Living "Off the Grid"

[Rich Riddle]

I have a friend who believes he lives "off the grid" though he does have electricity. He lacks a phone and water. Today is tax day and he hasn't filed in nearly a decade. Of course, he doesn't earn enough to file. Lives on a small "farm" where he piddles around and doesn't get much accomplished. In a decade he hasn't even put in a well or hooked up to water that is available 100 feet from his "barn" in which he lives. It's his way of beating the system in his mind. He hoards every thing possible, mostly totally useless stuff. He says it's in preparation for catastrophic events that will happen any moment. Any of the rest of you know anyone who doesn't really interact with the world? Is it more "normal" than it appears? Isn't there a name for the folks who think doom and gloom will happen right around the corner?

[Chuck Wintle]

I have a friend who believes he lives "off the grid" though he does have electricity. He lacks a phone and water. Today is tax day and he hasn't filed in nearly a decade. Of course, he doesn't earn enough to file. Lives on a small "farm" where he piddles around and doesn't get much accomplished. In a decade he hasn't even put in a well or hooked up to water that is available 100 feet from his "barn" in which he lives. It's his way of beating the system in his mind. He hoards every thing possible, mostly totally useless stuff. He says it's in preparation for catastrophic events that will happen any moment. Any of the rest of you know anyone who doesn't really interact with the world? Is it more "normal" than it appears? Isn't there a name for the folks who think doom and gloom will happen right around the corner?

I think its a case where one slips into a certain mindset.

[Sean Troy]

I have a friend who believes he lives "off the grid" though he does have electricity. He lacks a phone and water. Today is tax day and he hasn't filed in nearly a decade. Of course, he doesn't earn enough to file. Lives on a small "farm" where he piddles around and doesn't get much accomplished. In a decade he hasn't even put in a well or hooked up to water that is available 100 feet from his "barn" in which he lives. It's his way of beating the system in his mind. He hoards every thing possible, mostly totally useless stuff. He says it's in preparation for catastrophic events that will happen any moment. Any of the rest of you know anyone who doesn't really interact with the world? Is it more "normal" than it appears? Isn't there a name for the folks who think doom and gloom will happen right around the corner?

Can anyone truly and fully enjoy life living like that?

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I suspect it's pretty common. It is around here anyhow, and it seems to stand to reason that more populated areas would have more. Most of the time I think it's a financial decision that gets out of hand.

[David Weaver]

Here in the burbs, you don't get folks like that because people complain them out. By that, I mean no mess will be allowed, and the property taxes, etc are too steep to stick around if you don't have income to match. There may be a few people in the city who live like that, though, especially in the worse areas where every other house or every third house doesn't even have a resident. There are hills here where people have, for years, thrown bulk items (tires, washing machines, furniture) over the side of the hill out of laziness. If someone lived messy there, it would make no difference.

I know (or knew) a few older folks who grew up in the depression and essentially lived without amenities, but they were not antisocial and they didn't believe the end of the world was around the corner. They just didn't want to spend money and had gotten accustomed to living without.

On my dad's farm where he grew up, they had a concrete block building halfway back the property that was used to store tools or something at one point, and for his entire childhood, an "old bachelor", as he called him, lived in the building and loaded shotgun shells to make a few bucks to live. There was no electricity in the building that I can recall, but they put a woodstove in and that was enough for him. Same thing, not antisocial, just didn't want to join the rat race late in life.

[Mel Fulks]

Rich,your question is one for a psychologist .

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I know of 2 bachelor brothers in southern Indiana who lived in a log cabin on the 160 acres their parents had owned. They were totally off the grid. My maternal grandparents had the neighboring farm north of them. On Friday morning, one of the brothers would walk to my grandparents house with a grocery list. My grandmother would call one of my aunts in a town 11 miles away with the grocery list. On saturday, my aunt and uncle would bring the groceries out and deliver them. These brothers used horses to plant and harvest corn, raised hogs and cut fence posts, all for sale to have a source of income to pay for their groceries. The last living of the two brothers died in the late 1950's.

