Living off the Grid: Thoughts/Discussion

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**Alex Kolodotschko**

It's taken me a 4 hour trek to where I get reception to be able to send this message.
Interesting topic I look forward to reading more responses.
Back to my cave now, see you in 8 hours or so.

**yellowfever**

I've heard many a bad story about HOA's.

**Inquisitor Lord Bane**

cuda1179 wrote:
Epicness

This man is my hero, I will raise a beer in his honor when I'm home from work.

**jhe90**

cuda1179 wrote:
I read a guy's blog a LONG time ago. Basically, here is how his story went, and how he got fed up with the local home-owner's association. Warning, LONG STORY.

When this guy was in his mid 20's (I want to say this was in the early 70's) he decided to build a home. He purchased a large parcel of land just outside his city's limits. The land used to be a grain shipping co-op. It was zoned for agricultural, industrial, and residential use. There where some building and railroad tracks that hadn't been used in decades.

He tore down most of the buildings and built his home, planting trees that would one day be a nice thicket of woods.

As the years passed the city expanded its boarders, encircling his property. However, due to legal reasons he was grandfathered into his old zoning restrictions (i.e., none).

A developer bought all the land around him and started building a gated community. This is when the harassment started. Dozens of times they knocked on his door, asking him to join the HOA, which he declined. After that they sued, trying to force him to join. They failed.

Even though he was never part of the HOA, they still levied fines against his property. His house color wasn't up to code, his fence was too tall and not the right style or color, he had the wrong kind of grass planted, his garden wasn't approved, etc. They even put a lean on his home (totally illegal by the way). He successfully fought them in court at every turn. After so many fraudulent lawsuits brought by the HOA, the judges were sick of seeing this man harassed, and started to award him legal fees and to verbally reprimand the HOA lawyers for their actions.

When he came back from vacation he found a contractor ripping out his fence and cutting down his trees because they "violated HOA rules". After another round of lawsuits (he won with legal fees attached) he rebuilt the fence. He made it look nice where he could see it from his home, but around the blind corner, and across from the newly built Mc-Mansions, he made it look as God-awful as he could.

Since the Gated community literally encircled 90% of his property they only way to drive in was through a road in the gated community. They denied him access as it was "their street". This is illegal, as you can not deny someone access to their property, despite being a gated community. So, in order to appease the letter of the law, they opened up a barely used maintenance path (barely better than a dirt trail) that lead to his property. Legal, yes, but not adequate for his needs. So, with his own money he built two access points over the dis-used railroad tracks that ran on the edge of his property. The other side of the tracks was non-HOA property, and they couldn't stop him.

This is where it gets funny. He needed a storage shed, and was going to build one. However, he found a legal loophole. Since his property used to have a functional train depot, he could once again (legally speaking) make it a depot again, despite not having any grain to ship. If there is a functional depot (even in name only) the government is required to maintain the tracks. So, this lead a year-long construction to bring the tracks up to code, making access to the gated community though "their" street almost impossible. Now that the line was functional, it actually became a usable route by trains, and some occasionally passed though. Needless to say, having freight trains pass through a gated community doesn't exactly help resell values.

Now it gets even funnier. He always wanted a small pond on his property. He contacted a contractor with the intentions of digging a hole in a low-laying area of his land and filling it with water. It turns out he has a good deposit of sand and gravel. The contractor, through his connections, agreed to a deal. Let them take a little extra time to mine this material and let them have it for free, and he'd basically dig the hole for a massively reduced cost. Everybody wins, except the HOA of course. Not only did they have to deal with the sounds of heavy machinery, but the owners railroad crossings were inadequate for the dump trucks carrying the gravel. Since this was for a state construction job, legally they HAD to be allowed to use the HOA road for access. and dump trucks being dump trucks, they were loud, smelly, and had a trail of sand and mud being dumped behind them as they left.

After some more harassment by the HOA president the owner decided to start a hobby he was always interested in, private Ham Radio. Instead of buying a new efficient antenna, he bought a surplus 75-foot tower, which he installed on the very corner of his property, next door to the HOA president. Since he is technically zoned for agricultural use, he has threatened to buy some pigs as well.

That's amazing. Every little thing and jts all legal as his land was fully zoned for everything!

