• Sleepless One@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    3 days ago

    With egg prices the way they are, we won’t even be able to afford second breakfast. 😮‍💨

  • WereCat@lemmy.world
    1·
    4 days ago

    People will eventually evolve into Hobbits due to less need for bigger places to live which are unaffordable.

    • Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      0·
      4 days ago

      In the UK this option is still illegal as you need permission from the council to live on your own land. I guess it’s sorta similar to zones in the US? You can only stay on your land for 28 days of the year otherwise. You could probably manage a while before you get found but they can demolish anything you build there and seize the property.

      • MoonMelon@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        4 days ago

        In the USA this is illegal too but it is mostly a health thing, eg you can’t live somewhere with no place to shit because you’ll end up shitting in the river. Not that “health and safety” isn’t constantly abused to brutalize the indigent, but it does also kind of make sense to not let people live long term where they can’t shit, knowing what we know now about outhouses and groundwater.

        That said, local governments in rural areas can barely keep fire departments and schools open. Nobody is checking on your vacant land unless someone complains, and they’d have to drive past fifty other shanties to get to yours.

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          0·
          4 days ago

          Isn’t contaminating groundwater only an issue of you are pooping near a river, stream or well though? At a reasonable distance it takes so long for anything to move through that it’s not an issue and will just rot down instead.

          • MoonMelon@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1·
            3 days ago

            Basically, it’s complicated. It depends on your soil/rock type, the water table, and the amount of poop. You want outhouses to be at least six feet deep for parasite lifecycle reasons, but at that depth you could be shitting directly into the water table and if the water is moving through cracks in the rock it could go quite far. Pooping in the top few inches of organic soil is much better for groundwater, but worse for surface water and then also hookworm can spread. And with enough people any primitive system totally breaks down.

            Also, there are a lot of uneducated people. The people who owned my parent’s property before them built their outhouse directly over the stream because “water make shit go away”, I guess. In countries without sanitation people shit directly into the river or ocean for the same reason.

            After a bunch of water quality data came out in the late 2000s, states and counties tightened up requirements but now to build anything you need to spend at least 10-15k USD on an “advanced” septic system which is completely out of reach for many people. It also requires electricity which could be another 10k. So you either subsidize it or people shit in the creek again.

            @SOB_Van_Owen@lemm.ee mentioned composting. Laws are way behind on this. I looked into this before building septic and essentially no states around allowed it for permanent dwellings. I think Alaska and West Texas were the only regions where they still didn’t care. If you truly couldn’t afford it your best bet would be to do composting for your own health and just be illegal because you probably won’t get caught. But that means no mailbox, no address, hiding your camper, essentially boondocking on your own land out of sight. One angry neighbor and its over.

    • doingthestuff@lemy.lolEnglish
      0·
      4 days ago

      And then keep paying rent to the govt in the form of property taxes every year. Owning land isn’t really a thing anymore.