this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2025
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In the US, we do having the concept of “residential” zoning. Though I’m thinking that applies more to the structures being built there. I’m thinking building this kind of thing and living in it might not actually be illegal? Depending on what you are doing with your waste (like piss and shit) they might get you for some kind of health code violation. But barring that I think you might be able to get away with this. (But who would want to?) Maybe someone who knows better than me can weigh in.
Local ordinances and HOA CC&Rs can make it illegal to live on your own land unless you meet certain requirements, like having a specific type of permanent building (eg. no manufactured homes).
Oh for sure HOAs and CC&Rs. But assuming those aren’t in place, I’m still thinking this might be ok. And I suppose that’s a civil matter anyway, no cop would enforce that. And even if there was something on the books, I don’t think a cop would enforce that unless you were doing something else to piss them off or someone else. Like cooking meth for example.
Local ordinances can also make things like camping on private property illegal. That would be at the city level, but really an HOA is just another form of local government so I'd argue that counts too.
Isn’t the HOA civil though? Like they could assess a bunch of fine and send them to you, but they couldn’t enforce some kind of removal from your land as some kind of criminal offense the police would enforce?
I'm not a lawyer, but I know they can put enough leins on a property to take possession of it. I'm pretty sure police will also forcefully remove someone who's violating civil trespassing laws, but again, not a lawyer.
Building it here should be fine because of how small it is, would almost certainly be seen as a temporary structure and classed as similar to a garden shed. The problem is you cannot legally live in something like that.
Health code isn't likely to be an issue in the UK as I don't think we have anything overly strict that would matter. Environmental health exists but that is more of a concern if you are leaving a pile of waste that is attracting rats to the extent its causing a problem to other people. Been to events that use a shit pit before. Some you shit straight into the pit and others collect it into a septic tank and dump that into a pit later while marking a fence post near the pit to avoid digging in the same location next year. Does make me wonder how long it takes to rot down, 100-200 peoples shit from a whole weekend dumped into a pit and buried.
Then again maybe it isn't allowed and we were just doing it anyway.
I still kind of think in most places in the US, this might not be illegal. (Someone else brought up HOAs, but that’s kind of a different story.) But now I’m curious and hoping someone who knows better can weigh in.
Definitely illegal in the parts of Wisconsin I'm from. Zoning codes generally include a list of permitted uses for each zone, a list of conditional uses that need approval from the local zoning board or officer, and everything else is not allowed. If this structure were classified as a permanent structure, it would not meet building codes anywhere. If not a permanent structure, staying in it would be considered camping, which is not a permitted or conditional use in the zones of the county where I live. (Or maybe it is somehow; I just glanced over the ordinance.) I do have a bit of land in a county that does allow camping in certain zones, but for a maximum of 10 nights per year.
It seems to me that there's this pervasive sense that the landscape and lifestyles (cars, single-family houses, lawns, etc.) in the United States are what they are because that's what its citizens want for themselves. The reality is that just about anything else is illegal. Remember, the United States is the country that invented loitering (a.k.a. existing in public without a specific objective) as an offense in order to force (mostly Black) people into working degrading jobs. This is actually the kind of dwelling that Cornish miners built when they came to Wisconsin to mine galena. They got the nickname of "badgers" for it, and that's why we're the Badger State (and not due to the animal). So it's not like this is a new idea that nobody has thought of before, we just can't do it anymore.