Stupid Rules

We are entering a difficult time. If people are going to thrive they will need to do a lot more for themselves. There are a lot of proven ways to save money and to provide for your needs. Planting gardens, doing your own home and auto repairs, installing solar panels, heating with wood -and so on. 

Problems arise when new realities bump against old rules. The worse are home owner association rules.  Want to dig up your front lawn and plant potatoes? Forget about it. Want to do a brake job in your driveway -prohibited. Heck, even things as simple as a clothesline are forbidden. 

State and local laws can be almost as bad. Governments have banned everything from solar electric panels to wood burning stoves. They can even make you mow your lawn. Maybe you want to let the dandelions grow so you could eat them but you can’t even do that. 

So what to you do? If you are in a place with HOA rules probably your best option is to sell and move.   There are states, cities and towns much more permissive for the DIY types. If that doesn’t work for you there’s always the option of bending the rules. What the inspectors don’t see they can’t regulate. That might be as simple as putting a big solid fence around your property. (right Spud?) Get the fence approved and inspected. Then keep the gate shut. What you do behind the fence is your business. Just be aware that some place use drones to inspect properties. 

The trick is find a way to do what needs to be done in spite of stupid rules. I know of people who were banned from using private wells and were forced to tie into the city water system. There was nothing wrong with the wells. The city needed everyone to be connected to municipal water to make it pay. Once the inspectors were gone the home owners did a little creative plumbing. They used a bare minimum of city water -just enough to avoid suspicion. The old well was used for gardens, car washing, and sometimes they even ran most of the house on well water. 

I’ve seen complete solar electric systems mounted on utility trailers. The power trailer would be plugged into the house system just like an auxiliary generator would be. 

It’s important to know the rules and laws in your area. That’s step one in dodging them. Remember, your well being and the well being of your family is at stake here. It seems that no matter how dysfunctional governments get they still have inspectors and enforcers.

-Sixbears