Posted on 02/25/2014 7:08:57 PM PST by PaulCruz2016
Near the end of 2013, a Florida official decided Robin Speronis was doing something too strange to tolerate: She was trying to live off the grid.
Off the Grid News reports:
Speronis has been fighting the city of Cape Coral since November when a code enforcement officer tried to evict her from her home for living without utilities. The city contends that Speronis violated the International Property Maintenance Code by relying on rain water instead of the city water system and solar panels instead of the electric grid.
And now, a judge has ruled that living independently of the city’s water supply is illegal. “She must hook up to the water system, although officials acknowledge she does not have to use it,” says Off the Grid News.
It’s not really clear why it’s illegal to live off rainwater — it just is. The law doesn’t understand, essentially, how it would even be possible to live without city-provided water. The fact that water regularly comes out of the sky is apparently not compelling.
Weren't boiling water, washing vegetables in boiled water or avoiding raw food (veggies or steak tartare) sufficient to deal with the problem?
Aha! Don’t pay your water bill, have them shut you off, and then sue them for violating the law, given that one is required to be connected! Check! (And then they come and shoot you. Checkmate.)
Unless the woman dug up the street where the b box is there is no way she’s not “hooked” up. Shut off the valve coming into the house. No more water.
***I’m a little confused. I am under the impression that if you can’t or don’t pay your water bill for a few months, the provider (city in my case) cuts of your water, same as other utilities. Is this not the situation?***
The way my county works is you are charged a monthly fee for the water tap. That fee also includes up to the first 1,000 gal of water.
If you stop paying, water is shut off, but the property owner is still charged the fee every month.
The fee has to be paid in full when the water service is restored. So it could be hundreds or thousands of dollars if the water is off long enough.
Essentially they are holding the land hostage and will never turn the water on again. In this woman’s situation, she will likely not pay, but it will devalue the property if she or her heirs ever want to sell the place.
If you read my post, I said that most of here, including myself, could this, but that if it became common in areas such as poor areas of Detroit, that problems could arise.
It is worth more thought than a simple knee jerk response, I said all that in my posts.
Yeah, gutters and catching rain water, I’ve heard of it.
You must be quite the urban dweller with your well and septic tank.
As long as houses can have their own septic tanks there would hardly be a problem, since to the home owner that is indistinguishable from being connected to the city.
I don’t know why in the world you would get hostile and personal though, I guess that is a whole different story of yours.
Yes, water and sewer is what make the cities possible, they have always been the problem.
Get millions of people disconnecting, and problems and deaths, and illness would start spreading.
It is like using grey water, it is great for some and I used to encourage it a lot, it should be done by those who do it right, but I have seen some pretty filthy ways of people dumping dirty water in their yards, it can get pretty bad after years of simply running an open pipe out there. Some people just do things with no thought or knowledge, just because it is easy, like for instance just letting a broken pipe empty on the ground and calling it, their grey water usage.
Not exactly the post girl one could wish for on this issue.
“Also discussed at the special hearing was the fact that Speronis had been using the sewer system for the past year yet not paying for the service amassing a past due bill in the thousands. After her testimony admitting that she had used the service without paying for it, the city decided to cap the sewer line. Connie Barron, Cape Coral spokesperson told The News-Press, “She also gave clear indications she does not intend to pay for this service but intends to continue to use the system. We really had no choice but to cap the sewer.”
“Speronis’ time living on the grid hasn’t gone so well for her either. As reported by the Cape Coral Daily Breeze , in June 2011, she plead no content to larceny, and was sentenced to 10 years of state probation and ordered to pay $32,000 in restitution. In January 2012, she had her real estate license revoked following a second complaint that she had not returned a $3,500 deposit following a failed condo sale.” http://news.yahoo.com/.../%E2%80%98pure-evil%E2%80%99...
Interesting, indeed.
In that posting, she doesn’t mention that she admitted in court that she has been using the sewer for a year or more, without paying for it; and also that she intended to keep using it and not paying for it.
“Also discussed at the special hearing was the fact that Speronis had been using the sewer system for the past year yet not paying for the service amassing a past due bill in the thousands. After her testimony admitting that she had used the service without paying for it, the city decided to cap the sewer line. Connie Barron, Cape Coral spokesperson told The News-Press, “She also gave clear indications she does not intend to pay for this service but intends to continue to use the system. We really had no choice but to cap the sewer.”
http://news.yahoo.com/.../%E2%80%98pure-evil%E2%80%99...
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Thanks.
ping
How did you catch your last cold or bug?? From someone else.
An excellent podcast interview of her can be found here
http://www.offthegridnews.com/2014/02/13/city-threatens-widow-with-eviction-for-living-off-the-grid/
They have not yet figured out how to charge for rain water. Perhaps airspace can be rented.
Just a few important details Off the Grid News forgot to provide! Good work.
I understand the well-meaning intent, but this renders much of America's past population as living in unsafe housing.
Thanks. From WebMD:
Municipal water supplies
Ice made from municipal water
Foods and drinks sold by street vendors
Vegetables grown with water containing human wastes
Raw or undercooked fish and seafood caught in waters polluted with sewage
When a person consumes the contaminated food or water, the bacteria release a toxin in the intestines that produces severe diarrhoea.
It is not likely you will catch cholera just from casual contact with an infected person.
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