenhagen, where they previously managed a popular rooftop restaurant A Danish chef duo, who once gained international fame for their 'forest resort" in Sweden, have been located in Guatemala after reportedly fleeing tax authorities, leaving behind 158 barrels of human waste. Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk created the eco-friendly retreat, 'Stedsans", in Halland, southern Sweden, after feeling the 'call of the wild" in Copenhagen, where they previously managed a popular rooftop restaurant, Guardian reported. Stedsans, featuring 16 wooden cottages with stunning nature views, received rave reviews from influencers and critics who labeled it 'magical" and 'enchanting luxury." However, a few months ago, an investigation revealed that the couple had disappeared, abandoning numerous animals and 158 barrels of human waste, with wastewater seeping into the forest. Staff reported that various animals, including ducks, perished after being left outside overnight, while others were neglected once the couple vanished. 'Stedsans" was declared bankrupt in March, and the couple reportedly registered as living abroad before Christmas. The investigation showed they left Copenhagen in 2016, where they owed millions in debt to Danish tax authorities, and moved to Sweden to establish 'Stedsans". There, they accumulated debt to Swedish tax authorities, totaling around £470,000. The couple has since started a new hotel business in Guatemala. In a message on their website, they stated: 'We came very far with Stedsans, but we also had to realise that being soul-driven entrepreneurs in a country with some of the highest taxes and relentless bureaucracy is an impossible task." Local authorities described their actions as 'environmental crime." Daniel Helsing, head of building and environment for Hylte, told Dagens Nyheter: 'Voilà. Over 150 barrels of human waste." When approached by the newspaper, Hansen denied any issues with animal handling. He criticized the Swedish tax authorities as a 'narcissistic entity" and claimed he owed them 'over 7m" SEK, stating he was now 'sentenced to a life in poverty." Location : Sweden First Published:
The Guardian
12-04-2025
- The Guardian
My stay at a Swedish eco-retreat was blissful. What's emerged about it since points to a much darker truth
For me, visiting the now infamous Stedsans eco-retreat in Halland, southern Sweden was the apotheosis of the Scandinavian dream: apple-cheeked children running barefoot on the forest floor, a lake for swimming, a sauna to warm up in, simple cabins for sleeping and dinner served in the evening on a long table surrounded by trees. When I booked to stay back in 2022 to celebrate my wedding anniversary, it felt like I was going to be walking straight into my Instagram feed, flower-strewn dishes and all. Only now, it seems like that was as fantastical as it first appeared. This week, a joint investigation by the daily newspapers Dagens Nyheter in Sweden and Politiken in Denmark found the owners of the eco-conscious retreat, chef Flemming Hansen and food writer Mette Helbæk, were now living in Guatemala after apparently going on the run from tax authorities, leaving behind multiple animals and 158 barrels of human waste. The investigation also claimed that waste water was left to run into the forest, with local authorities describing their purported actions as 'environmental crime'. It's a case that has shocked Scandinavia: Stedsans had attracted international acclaim as the poster child for eco-friendly living – a real example of The Good Life, Scandinavian edition, showing it was possible to live in harmony with nature, run a successful business and bring up a family while doing it. No wonder it all felt too good to be true. The couple reportedly owe the Swedish tax authorities in excess of 6m Swedish krona (£470,000), and have since started a new hotel business in Guatemala. I find this reality hard to square with the way Helbæk presented the retreat to me in a Zoom interview some months before my visit. She told me about the couple's desire to build a happy place to bring up their children in an ancient forest, and how lucky they had been to find this one that she felt she had a special connection to: 'It's growing on me that I can hear what trees say to me … and I can sit down and talk to a plant and it will answer me back.' Apparently the forest was giving her messages of love and light, and spirit guides had told her to create peace between all life forms. I wonder what the forest and her spirit guides are whispering about her now – and the authorities who failed to show up and shut them down earlier. What happened at Stedsans goes beyond the story of a couple claiming to run a Swedish eco-resort while apparently secretly pumping effluent into the forest floor. It calls into question the whole premise of sustainable tourism in the country. In a message posted on their website, Helbæk and Hansen wrote: 'We came very far with Stedsans, but we also had to realise on the way that being soul-driven entrepreneurs on a mission in a country where taxes are some of the highest in the world and bureaucracy is relentless, it is an impossible task.' Tourism in this part of the world centres on its extraordinary nature and finding ways to get in touch with it, hike in it, and explore it. If you can't make a back to nature, simple eco-resort work in Sweden, where can you? As a travel writer working in Scandinavia, I've stayed at other resorts in this region that have been inspired by Stedsans and met young, idealistic hospitality workers who talked about Helbæk and Hansen as though they were heroes. If what happened at Stedsans makes others believe that running an eco-friendly project is 'impossible', Hansen and Helbæk will have damaged more than a small patch of a Swedish forest. Because it's not true: I've met hotel owners all over the region with far lower profiles who can and do make it work within environmental guidelines – so why couldn't they? Many people around the world tend to idolise Scandinavia: it's the region of hygge and lagom and all these difficult to translate concepts that seem like they hold the secret to living a good life. But we should also remember it's the home of Scandi noir: crime stories where dark things can happen in the vast expanses of countryside, where there are no neighbours to see what you're doing and it's easy to find somewhere quiet to bury a body. As a Brit living in Copenhagen, I've often found it hard to marry up those two opposing presentations of Scandinavia but this story does it well: it starts out in a woodland paradise where foraged herbs are steeped for herbal tea, then takes a dark turn as the owners escape to a country where their tax debts can't follow them. It's a reminder that nowhere is perfect, not even Scandinavia, and that we should all be wary of taking national stereotypes to heart. After all, Sweden is just like everywhere else: where there's money to be made, even in nature, there will be bad actors too. It's also a reminder, as if another were needed, not to take what you see on Instagram at face value. Laura Hall is a freelance journalist based in Scandinavia, and writes the monthly newsletter Modern Scandinavian
Local Sweden
11-04-2025
- General
- Local Sweden
FACT CHECK: Is it really normal to store barrels of human waste in Sweden?
