Woman in FL arrested for living off the grid

[FaxModem1]

American Aljazeera

Florida court challenges off-the-grid living
by The Stream Team @ajamstream
Men install solar panel on roof of house.
Men install solar panels on a roof.John Moore/Getty Images


A Florida woman has until March to connect her home to a municipal water line or face possible eviction.

Robin Speronis lives off the grid, independent of the city's water and electric system. A Florida court ruled this off-the-grid living illegal last week. Officials in the city of Cape Coral have also deemed her home "unsanitary," citing the International Property Maintenance Code, which mandates that homes be connected to an electricity grid and a running water source. Speronis' home fulfills both needs through alternative methods — solar panels and rainwater, which she collects and sanitizes.

In court, city officials argued that Speronis used city-owned drains for waste disposal but didn't pay for the service. The city capped her sewer in response, which stopped Speronis from using the city's wastewater management system.


Many online criticized the court's decision to issue Speronis an ultimatum. Some believe that the city is imposing an unethical mandate by forcing a resident to purchase energy.

offthegridnews.com
Forcing any citizen to buy a private product is wrong. That would include auto insurance.
10 months ago

offthegridnews.com
This is beyond insane and is criminal. So you are a land owner but are required by law to subscribe to utilitities (privately owned?). If you were homeless you are not required by law to use utilities. Lol. This is an insane country and an insane system. Until we put people before profits it will always be a country run by and represented by criminals.
10 months ago

Brad Burdette
Brad Burdette
Wow..leave the lady be...who is she bothering ?
10 months ago

Others justified the city's actions:

Andrew Spiller
Andrew Spiller
Good, she was getting an expensive service for free. Sewer is the most expensive part of your water bill.
10 months ago

offthegridnews.com
pretty much all municipalities in this country your house needs to have a functioning water supply and collecting rain water doesn’t cut it. This comes down to a health issue plane and simple just like you can’t have 20 people in a 4 bedroom house.
10 months ago

Rick Rost
Rick Rost
It's not a "free country." You're not free to just do whatever you want to do. There are laws and rules to be followed, lest anarchy ensues.
10 months ago

Many who agree with the city's ultimatum cited health concerns that may arise from Speronis' sewer being capped. When asked how she plans to do this, Speronis replied that she will "dispose of waste as dog owners dispose of their pet's waste."

Margaret Davey
Margaret Davey
So bagging it up is sanitary? Move out of the city limits and back to the woods!!!
10 months ago

Ernie Stewart
Ernie Stewart
I think this would all play out much easier for her if she lives on an isolated lot somewhere up in the barren regions of the NW Cape. But she doesn't; she lives in a highly populated area of the Cape, with her nearest neighbor some 20 feet away, with local businesses including a restaurant some 300 feet away, and about 1700 feet south of the Cape Coral Hospital. So as much as I want to raise my fist and say, "Fight the Power," I'm afraid that defecating into plastic bags and bathing with rainwater collected in barrels does raise some public safety issues.
10 months ago

Some even argue that Speronis, who says she sometimes goes months without spending a penny, does not truly live off the grid.

Joseph Connolly
Joseph Connolly
If you are using the roads, the sewers and other services ( such as access to Medical Care) , you are not off the grid. Another service the city provides is education of our children. If an individual living within the city can elect not to contribute to infrastructure and services, eventually they won't exist. If the woman is mentally ill she should receive our help. That's another service the city provides.
10 months ago


A. Taylor Musburger
A. Taylor Musburger
Off the grid is off the grid, including sewer.

Thoughts on this? Is what the city is doing wrong and illegal, or is she in the wrong?

[Mr Bean]

It depends if she's in a suburb somewhere or in the middle of downtown then yes. We have those laws to prevent abuse by private land developers. But if she's outside city limits out in the country by all means live off the grid.

[Irbis]

Here, if you want, you can skip water line (if it isn't already connected) but you still need certified septic tank and have contractor regularly cleaning and/or emptying it. Bagging it doesn't cut it, especially seeing that if she doesn't intend to clandestinely throw the bags into municipal trash cans she still needs to pay someone for proper disposal anyway.

Frankly, it sounds like she is another of these 'vaccines, seat belts, and car insurance is EVUL COMMUNISM' nutjobs

[madd0ct0r]

I think the answer is that the city should be arranging a new way to fund maintenence of the sewer system.

It's a very similar problem to that one in Austrailia where domestic solar has driven the demand for day time electricity so low the inflexible coal plants are making a loss.

