Same. Our well comes from a fairly large aquifer, and the water just tastes amazing. In a sense we do pay for the water, with pump repairs, water softener salt, etc., but it's not subjects to corrupt/corruptable local governments. When we first built the well, we had someone come out and test it, and they said it contained less contaminants than purified city water. I'm not sure if that says more about the shitty city water, or our awesome sauce, but either way I'll take it.
Yep.... exactly. And like you say, we have to filter all of our water anyway. There are high levels of nitrates in the water table due to all of the agriculture and fertilizer runoff in the vicinity. I just installed an under the sink filter for $115, but it is supposed to last for five years. It's an improvement over the filter pitchers, anyway. We could use a water softener for the house because the water is very hard here. It was destroying my skin when we first moved here but I have been making my own sugar coconut oil scrub for several months that keeps me moisturized so the hard water does not bother me anymore. The cost of maintaining your own well seems to be pretty low compared to this bullshit.
Even if the cost was a little higher, you said the key phrase: "your own." I can control the entire process. If something goes wrong or needs fixing, that's on me. But there's no random price hikes for something that has nothing to do with me. City water can be just as damaging to parts and people, as you saw with your skin. Nature does a good job of filtering it for us. The less the city and/or county knows about what I do on my property, the less they have control over, the better in my opinion.
We already pay crazy property taxes too. Which, I accounted for before we moved. I had an Excel spreadsheet with all the costs broken down for cost-of-living changes with the move. I am totally okay with high taxes if I can anticipate them coming and if they are being used reasonably. Education, infrastructure, fire/police, local amenities like parks. But this corruption and misuse of funds is enough to make me grind my teeth down to the gums. To me, that is the bigger problem. I started reading about the Freedom of Information Act, and how to obtain documents about the comings and goings of these government and business agreements here. I did not realize the foia only applies to federal government entities. There's not really much to Purge local corruption unless you can prove something, and it sounds like they don't have to prove shit to you. I had no idea that the two choices would be so extreme here. Live in the county and pay and provide for everything yourself out of pocket, or deal with getting gouged inside the city.... Oh yeah, post a bitch, post a boob...
You could always run for a position in the local government (ideally one no one wants so you run unopposed) and then sabotage it from within. Or at least you’d have more access to everything going on, and be someone favored on “their team.”
This thought has crossed my mind. I had a couple of other ideas for the situation including run for office, plant a community garden in my front yard if I'm going to be using water anyway, get involved in an unofficial citizen groups to rabble rouse and stay on their butts about this every single meeting that they have. One problem that I have is that these committee members are not paid. To me, this invites corruption and outside influences. The only people who can afford to run are either already wealthy or are getting side deals or benefits from the job. These positions are obviously responsible for a lot, and entail a lot of work. To be frank, I am afraid that my property will be vandalized if I speak too loudly. I am getting bad vibes...
I don't know for sure Bewildered, but considering they're charging you $300 a month for water I think you may be on to something. You should be getting beer out of your faucet at those rates. Anyway, following your example...
Watching this blows my mind. It's a lady training a gorilla in sign language. If you want to see something that is both incredibly sad, and amazing skip to about 9 minutes in, and watch the male gorilla describe his mother getting shot by poachers. It's not him mimicking a story the trainers made him tell.
Splash 2 more roomies. They moved out in the middle of the night, what a surprise. The funnest part is watching Crazy go nuts, he's actually broken out in hives over it. He keeps telling me "I'm psychic. I see things. I knew this was coming." Huh. I'm not psychic and I saw this coming. All he could talk about the past two weeks was how he was going to evict them with 30 days notice on the 1st. They just beat him to the punch. One of the guys called him a freak and told him he hopes Crazy #2 kills him, that's taking things a bit far wishing death on someone. Crazy is now in full vindictive mode. This place is like the gift that keeps on giving for stories I can tell the rest of my life.
Deep thought: is it better to have brass balls, or balls of steel? In other news, I got out of work at 1pm today!
I finally have time this weekend to hit the shop and make some stuff. Did up some simple cedar frames and boxes for my sister's deck, and the whole place now smells like freshly cut cedar. Love that smell. The weekend is ending way too fast.