A Danish couple has achieved viral - or possible bacterial - notoriety after it was reported that they left 158 barrels of human excrement after fleeing their bankrupt nature retreat. The couple claim this is 'very normal' in Sweden. Is it? Advertisement Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk, two chefs from Copenhagen, abandoned their purported 'eco-retreat', Stedsans in Halland, last year, leaving behind substantial debts to Swedish and Danish tax authorities and a significant environmental clean-up job. Commenting on the barrels they left behind, they wrote on social media that: "For people in rural Sweden it's a very normal thing. It's also a very important part of the permaculture principles that you deal with your own shit." The property's new owner, they claimed, had been informed about the barrels and was informed that they could be used as compost on the property. "Half of them are ready to use this spring, the other half is ready in one year, following the guidelines of Swedish law," they wrote. So is it normal? Well yes actually, it is, kind of. "It's not uncommon to do this: maybe not so much in the Stockholm area. But when you get out in the countryside where you don't have a municipal waste system," explained Charlotte Löfgren, senior adviser for sewage collection at Swedish Regions, the umbrella organisation for Sweden's municipalities. Summer houses in the country in Sweden might have a torrtoalett, where the front part collects urine in one container, and the back part collects poo in a barrel. The urine can normally be deposited on the householder's own land, while the poo will be stored in barrels to be collected by the municipality. "You need to have a certain type of container for this," she said. "This is very strict, because it has to be safe and it should not leak. No one who picks it up wants to be covered with poo, you know. It's quite regulated. You don't just take a bucket and leave it there." It's also common to have a composting toilet or mulltoa. Here the latrine is lined with bark mulch, wood chips or peat, which facilitates composting. This can also be collected by the municipality, but it often composted on the site, and then used to fertilise the surrounding soil. READ ALSO: Eight tonnes of human faeces spilled in Swedish town Advertisement What are the laws in Sweden? The main law governing the handling of poo is the Swedish Environmental Code, or Miljöbalken, which gives local municipalities the responsibility for handling "latrine from dry toilets and comparable solutions". "It is allowed in the legislation but the municipality is allowed to have regulations and these can differ between different municipalities," Löfgren said. "They might say 'if we're going to collect it from you, you have to provide it in the correct barrel. It cannot weigh more than a certain number of kilograms. It has be available for pickup at a certain place.'" Advertisement Can you compost it yourself? Hansen and Helbæk claimed in their post that they had been composting the waste themselves for spreading later on. "You can do that, but then you don't keep it in barrels like that, and you don't have 158 of them," Löfgren said. "Composting is for a summer house that you go to for maybe four weeks a year. It's not for this kind of resort. It's too much. What are you supposed to do with it? You can't spread it out in nature." In addition, to do this, they would have had to apply for and receive permission from the local municipality, something Daniel Helsing, the head of building and environment at the local Hylte municipality, told the UK's Guardian newspaper Hansen and Helbæk had never done. "They probably just wanted to skip the cost, because it's expensive to have it picked up by the municipality," Löfgren said.
Local Sweden
11-04-2025
- General
- Local Sweden
FACT CHECK: Is it normal to store barrels of shit in Sweden?