[Tsyroc]

Some of this should depend on where she's located and whether her living off the grid can cause issues for her neighbors or environmental issues. I know some states have old laws that can restrict how much a person can do with water running off and through their property. I think it was to prevent someone from damming up a water supply that people on other properties needed to utilize. I think there was a case in Illinois where someone's overly efficient collection of rainwater on their property got them in trouble via one of these laws.

Insisting that she's hooked up to municipal utilities, if she's in town or near one, doesn't seem like it should be that big of a deal. Maybe she doesn't want to pay for the hookup fees or the minimal monthly fees for just being connected but her neighbors shouldn't have to live next to a shit hole. Which her place might not be, and being connected might not change anything if she refuses to use the utilities. This could just be the first step towards getting her to take more acceptable care of her place.

Wells and water rights can be pretty restricted where I live in Arizona and just because your property has had one for decades doesn't mean you will be allowed to use it in perpetuity. I also think there are usually rules about where people can or can't have septic systems. Given where the comments say this lady lives and how close her neighbors are. She needs to clean up her act a bit or move.

Water and sewer are billed through the same utility where I live but they are separate bills. So her using the sewer without paying is a little weird to me, and it sounds like the city had similar thoughts since they capped her sewer.

[madd0ct0r]

No, be honest, capping the sewer was a classic bully tactic to make her submit. Totally justified in a dickhead sort of way. The cmost of capping then uncapping it will be more then her contributon to sewer maintenance funding

I can see the value in the law as a hurdle against potential slum landlords*, but this smacks of making an example of a population outlier

*similar laws regarding space mean people building microhouses have to build their houses on trailers to be able to live in them

[Broomstick]

This sort of thing is by no means universal - the Amish in my area very much live off the grid, for example, and do so legally.

As others have stated, a lot depends on location and possible impact on neighbors.

For me - my home is on a well and septic system, meaning that part is off grid, but there are local regulations regarding that system to ensure it does not become a health hazard for others, and it does require a certain amount of physical space. In my area, with it's current density of homes and businesses, the system is very workable. Where I used to live in Chicago, however, it is not - there are simply too many people per unit of area to deal with sewage in that manner.

That said - there are municipalities that set rule based on politics and profit (for a few) rather than actual needs and requirements.

[Irbis]

I think the answer is that the city should be arranging a new way to fund maintenence of the sewer system.

It's a very similar problem to that one in Austrailia where domestic solar has driven the demand for day time electricity so low the inflexible coal plants are making a loss.

The difference to electricity, though, is that sanitation laws (like vaccines) are designed with public safety in mind first and while solar panels are perfectly ok, shitty sewage disposal is big health hazard. So no, it can't be as lax law as in your example, because you're risking more than your private home appliances with it.

[Borgholio]

I really don't see the big deal here. You can be hooked up to utilities but not have them turned on. So let the city hook up water and power. Just don't subscribe for the service and keep using your solar and collected water. Now if she's using the sewer without paying for it, THEN I can see a problem. More than any of the other services, sewer is the most important as far as sanitation is concerned. So living in the suburbs like she is, I think she should be required to at least have that...or a septic system if it's allowed.

[Lagmonster]

*similar laws regarding space mean people building microhouses have to build their houses on trailers to be able to live in them

I've been fascinated with tiny home living for years, from an architectural standpoint - I love seeing examples of the smallest possible living spaces that accommodate the maximum possible luxury. I doubt I'd ever LIVE in one, but I like seeing the limits of efficiency.

However, in pursuing the interest I've seen that the majority of the people who actually live in micro-homes are off-the-grid type people who simply don't want to be part of urban society. They run towards the anti-capitalist, anti-commercialism, extreme environmentalist type of person. And they've no end to the complaints they have of the challenges they face in establishing micro-homes on residential properties. From their comments, it seems that most cities in North America have hosts of laws designed specifically to prevent this kind of living, mostly targeted at slum lords (people who would sub-divide a dumpster if they could to squeeze more people in). But a cursory examination of the most popular examples of these kinds of custom-built tiny homes demonstrate these sorts of laws to be too willing to catch up harmless people in the rush to protect the vulnerable. These laws need to be re-evaluated and made more specific so as to allow people who can live off-grid according to reasonable health and safety standards to do so (say what you want about something like the Tumbleweed Tiny Houses, but they are clearly comfortable and safe), while punishing slumlords.

[Broomstick]

Those laws were not just designed with slumlords in mind, they were also designed to eliminate vagrants and other "undesirables" including, yes, the homeless.