**Desubot**

Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
Epicness

This man is my hero, I will raise a beer in his honor when I'm home from work.

Truly awesome.

HOA are massive donkey caves.

**Monkey Tamer**

I wanted to buy a house out in the country to live kind of "off the grid" but the price for a house closer to work was much cheaper, since I'd have to buy a huge plot of land with the house. There aren't many zoning restrictions in my podunk area, thankfully. I'd like to make my Monkey Ranch more self sufficient, but between my career and fixing other things I'm just happy to have a decent home.

If the grid were no longer a thing the vast majority of the population would die. Our water and food is purified for us and made convenient to obtain. Medication is readily available. Climate control gives us an unprecedented level of comfort in modern times. I'd love to pack up and never deal with humanity again, but it isn't feasible.

I always tell people never join a HOA. People are evil. They delight in telling others how they will live their lives. I see no benefit and a lot of detriment with HOAs. Parties are free to contract, and contracting into an HOA is bending yourself over to the whims of others.

**Desubot**

The HOA is basically a cult of people that like things looking exactly the same.

I think at best all they really do is maintain peoples front yards. thats about it. and not always ether. and your still paying for it even if you dont want to.

its really one hell of a scam.

**Frazzled**

Desubot wrote:
Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
Epicness

This man is my hero, I will raise a beer in his honor when I'm home from work.

Truly awesome.

HOA are massive donkey caves.

The HOA at the Houston house is weak. So we have 18 wheelers parking at the curb and the stereotypical cars parked on people's front lawns.

**jmurph**

HOAs are a form of governance and may be good or bad. Most HOAs are pretty lax and only start acting when something annoys enough people. Some act as petty tyrants and these make good news fodder. I recall one HOA that handled a private condo building and had to keep suing people because they wouldn't pay their dues and the roof was old and in need of replacement. Prior HOA boards had just kind of ignored the situation and let things deteriorate. This one got active and actually started repairing things like the leaking roof and busted concrete. Of course, people being people, there were those who screamed about the "evil HOA" because they needed to collect money for maintenance and repair.

So it cuts both ways.

The problem is, as bad as people can be, humanity relies on each other for pretty much everything. Even "off the grid" means you still rely on others for trade, medical care, etc. Self sufficiency is largely an illusion and usually not that desirable anyway. Sure, you could live out on a farm in the middle of nowhere and grow your own food, rely on wells, etc. But you are also going to give up most of the luxuries that specialization has created over the last 200 years or so. Doesn't sound like a good trade to me.

**jhe90**

Its little things we take for granted. The grid as such means for example non seasonal food, heat and light at touch of a button.

Off the grid some things you would have to learn to live without or less.

**cuda1179**

I'll tell you this, every time my neighbors started blasting ethnic "polka" music at 2 in the morning I felt like the electric grid was vastly overrated.

My off the grid plan isn't to be totally isolated from humanity. It is to be just far enough away that I can do whatever I want, but just close enough that getting all the benefits of civilization isn't a total burden.

**LethalShade**

cuda1179 wrote:
I'll tell you this, every time my neighbors started blasting ethnic "polka" music at 2 in the morning I felt like the electric grid was vastly overrated.

My off the grid plan isn't to be totally isolated from humanity. It is to be just far enough away that I can do whatever I want, but just close enough that getting all the benefits of civilization isn't a total burden.

My dream exactly. Unfortunately, such a thing is a pain to achieve.

**marv335**

One of my friends on another board lives (mostly) off the grid.
He was an investment banker in the '80s, burnt out, had a breakdown, sold up, and bought a smallholding.
He has his own spring for water, generates his own electricity (and sells back the surplus), grows his own food and keeps chickens and pigs.
He makes the best bacon I've ever tasted too.
Nice chap.

**cuda1179**

I think you can more effectively live life without certain things if you prioritize what is most important to you. If you like opera, fine wine, and driving your new Bentley along ocean front roads......off-the-grid living isn't for you.

If you prefer quiet times, not having someone tell you what to do, and having fresh air, then it might work.

You might just have to view it as an extreme downsize. When the elderly sell their 5-bedroom homes and move into a 2-bed, one bath house no one bats an eye. It just makes sense that they'd like to have less maintenance and cleaning to do. It shouldn't be any different for anyone else.