A Danish couple has achieved viral - or possible bacterial - notoriety after it was reported that they left 158 barrels of human excrement after fleeing their bankrupt nature retreat. The couple claim this is 'very normal' in Sweden. Is it? Advertisement Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk, two chefs from Copenhagen, abandoned their purported 'eco-retreat', Stedsans in Halland, last year, leaving behind substantial debts to Swedish and Danish tax authorities and a significant environmental clean-up job. Commenting on the barrels they left behind, they wrote on social media that "For people in rural Sweden it's a very normal thing. It's also a very important part of the permaculture principles that you deal with your own shit." The property's new owner, they claimed, had been informed about the barrels and was informed that they could be used as compost on the property. "Half of them are ready to use this spring, the other half is ready in one year, following the guidelines of Swedish law," they wrote. So is it normal? Well, yes actually. It kind of is. "It's not uncommon to do this: maybe not so much in the Stockholm area. But when you get out in the countryside where you don't have a municipal waste system," explained Charlotte Löfgren, senior advisor for waste collection at Swedish Regions, the umbrella organisation for Sweden's municipalities. Summer houses in the country in Sweden might have a torrtoalett, where the front part collects urine in one container, and the back part collects poo in a barrel. The urine can normally be deposited on the householder's own land, while the poo will be stored in barrels to be collected by the municipality. "You need to have a certain type of container for this," she said. "This is very strict, because it has to be safe and it should not leak. No one who picks it up wants to be covered with poo, you know. It's quite regulated. You don't just take a bucket and leave it there." It's also common to have a composting toilet or mulltoa. Here the latrine is lined with bark mulch, wood chips or peat, which facilitates composting. This can also be collected by the municipality, but it often composted on the site, and then used to fertilise the surrounding soil. READ ALSO: Eight tonnes of human faeces spilled in Swedish town Advertisement What are the laws in Sweden? The main law governing the handling of poo is the Swedish Environmental Code, or Miljöbalken, which gives local municipalities the responsibility for handling "latrine from dry toilets and comparable solutions". "It is allowed in the legislation but the municipality is allowed to have regulations and these can differ between different municipalities," Löfgren said. "They might say 'if we're going to collect it from you, you have to provide it in the correct barrel. It cannot weigh more than a certain number of kilograms. It has be available for pickup at a certain place.'" Advertisement Can you compost it yourself? Hansen and Helbæk claimed in their post that they had been composting the waste themselves for spreading later on. "You can do that, but then you don't keep it in barrels like that, and you don't have 158 of them," Löfgren said. "Composting is for a summer house that you go to for maybe four weeks a year. It's not for this kind of resort. It's too much. What are you supposed to do with it? You can't spread it out in nature." In addition, to do this, they would have had to apply for and receive permission from the local municipality, something Daniel Helsing, the head of building and environment at the local Hylte municipality, told the UK's Guardian newspaper Hansen and Helbæk had never done. "They probably just wanted to skip the cost, because it's expensive to have it picked up by the municipality," Löfgren said.
Telegraph
11-04-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Barrels of human waste and dead animals dumped by eco lodge owners
Two 'soul-driven entrepreneurs' fled their acclaimed Swedish eco-resort for a new life, reportedly leaving behind huge tax debts, dead animals and 158 barrels of human waste. Danish chefs Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk, who used to run a rooftop restaurant in Copenhagen, set up Stedsans, an internationally celebrated forest retreat in Halland, southern Sweden, after feeling the 'call of the wild'. They vanished from Sweden several months ago and were tracked down to Guatemala where they have set up a hotel business. 'When you read this we have probably been declared bankrupt by the Swedish tax authorities,' they said on their website. 'All we ever wanted was to be a part of creating a more beautiful planet.' Social media influencers had gushed over Stedsans' 16 wooden cottages in the Swedish wilderness. When Mr Hansen and Ms Helbæk vanished, they reportedly abandoned multiple animals and 158 barrels of human excrement for compost toilets. Staff said some of the animals, which included ducks, had later died. Wastewater had also been allowed to run into the forest, according to an investigation by the Dagens Nyheter and Politiken newspapers. On Thursday, the couple claimed they had acted lawfully over the barrels of waste. 'For people in rural Sweden it's a very normal thing,' they said on social media. 'It's also a very important part of the permaculture principles that you deal with your own s---.' Local authorities described their actions as an 'environmental crime'. They said proper procedures for compost toilets, including reporting the intention to use them and having barrels collected by the local authority, had not been followed. The newspaper investigation found the couple owed millions of kroner to the Danish tax authorities before they moved to Sweden in 2016 and built up a reported £470,000 debt to the Swedish taxman. Stedsans was declared bankrupt in March. 'We came very far with Stedsans, but we also had to realise on the way that being soul-driven entrepreneurs on a mission in a country where taxes are some of the highest in the world and bureaucracy is relentless, it is an impossible task,' the couple stated on their website. They accused the journalists behind the investigation of being responsible for 'our life's biggest (literal!) sh-tstorm'. 'The article claims that we have been damaging the local environment with our procedures at our permaculture resort and that we have left animals to die. All these claims and several others are false.'
