this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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'Cept in most locales you have to maintain your home's "habitability status" to not get it condemned, which requires having a functional electrical supply. And usually also working plumbing, heat, some manner of cooking apparatus, and a refrigerator.
"Muh Freedumb!" aside, these types of code requirements were as I understand it at least initially put into place to prevent slumlords from charging rent for an "apartment" that has access to none of the above.
Anyhow, if you really don't want to pay electric bills it's really not too tough to get yourself some solar panels or something. Somehow that never occurs to these people. There are counties out in the boondocks where you are permitted by law to live fully off the grid if you feel like it, so maybe they ought to move there and quit bothering everybody with their nonsense.
I think water and sewage are required but I don't think electricity is because a property is technically habitable without power. As long as there is not a vulnerable person confirmed living at the address. I mean it all seems a bit arbitrary, but apparently those are the rules.
I think it's mostly about making it unpleasant for squatters without violating their human rights too much. It straddles the line but not too badly.
This is another one of them there varies by state/county/city things. Where I live you must be connected to the grid. This causes problems for people who don't want to be connected to the grid, i.e. they have more than enough solar or windmill and battery capacity to not require it from a functional standpoint. But the county forbids you from not paying the local electricity monopoly their monthly bribe.
This is relatively recent -- as of the last 4 or 5 years or so. The power company now helpfully charges a "connection fee" if you use 0 kWh, which started happening exactly at the same time the law was passed to make it illegal not to be connected to them. I can't help but conclude that these two facts are not coincidental.
My previous area was like that, and that was why I didn't bother getting a battery system for my solar. And the connection fee went up, and up, and up.