At 09:00 PM 11/6/00 -0800, Ray Dillinger wrote:
On Mon, 6 Nov 2000, David Honig wrote:
* running water * N toilets per hectare * electricity * walls, stairs, floors made to certain state minima (standards) * N metres of terra between A and B
Um. Not true. Many of my relatives do without the first three owing to religious proscription. Since they tend to build their own homes in big house-raising parties, (ie, would rather pay for employing their own community for a day plus have singing, a banquet, and horseshoe pitching instead of paying the same money to "some outlander", aka a contractor) the standards to which contractors are held in building have never become an issue.
Then again, as far as I know no Amish-built house has ever fallen
Wow, you're related to the Amish? Anyway the English :-) may make exceptions for the Amish, but generally, and even in rural america, you can't sell a house for human (chiiiildren) occupation that's not wired for classical infrastructure ---water, wires, N lbs/ft^2. [Just another example of the state rape of property rights which I do not defend] Rural folks may get away with more slack, but only because they may not be caught. Simple example: No matter how rural you are, a single cat-tail gives the ARmy Corps of Engrs 'rights' to control the use of that 'wetland'; however this is hard to enforce universally because the Army Corps doesn't have access to 10 cm spy satellites to survey every farm. [not intending to start an ecological flame]