The laws of this are different for each state/city. I've heard that places like California want to tax you if you collect rain water..

There are a few that are completely off the grid but they're usually in Alaska or Canada. Before Vice was bought out, they did an interesting documentary worth watching on Heimo, deep north in Alaska.

https://youtu.be/Iq0rZn8HFmQ

Vice was awesome back in the day, it's sad to see how far they've fallen.

Yea they were. Those documentaries inside North Korea were incredible. It's a shame they sold out, but all good things come to an end, I guess.

Viceland still has some interesting shows but their articles have a pretty aggressive political leaning. For me, they really jumped ship with their Obama interview where they just softballed the weakest questions at him, it was a Dutch rudder of an interview.

Do you have any recommendations to your favorite stories they've done recently? I kinda tuned them out when I noticed they were pushing a political agenda..

The Heimo, North Korea and General Butt Naked stories they've done are still some of my favorites.

I saw the NK one, it was really good.

Vice was awesome back in the day

Probably back when Gavin McInnes was involved.

and Rupert Murdoch wasn't...

Oregon or Washington is actually illegal to collect rain water, I couldn't believe when I read this the first time, bizarro world that we allow our gov to do this. "Land of the free"

I've heard that places like California want to tax you if you collect rain water..

What the Fuck.....Now they want a monopoly on rain water. Get the fuck outta here.

Drinking water will become an increasingly valuable commodity as we near the apocalypse.

Because modern Americans would rather make poor and frugle people suffer than have their property values drop. Capitalism is evil right? /s

Laws and regulations vary from state to state and county to county , best bet would be check your local laws about off grid living, some states don't allow rain water some do , but if your county is in a drought then you will need to possibly get water tank and get water from a municipal source , some counties/states will pay you for producing your own electricity but you have to produce quit a bit for it to be profitable , you can buy a propane tank 250lb 500 lb etc connect it to your shante , many appliances can be converted to run off of propane or bought straight out as propane run and you can have propane delivered annually or as needed .I don't think you necessarily have to have power service on your property , those poles can cost up to $1000 and depending on how far out you are it could get pricey . If you chose to live off grid I don't see why you can't . People in my state do it all the time , fuck I've even done it

You can live off grid in Tennessee, I know folks that do.

http://www.offthegridnews.com/misc/the-best-places-to-go-off-grid-pikeville-tennessee/

Ya, I know of an off grid community in Morristown.

very cool.

My ex lives off the grid in CO. He's getting kinda tired of it, though. Hauling in water, ice and fuel is a lot of work.

There is a movement forward for this. People need to push back when they attempt to make this illegal. There is a lot of push back in various communities for the tiny home movement. It's the wave of the future.

As I mentioned elsewhere, my ex lives off the grid in a tiny house. He has running water, propane heat, etc, everything but a freezer. CPS actually tried to take his parenting time of our son from him over it. It's freaking absurd.

"The poor kids can't even play their Playstations, and (gasp) might have to go outside to amuse themselves. The horror!" --CPS

And his move off the grid wasn't even a financial decision, he has a fantastic job and has assets. He mostly did it for the challenge.

Regardless of that, people lived very well in times before electricity, and it's ludicrous that things like this are akin to child endangerment now.

Yeah, I realized I misunderstood your use of "poor" after I hit send. Anyway, I completely agree with you. I love it that my son is mostly unplugged from that crap. They do stuff like hike and fish and hunt. It's awesome.

Your son will benefit from knowing what is now largely lost ways. We are going to have to return to these things if humanity is to survive. This world is too artificial, and one day there will be a big realization of that.

Check out "The Garbage Warrior".

The interesting part is what the lobbyist tells him:

(Paraphrasing) "Don't act like it's a cheap way to live"

We are consumers and given enough freedom to consume, but not to avoid consumption.

Building codes, means of getting funding, property ownership laws, insurance, zoning; they're to ensure expensive services are required.

I have read many stories over the years of people being charged for living off grid. In almost every case, the crux of the problem boils down to lack of septic system or sewer. The people who are charged never actually discuss this aspect. Instead, they cry foul about how they are being persecuted by the government. Living without sewer or septic is a legitimate public health and safety issue.

Now, it can be done. I have lived that way myself. Humanure /composting is a legitimate option for dealing with human waste. But, it is not a legal way of dealing with human waste in most locales. And, I think that's for good reason. It is not something that can be done casually. Your humanure pile needs to compost hot in order to kill bacteria and pathogens. Your humanure pile needs to be properly contained in order to ensure that when it rains, there is no sewage runoff from your pile to contaminate the land and local surface water. Can all of that be done? Sure it can! But, it's not something that a person can take lightly.

So, when I read stories of people who are not "allowed" to live off grid, my first question is, " what are you doing with your human waste"?

Someone hasn't seen the Vice documentary "You don't know shit". Human waste is literally used/sold as fertiliser.

Human waste is literally used/sold as fertiliser.

There are problems with this. I think it's fine in a relatively closed system, where you are unlikely to encounter the human waste produced outside your social network, but if your environment entails a high probability of contact with "foreign" human waste, then you end up with the circulation of some pretty nasty pathogens.

Except in maybe Alaska, it's reasonable to require people to have functioning septic systems.

What's wrong with digging an outhouse and shitting in a hole?

Viruses can still get into the watershed. If your property is close to others who are using (e.g.) well water, I think it's probably a good thing to have a working septic system. I not in love with regulations, but that is one that actually makes some sense.

Again, in Alaska and similarly remote environments, it's very different.

People who live off grid typically boil and filter their water sanitizing it.

That sounds interesting, and I will definitely check it out.

