5 ms·

> Your city and neighbors don’t want to be responsible for or have to deal with your house falling down because it was improperly constructed. Why on earth wou

> Your city and neighbors don’t want to be responsible for or have to deal with your house falling down because it was improperly constructed. Why on earth would the city or the neighbors be "responsible" for that?

salamanderss 3y ago
They usually aren't it's an argument used to scare people into making housing stock replenishment more expensive and lock in property values. I'm building a house now. I sent the county... A picture of a square on a map. No plans no inspections nothing. Fuck all that. I build based on what seems reasonable after a cool Busch Light and then I just do it without asking permission from anybody. Half my county did the same. It's not rocket science, and the world here hasn't fallen apart or burned down. But you will be told the opposite to get locked into expensive contractors and corrupt inspectors and the cash extracting nightmare licensing and permitting systems that surround that. And before anybody gets too excited... this is all 100% legal if you pick the right spot.
brewdad 3y ago
When my neighbor's house fails and causes damage to my property, I'm not legally "responsible" but I still have to deal with a whole lot of negatives. Hence the "or deal with it" part of OP's statement. Far better to reduce the risks by making sure the project isn't being half-assed up front.
kemayo 3y ago
Depends on the specific thing, but generally it's because there might be consequences to doing things poorly that would spill onto your neighbors, or which might cost the local government money to fix after it hurts or kills you. It's the same kind of reason that laws requiring motorcycle helmets or seatbelts exist. The sewer one is obvious, since it could be a public health issue -- if you screw it up you could wind up contaminating local water sources (or just stinking up the area). Issues with the lumber you use, or with your building plans, could potentially result in your house collapsing in such a way that it might damage your neighbor's property. And getting a new permit if you take too long is probably just a way to force you to check in and make sure that you're not deviating from the earlier plans you filed.
autoexec 3y ago
If my neighbor doesn't wire their home to code and it burns down and the fire spreads to my house it doesn't matter who is "responsible", I'd still lose my stuff (or my life). Hell, if my neighbor's tree falls into my property and causes damages I can't be sure I'd be fully compensated for my losses. You can take someone to court, but they can't give you what they don't have. People also just don't want to live in slums filled with run down barely standing shacks since it hurts their property value too. Part of living in a community means giving consideration to other people around you. The closer you are to others the more responsibility you have to be considerate of your impacts on those others.
- salamanderss 3y ago
  How many lives of man hours are lost from overhead for these costs and compliance? The issue is people enforcing these regulations see the dead bodies from the burned out home but not the dead bodies of the homeless or the kids with less food or the dude with untreated cancer because regulatory costs and materials safety margins sucked away money that could've been spent on other life critical things. At this point it seems completely plausible more lives would be saved through complete deregulation including setting loose uncle joe the methhead electrician. RE: >cities to turn into dangerous shanty towns where anyone who can lean a piece of corrugated sheet metal against a mud pile can call themselves a home builder. My whole county did this. No inspections or building plans. It turned out fine. I became a legal 'home builder' with nothing more than filing my signature with the county. It's the only way I can even afford a house. re county: believe the options are unincorporated burrows of Alaska, greenlee or cochise Arizona, Jackson Wayne and several other county in Tennessee, bunch of others.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    If kids can't get food that's a problem entirely separate from the costs of an electrical inspector. No one builds a house and then becomes homeless because of how much it cost to make sure it was up to code. I'd agree that those costs shouldn't be excessive, and they may even be higher than they should be right now, but we've got plenty of examples of what deregulated construction leads to and it's never the utopia you'd imagine. It's much better to have sane standards than to deregulate and allow our cities to turn into dangerous shanty towns where anyone who can lean a piece of corrugated sheet metal against a mud pile can call themselves a home builder. I'm certain that I can find more evidence that a lack of regulation leads to deaths than you could of code compliance causing untreated cancer. In fact, some regulations prevent building homes using materials that we know have caused cancer. Feel free to try to find a study or evidence that suggests otherwise though.
chongli 3y ago
Because it damages their property values. Would you want to buy a house next to a dilapidated pile of abandoned rubble?
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  What makes you think you're entitled to an increase in your "property value" at the expense of someone else? Maybe you should look at your house as a place to live rather than an investment vehicle. Or maybe you should just accept that investments come with risks.
  - chongli 3y ago
    No one's entitled to returns on any investment, of course. But would you expect investors to stand idly by while their investments lose ground? Or would you expect them to take whatever opportunities are available to them to protect their investments?
  - RHSeeger 3y ago
    > What makes you think you're entitled to an increase in your "property value" at the expense of someone else? The exact same thing that makes me think I can't just walk into your home and take what I want, because I want it and you're not using it. The rules set forth by the society we live in, as decided by the people living in that society. Sure, not all the rules are great; many of them are awful. But the solution to that is to fix the rules, not to say there shouldn't be _any_.
    - Turing_Machine 3y ago
      > The exact same thing that makes me think I can't just walk into your home and take what I want No, it doesn't work that way. My house is not your house. My land is not your land. If you're going to restrict my use of my property to increase your property value, you should pay me for that privilege.
      - chongli 3y ago

