When Home is a Teepee
 

We have a really lame local radio show here where people call in and whine about stuff. Yesterday a woman called in to complain that the disabled guy who owns the large rural property next door to her had moved into a teepee. Rather than speak to him, she's been harassing her local code enforcement officer to do something about it. The radio guy immediately started to go off on the homesteader and the resistant official.

Then a funny thing happened, all the follow up calls defended the disabled guy and explained why teepees were not covered by the septic law. Old lefties and righties started talking about the "good old days" where folks could live in the manner they chose. It was heart warming, it seems the desire to live closer to the land transcends politics and background. The ever pliable disc jockey even came around.

So how do dwellars feel about the crapper free lifestyle and making folks comply to norms?

As long as he's not poopin' where I can see him, I'm down with that. I might even try it some time. Just figure it an extended camping trip. :)

I'm with the guy on this one. He should have the right to live anyway he chooses, as long as he isn't created trouble for the other neighbors, or as dave put it "poopin' where I can see him". I bet that lady wouldn't even care if she didn't have so much time on her hands to watch her neighbors. She probably is just being driven insane by the fact that this guy seems happy.
But if it started to stink over there I would be unhappy but with just one guy on a large property there is nothing to worry about.

My first question is, how large is a large property? 20 acres? 50?
100? 500?

Next question: How the fuck would she know tee-pee guy's business if it were 50+?

Last question: Does this make a pinch of shit's difference in the big picture?

One man living without a septic system is not going to shift the Earth's axis.

Sounds like she wants to harass him or wants his land.

This is not a lifestyle that I would enjoy long term, *however*, being 100% self sufficient on your own *large* parcel of land sounds appealing. This world *hates* people that are totally independant (cuz it's a lot harder to fuck you around).

Mark me down on the "tell the woman to fuck off" column.

So long as the teepee owner is not causing harm to his neighbors (be it sanitary or whatever), then it's a non-issue. This applies to anyone that wants to live self-sufficiently.

However, if said teepee begins to attract unwanted attention to the area (sightseers and such), then it could become a problem in the vein of "public nuisance."

I don't know how big the place was but as I understood it, she couldn't see the teepee from her house. The IDEA that he wasn't conforming was just so infuriating to her. If Ashcroft were a housewife he'd spend his days pulling crap like this.

My brothers and sisters, I give you the Earthship. Totally independent of all outside connections. Rainwater for water, solar for power. They don't require heat, and don't generally require lighting, casue the entire south side is a light and heat gathering bank of windows. Or rather the sunlight heats the tile floor which slowly radiates the heat into the space. Basically a big greenhouse.

You can make 'em fancy or fanciful. I've seen many of each. Being in the Northwest, Pugetropolis to be more specific, I don't know how effective solar would be, but a steady water supply is no problem in the Evergreen state.

Now that you mention it, I see a slightly different scenario

There are 2 adjoining parcels of land in rural USA, both 640 acres square.

One parcel is mostly wooded with some clearings and has absolutely no improvements. Hidden in the approximate center of the land is a tee-pee. There is a man that lives there thats shits in the woods. The woods-shitter uses white tp.

The other parcel is mostly cleared. There are roads around the perimeter as well as throughout the land with heavy traffic flowing in and out at all hours of the day and night. There are several temporary metal buildings and a 747 fuselage there. The buildings have neon signs on the roof identifying them as the Jihad school of sniping, Anthrax development building #1, chemical weapon testing facility, and suitcase nuke assembly building. There are thousands of "foreign" looking people throwing glass bottles filled with gas, shooting AK rifles in the air, and meet daily kneeling, all facing one direction.

After the spy satellite observes the two sites, Ashcroft sends the goon squad to tee-pee guy's plot. Has the area totally surrounded with snipers and combat support helicopters because the recon photos reveal a 2 inch square piece of toilet paper that Ashcroft confuses with zig-zag rolling papers that *may* be used to roll a joint.

Tee-pee guy is shot while "resisting" apprehension and Ashcroft declares to the American people, via a live press conference, that this mini-military action has prevented a national catastrophe.

The next day, 12 terror cells set off nu<B>ku</b>lar bombs , spread anthrax, hijack 27 planes, kill *all* the golfers on the courses of the US (yeah :) ) and spread chemical weapons throughout the heartland, killing millions.

While I would prefer not to elect a crapper free lifestyle at this time for myself (I'm not saying I WOULDN'T, I just prefer not to), I cannot disagree with the ability of an individual to make a choice to do so. Just so long as he's making a nice slit trench at the very least, and covering his waste, not otherwise violating any local ordinances by burning his shit in old oil barrels ...

It's his place and he can do what he wants. Yes, the size of the property does come into play here ... if he's doing this in town, for example, different ordinances would apply vs. if he's living on a large rural property.

And unless he's showing other signs of an extreme inability to care for himself, he's not eligible to come to the attention of the mental health system, at least not on an involuntary basis. Just to shut the neighbor up somebody might go out to interview him (honestly, that's what we'd do, but we'd have to have other justification to do so).