But, I still contend that human waste has the ability to harbor and spread disease, if not properly handled and treated. On the off grid property I lived on, which did not have septic or sewer, the previous inhabitants literally just shit into a bucket, and when the bucket was full, just dumped it on the ground on various parts of the property. Gross, and irresponsible.

I could be snarky and say in reply to you that "someone doesn't know their history, or how human waste contaminating local surface water sources was responsible in large part for the polio epidemic, and polio cases only began to decline with proper sanitation and sewage treatment". Sanitation has played a huge part in disease reduction in the US - some argue that it's had a bigger effect than vaccinations. And, I don't see why we should take a step backward in that department.

Human waste CAN be treated effectively in a humanure set up. There are even open source plans for composting toilet systems made from 55 gallon drums, and the plans can generally be approved in most locales in the US as an alternative composting system.

I just wonder, truly, how many of these "off gridders" are responsible with their human waste. Because, in my experience, being responsible is not the norm.

Yes! This is whats wrong with the water system in western North Carolina (Walnut Mountain Range areas are notorious for it). Don't get me wrong, the coal industry is enemy #1 to the water but out houses are very much legal and common. Homeowners with indoor plumbing often have expensive plumbing issues because they are literally hanging on a cliff, average household income is just a little over 20k/yr... they "straight pipe" it into tributaries of the French Broad River.

Composting toilets are pretty standard for the folks around here that live off the grid.

my friends had a leech pond and holding tank setup for their home and they got harassed for it because they were in PA where you must have a pump up system installed by a licensed company. i wanted to build in the same area and researched doing it myself. you can take a class to get your license, but, you must work for a septic installation company for 3 years before you can get a license. big win for septic installation companies. which is probably the whole point of the law (yes poor septic systems dumping human waste into creeks and overflowing onto farmland is a concern as well, but thats a concern that can be solved without forcing everyone to use one specific type of expensive septic system.). i can only imagine that several septic companies got together, picked the most labor intensive type of septic they could think of, and forced a law onto the books. not everything is a plot by the illuminati. sometimes people just do things simply out of plain old boring greed.

I absoulutely agree with everything you said. No matter where you go, the septic industry is a racket.

If you are going to live off the grid, stfu about it.

As soon as big brother finds out, he will come knockin'

This is true. There are plenty of places where one can just go and live, just don't be vocal about it and draw attention to yourself.

Honestly, one thing that the government could do to really help out the citizens, is to reinstate a form of the old homesteading acts. Give 1-5 acres to anyone who wants to homestead and live a self sufficient life, no strings attached. Russia is currently instating a form of this for farming and such. But we all know why they will not.

why will they not?

Because it would free people from their chains. People living happily growing their own healthy food, hunting, fishing, etc etc would not have to rely on welfare to buy shit products from corporations that bribe politicians. Also, it would take a lot of people out of the work force, therefore tax revenues would heavily drop.

But then again, maybe they might do something like that. Kind of like in a dystopian movie. Separate those living outside the walls of the metropolis from the people living within. People living on the outside would be considered the wildlings like in game of thrones.

yea but i dont think russians actually pay much tax.

its a flat rate - very low like 13%.

also a lot of it is off books so people pay even less.

besides im sure people would still register for gib me dats so could be kept track off.

btw i rly liked film Captain Fantastic. shame about the massively left leaning of it (youll understand when / if you watch it)

I think much more sustainable way would be to give people a few acres of land to homestead, but they have to give away excess production to low income families or sell it and give part of that money to the Government.

Easy Stalin, easy.

going to russia, brb

Local laws dictate this.

Most importantly yes! Might I suggest Puna, Big Island.

Why do you have to pay property taxes? Seems you really don't own your home.

Because owning free hold land means that you are simply a tenant in the land. Property taxes are just rent to the realtl land owners. (the royals and government)

Because America and the West have a system that pretends to exist to protect freedom and liberty, while defining very strictly what freedom and liberty is while consciously doing its best to keep people from living alternatively to that defined freedom and liberty, but in an often very subtle way. The past 500 years or so or more of Western history has been about a continuing redefinition of reality. When a political figurehead tells you you're free, he means something entirely different from what you think he means by it.

When George Orwell wrote about Newspeak and all of that, he was only getting at something that had existed for a very long time and which he didn't understand the full scope of. It started at the very least ever since nominalism became the foundational epistemological view of the West, starting with the Late Medieval Scholastics and culminating in the modern world and its naïve empiricism-materialism.

Depends on where you live if the local authorities have laws or even care to enforce the laws. Ideally you’d want to do it somewhere where you have land imo, so you can grow some food as well.

There's a loop hole. Trailers don't count. Any structures in which human's don't live don't count either.

In North Carolina, groundwater is a property right. I recently discovered MANY families that are off the grid in western NC. I was at my families cemetery on Lonesome Mountain (I live 3 hours away and don't know the place like my relatives there) and there is one road to the cemetery. I was standing there and I heard chickens on the other side of the mountain that I thought was just forest. I look down and I could see about 5 or 6 ancient abandoned barns within 2 or 3 miles and then I knew I was going to have to check them out (despite the fact of being a 100 pound female with a foot that was in a cast just 24 hours earlier). Once I got far enough down to really start questioning my life choices, I realize they are NOT in fact abandoned. I imagined Ned Beatty getting raped behind every tree and tried to channel my inner Jon Voight. I was very, very relieved to learn they were actually just families, only closer, more protective and better looking.

I live in (and own) a single family home which is fully connected to all utilities, it would extremely easy for me to cut myself off from public utilities or rely almost exclusively on self-installed services. I'm not sure why people blow this topic out of proportion, but I'm sure it's bullshit.

My state is one of the most regulated, about as far from the wild west as possible.