[RogueIce]

Near as I can tell, this is the residence in question:


Also, her solution to the waste without using the sewer since it was capped?

She goes to the bathroom in a bucket and disposes of the waste in the trash.

Source

But yeah, since there was some confusion apparently as to her living situation, she is definitely not out in the middle of nowhere. And she either has to use the sewer (which she wasn't paying for) or dispose of her waste in the trash, which I'm pretty sure is not a generally acceptable situation. But there you go. More information.

[Grumman]

Whoever gave the order to cap her sewer line should be fired. They deliberately created the health risk to the public they claimed to be fighting as a negotiation tactic. This was not an emergency until they made it one, and could have been resolved simply by negotiating a price for this service alone (or treating it as baked into whatever rates she pays for the property) instead of jumping to the idiotic conclusion that internally-sourced electricity and water are inadequate.

[Lagmonster]

I don't give a crap about the electricity issue, but I'm less sympathetic to her on the water issue and especially the sewage issue. Especially in an urban centre, I completely approve of forcing people to conform to rigid standards for where they get their water and how they dispose of waste. In my city, there are guidelines and an application process for people who want to build homes not connected to the city water and sewage system, and if you can't satisfy the requirements, fuck you. If her methods were stupid, offensive or harmful (like if she was pouring buckets of human waste directly onto open grates in the street) I would completely approve of the city preventing her from continuing to do so.

[Grumman]

I don't give a crap about the electricity issue, but I'm less sympathetic to her on the water issue and especially the sewage issue. Especially in an urban centre, I completely approve of forcing people to conform to rigid standards for where they get their water and how they dispose of waste. In my city, there are guidelines and an application process for people who want to build homes not connected to the city water and sewage system, and if you can't satisfy the requirements, fuck you. If her methods were stupid, offensive or harmful (like if she was pouring buckets of human waste directly onto open grates in the street) I would completely approve of the city preventing her from continuing to do so.

Read the first post - she was connected to the city sewage system. The only reason she stopped is because the city capped her sewer to force her to use a municipal water line.

[Welf]

However, in pursuing the interest I've seen that the majority of the people who actually live in micro-homes are off-the-grid type people who simply don't want to be part of urban society. They run towards the anti-capitalist, anti-commercialism, extreme environmentalist type of person. And they've no end to the complaints they have of the challenges they face in establishing micro-homes on residential properties. From their comments, it seems that most cities in North America have hosts of laws designed specifically to prevent this kind of living, mostly targeted at slum lords (people who would sub-divide a dumpster if they could to squeeze more people in). But a cursory examination of the most popular examples of these kinds of custom-built tiny homes demonstrate these sorts of laws to be too willing to catch up harmless people in the rush to protect the vulnerable. These laws need to be re-evaluated and made more specific so as to allow people who can live off-grid according to reasonable health and safety standards to do so (say what you want about something like the Tumbleweed Tiny Houses, but they are clearly comfortable and safe), while punishing slumlords.

It's not that easy to let people of the grid, even if they can prove they live healthy. A sewage and water infrastructure needs to be built and maintained, and potentially for everyone in a location. If half the people drop of the grid, the bill raises almost double for the rest. That makes it more interesting for the rest to drop of the grid and so on. In the end the suckers who can't drop off will pay the bill and thus pay for public health. And those will be the poorer parts of the population, since the rich and the wealthy can afford their own sewage and water. Of course you could finance public infrastructure by taxes, but most people hate them and they tend to get abolished by politicians who want to get elected.

[Irbis]

Read the first post - she was connected to the city sewage system. The only reason she stopped is because the city capped her sewer to force her to use a municipal water line.

As it turns out that huge, expensive infrastructure that stops us from having epidemic of Cholera every other week like in good old times costs money to maintain. And you don't get to use it without paying. Such a novel concept, isn't it, good old chap?

[fordlltwm]

I don't know how it works in Ameristan, but over here in the UK you get charged water rates and sewage rates. I think my sewage charge is actually higher than my water charge, but I can't find a bill at this second.

My parents however who live in the middle of nowhere and have a septic tank don't pay sewage rates but have to get their tank emptied every couple of years. I think it would be possible to get welsh water to agree to only charging for sewage if I had extraction rights to acquire water from elsewhere.

[Elheru Aran]

There's a reason that living off the grid typically happens in rural areas. It's a lot easier that way. Some measures you can't do in urban or suburban areas-- for example, the classic outhouse. Dig a big hole to dump your trash in or burn it. Tap a spring or drill a well for your water. Electricity, well, people lived without it just fine for the past 150-ish years, there's ways to do without.