salamanderss 3y ago

They usually aren't it's an argument used to scare people into making housing stock replenishment more expensive and lock in property values. I'm building a house now. I sent the county... A picture of a square on a map. No plans no inspections nothing. Fuck all that. I build based on what seems reasonable after a cool Busch Light and then I just do it without asking permission from anybody. Half my county did the same. It's not rocket science, and the world here hasn't fallen apart or burned down. But you will be told the opposite to get locked into expensive contractors and corrupt inspectors and the cash extracting nightmare licensing and permitting systems that surround that. And before anybody gets too excited... this is all 100% legal if you pick the right spot.

brewdad 3y ago

When my neighbor's house fails and causes damage to my property, I'm not legally "responsible" but I still have to deal with a whole lot of negatives. Hence the "or deal with it" part of OP's statement. Far better to reduce the risks by making sure the project isn't being half-assed up front.

kemayo 3y ago

Depends on the specific thing, but generally it's because there might be consequences to doing things poorly that would spill onto your neighbors, or which might cost the local government money to fix after it hurts or kills you. It's the same kind of reason that laws requiring motorcycle helmets or seatbelts exist. The sewer one is obvious, since it could be a public health issue -- if you screw it up you could wind up contaminating local water sources (or just stinking up the area). Issues with the lumber you use, or with your building plans, could potentially result in your house collapsing in such a way that it might damage your neighbor's property. And getting a new permit if you take too long is probably just a way to force you to check in and make sure that you're not deviating from the earlier plans you filed.

autoexec 3y ago

If my neighbor doesn't wire their home to code and it burns down and the fire spreads to my house it doesn't matter who is "responsible", I'd still lose my stuff (or my life). Hell, if my neighbor's tree falls into my property and causes damages I can't be sure I'd be fully compensated for my losses. You can take someone to court, but they can't give you what they don't have. People also just don't want to live in slums filled with run down barely standing shacks since it hurts their property value too. Part of living in a community means giving consideration to other people around you. The closer you are to others the more responsibility you have to be considerate of your impacts on those others.

salamanderss 3y ago
How many lives of man hours are lost from overhead for these costs and compliance? The issue is people enforcing these regulations see the dead bodies from the burned out home but not the dead bodies of the homeless or the kids with less food or the dude with untreated cancer because regulatory costs and materials safety margins sucked away money that could've been spent on other life critical things. At this point it seems completely plausible more lives would be saved through complete deregulation including setting loose uncle joe the methhead electrician. RE: >cities to turn into dangerous shanty towns where anyone who can lean a piece of corrugated sheet metal against a mud pile can call themselves a home builder. My whole county did this. No inspections or building plans. It turned out fine. I became a legal 'home builder' with nothing more than filing my signature with the county. It's the only way I can even afford a house. re county: believe the options are unincorporated burrows of Alaska, greenlee or cochise Arizona, Jackson Wayne and several other county in Tennessee, bunch of others.
- autoexec 3y ago
  If kids can't get food that's a problem entirely separate from the costs of an electrical inspector. No one builds a house and then becomes homeless because of how much it cost to make sure it was up to code. I'd agree that those costs shouldn't be excessive, and they may even be higher than they should be right now, but we've got plenty of examples of what deregulated construction leads to and it's never the utopia you'd imagine. It's much better to have sane standards than to deregulate and allow our cities to turn into dangerous shanty towns where anyone who can lean a piece of corrugated sheet metal against a mud pile can call themselves a home builder. I'm certain that I can find more evidence that a lack of regulation leads to deaths than you could of code compliance causing untreated cancer. In fact, some regulations prevent building homes using materials that we know have caused cancer. Feel free to try to find a study or evidence that suggests otherwise though.

chongli 3y ago

Because it damages their property values. Would you want to buy a house next to a dilapidated pile of abandoned rubble?

Turing_Machine 3y ago
What makes you think you're entitled to an increase in your "property value" at the expense of someone else? Maybe you should look at your house as a place to live rather than an investment vehicle. Or maybe you should just accept that investments come with risks.
- chongli 3y ago
  No one's entitled to returns on any investment, of course. But would you expect investors to stand idly by while their investments lose ground? Or would you expect them to take whatever opportunities are available to them to protect their investments?
- RHSeeger 3y ago
  > What makes you think you're entitled to an increase in your "property value" at the expense of someone else? The exact same thing that makes me think I can't just walk into your home and take what I want, because I want it and you're not using it. The rules set forth by the society we live in, as decided by the people living in that society. Sure, not all the rules are great; many of them are awful. But the solution to that is to fix the rules, not to say there shouldn't be _any_.
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    > The exact same thing that makes me think I can't just walk into your home and take what I want No, it doesn't work that way. My house is not your house. My land is not your land. If you're going to restrict my use of my property to increase your property value, you should pay me for that privilege.
    - chongli 3y ago