I am also sure there are some east of me here in Idaho who are trying to live off the grid.

[Garth Sheane]

The choice to live small may be disguised as an environmental decision, but in most cases it probably isn't the product of a completely rational mind. I'm not saying they are crazy or anything, just that they are driven by a phobia. They don't feel competent in the normal world and this is how they withdraw. I wonder if depression doesn't play a role as well for some people.

[Jim Rimmer]

I think a lot of people think they would like to live "off the grid" until they are faced with the reality of it. No flush toilets, no electricity, no hot running water just to begin the list. Those that actually do it may have experienced something that drove them to it or as some have mentioned, they may have mental issues though not crazy.

[Scott Shepherd]

They don't feel competent in the normal world and this is how they withdraw. I wonder if depression doesn't play a role as well for some people.

Sounds a like more like the Goth movement kids follow today than someone trying live off the grid. I suspect many of them are just as happy or happier as people running kids to 14 different sporting events 7 days a week, talking on cell phones, paying $600 a month for car payments, etc.

[Mike Henderson]

My first wife grew up in rural PA without electricity or running water. After hearing her stories, I'm glad that my family always had electricity and running water, even though we lived on a farm. There's just so much labor involved in hauling water, preserving food, cutting wood for heat and cooking, etc. It didn't leave much time for anything else. When I think of how much labor we had to do on the farm - with electricity and running water - I don't know how people did it.

And then, of course, there was the problem of the outdoor toilets, and what to do when you had to pee in the middle of the night and it was snowing outside. They didn't bathe but maybe once a week, especially in the winter. And bathing was done in a "tub" in the kitchen so that the hot water didn't have to be hauled to some other room.

I'm very thankful for electricity and running water.

Mike

[David Weaver]

And then, of course, there was the problem of the outdoor toilets, and what to do when you had to pee in the middle of the night and it was snowing outside.

Or what to do if you had to pee and there was a rooster in the yard that still had its dewclaws. My grandmother grew up with an outhouse, and they used corncobs to cook and corncobs for toilet paper, though for the latter they left them outside to soften in the rain.

She told that when she was little, they had a rotten rooster for a while, and when the kids wanted to go to the bathroom, they would take turns running the rooster around the yard (there were 9 kids) until the rooster was tired and wouldn't chase them. Then they'd all go.

[Mike Henderson]

Or what to do if you had to pee and there was a rooster in the yard that still had its dewclaws. My grandmother grew up with an outhouse, and they used corncobs to cook and corncobs for toilet paper, though for the latter they left them outside to soften in the rain.

She told that when she was little, they had a rotten rooster for a while, and when the kids wanted to go to the bathroom, they would take turns running the rooster around the yard (there were 9 kids) until the rooster was tired and wouldn't chase them. Then they'd all go.

I grew up on a chicken farm. Dealing with roosters is not a problem. You use your foot to block them when they come at you, then kick them hard enough to let them know you're the dominate rooster. After that, you don't have much problem with them.

You don't want to really hurt them - farmers have to protect their assets - but you have to be able to live with them. Same goes for dogs.

Mike

[We called them "spurs". The people who fight roosters strap metal spurs over the natural spurs to cause more damage. I have no clue why people want to fight roosters. It's cruel and bloody.]

[Chris Padilla]

Does anyone watch "Doomsday Preppers" on TV? Very interesting show.

[Brian Kent]

Friend #1 - did not pay taxes. Always expected nice roads and police protection.
Friend #2 - did not pay taxes, but expected OSHA to come out a fix her broken plumbing (they did not).
Henry David Thoreau - set the bar for living off the grid, but in a recent class found out about the horrendous family problems he was escaping. I no longer romanticize his life.
Friend #3 - stocked up for Y2K. After 20 years of friendship he warned me that if I came asking for food, I wouldn't get any. I told him I'd really be fine with that. I don't know what he did with his thousands of dollars worth of dried foods after January 1, 2000. Must have been delicious. I never asked if he had collected weaponry to protect his food from the rioting hoards.