But in a town, suburb, city, whatever, like this lady apparently is? It's different because your actions have the potential to affect your neighbors. Not just by public health; there's a nuisance factor as well.

I see few reasons for a municipality to *not* cooperate with someone who *wants* to live off the grid by requiring certain measures for sanitation purposes-- for example, requesting that people keep their toilets and sewage connected, but in exchange for cutting off water to everything else *but* toilets or essential faucets, they cut their rate. If they don't want electricity, well, that's not really a sanitation thing (and I'm not sure why *anybody* would want to live without air-conditioning in Florida, but whatever).

I don't see a reason for the costs to be transferred to the rest of the neighborhood. If only one or two people drop off the grid, that's not really going to affect things. Now if a whole neighborhood decided to do that, well, that would make life interesting.

If they're going off the grid as an ecological/conservation exercise, that is also a factor which should be considered. If they merely want to save themselves some bills by turning the water and electricity off and living without it for a while, that's different.

I think normally most US municipalities do require paying both for water and sewer if you are connected to the grid that they put down. If you have your own system (well, septic tank, whatever), you may not have to pay but there may be a fee; there almost certainly are various regulations which need to be met. If you deliberately live somewhere without connection to utilities, there are various codes which can be enforced, such as if you have children in the house or whatever (could constitute neglect if you don't have bath-water for them, for example).

Essentially my position is that if a person desires to live off the grid, can do so in a sanitary manner and can abide by a minimum of legal requirements, then there's no reason not to oblige them... the biggest problem is meeting the last two points, as well as the local government not being a.) crooked, b.) stupid or c.) bureaucratically obfuscatory.

[Broomstick]

I don't know how it works in Ameristan, but over here in the UK you get charged water rates and sewage rates. I think my sewage charge is actually higher than my water charge, but I can't find a bill at this second.

My parents however who live in the middle of nowhere and have a septic tank don't pay sewage rates but have to get their tank emptied every couple of years. I think it would be possible to get welsh water to agree to only charging for sewage if I had extraction rights to acquire water from elsewhere.

That's pretty much the case here where I live (but keeping in mind regulations in the US vary from place to place.) If you get "city water", that is, provided by a municipality you have water/sewage charges. If you have a well and septic you don't - but you're responsible for creating and maintaining that water/sewage system on your property. Lack of potable water can have a residence condemned as unlivable.

While month-to-month a well and septic are "free" (other than the costs of pumping the water, which honestly are minimal and used to be done with a hand pump) the occasional maintenance like tank cleaning or a new well pump can be substantial. Installing an entirely new system (shouldn't happen if things are maintained, but it can occur) is tens of thousands of dollars out of the property owner's pocket.

Either way you pay, one way or another.

"Microhome" folks with trailers might be able to use the same systems used by RV's and mobile homes.

[Flagg]

Near as I can tell, this is the residence in question:


Also, her solution to the waste without using the sewer since it was capped?

She goes to the bathroom in a bucket and disposes of the waste in the trash.

Source

But yeah, since there was some confusion apparently as to her living situation, she is definitely not out in the middle of nowhere. And she either has to use the sewer (which she wasn't paying for) or dispose of her waste in the trash, which I'm pretty sure is not a generally acceptable situation. But there you go. More information.

Fuck that bitch, throw her in a looney bin, burn the house down, rebuild.

[Elheru Aran]

Little bit ticked off there are we, Flagg?

[InsaneTD]

Near as I can tell, this is the residence in question:


Also, her solution to the waste without using the sewer since it was capped?

She goes to the bathroom in a bucket and disposes of the waste in the trash.

Source

But yeah, since there was some confusion apparently as to her living situation, she is definitely not out in the middle of nowhere. And she either has to use the sewer (which she wasn't paying for) or dispose of her waste in the trash, which I'm pretty sure is not a generally acceptable situation. But there you go. More information.

Unless that's an old photo, it can't be her house as it doesn't have panels for a solar system. Honestly, I don't know why she'd be collecting water in barrels and not a good sized rain water tank though, then it can be plumbed into the house. And I personally think they should if negotiated a bill for just the sewerage.

[Enigma]

If she has solar panels, she's either not using them or is unable to, since that article RogueIce linked to says she has no electricity. So she's living in a dump because she wants to? Make her a deal. Offer to buy her house and tell her to live her hippy ways far away from civilization. lol

[Welf]

I suddenly wonder how old that women is. If she is in her 70s or older she simply might be too stubborn to do something reasonable.