Illegal to have a home not connected to municipal supply grid?

This isn't pre-sewage pipe days in Old London Town where people were throwing buckets of poo and wee out the window, Leopold. Many people use septic tanks and even in Cape Coral Florida, the number of providers, sales and maintenance services available for septic tanks is quite numerous. So people obviously use them.

The woman in the OP, however, is not using a septic tank.

She is actually hooked up to the waste water facilities provided by the city/council to take care of her sewage disposal.

and her only use of the city infrastructure has been to make use of the Cape Coral waste-water system to dispose of her sewage.​

So this isn't even about her sewage.

This is about her not paying for water and electricity because her solar panels provide enough for her to use and her rain water tanks also provide enough fresh and clean water for her every day usage.

And literally, this is about money. Because she is only using the sewage disposal system provided by the city and not the water provided by the city, she is not paying anything.

Instead of having her pay for the services she does use (which is the sensible solution), the court ruled that she must either also sign up for and pay for services she does not use, or face eviction from her home if she is unable to dispose of her waste properly. For good measure, the court ruled that the sewage services provided by the city to her home was to be shut down - so now she actually does not have a way to dispose of her sewage. But here is where it gets interesting. She was never warned about it. Apparently she had appeared in the local media one day, who were interviewing her because she had been living off the grid. The very next day, the local city council issued her with an eviction notice from her home.

The Special Magistrate of Cape Coral, Harold Eskin, has taken the stance that according to city code, Speronis can live without using city power, though her alternative source of power must be approved by the city; however her lack of running water has forced him to rule that she must hook up to the city water system by the end of March. Due to her use of the wastewater treatment lines to dispose of her waste without paying the city for the service, a practice Speronis has said she has no intention of changing, Eskin has ruled that Speronis’ sewage line be capped so that she can no longer use her toilet. In order to remain living in her home, she must prove that she has an alternative means to dispose of her waste in a sanitary manner. Eskin acknowledges that though he can order Speronis to hook up to the city’s water supply, he cannot require her to use it.


This action came about after two years of Speronis living off the grid because, having deemed her experiment a success, Speronis shared her experience with a local TV outlet. The day after the dissemination of her story last November, a code enforcement officer for the city of Cape Coral served a notice of eviction on Speronis for living without utilities. There was no previous warning that she was in violation of municipal code, that she needed to hook up to the city water supply or that she needed to cease using the wastewater treatment system without paying for it, and there was no hearing before the decision to serve the eviction notice.

​

One of the interesting things about this story is that she is not living fully off the grid.

She is accessing the city's sewage treatment facilities to deal with her sewage and she isn't paying for it. And instead of having her pay for what she is using, I find the decision to force her to also pay for what she is not using to be bizarre and it just looks like the local city council is simply trying to raise revenue. Should she pay for the services she is using? Yes. One thing that struck me about this story is the way in which they went after her. You'd have expected that she be given a bill for what she was using and making use of and given a warning notice. Instead, she was given an eviction notice without even a hearing or warning or anything prior to that to let her know about what they wanted her to do.

The narrative of this story changes dramatically in that regard..

 

There is nothing wrong with septic tanks. Lots of people use them even in suburban areas. Planting reed beds makes it even cleaner and safer to use. Lots of people use them here. Even in inner city areas and suburban areas.

Aside from that, the woman in the OP was hooked up to the council's sewage system and was using it. The court ordered that it be shut off. Which is bizarre in and of itself. Instead of ordering her to pay for the city taking care of her sewage, they ordered that she no longer be able to access said sewage treatment system for her sewage.

 

No. She flushes her toilet and it goes down the sewage pipe to the sewage treatment plant like everyone's sewage. Have you never flushed a toilet before?

Because it literally comes down to money. She was accessing a service for free and they did not want her to.

When they found out that she was living off the grid (by using water tanks and using her rain water and powering her home with solar panels, but that she was using the city's sewage system for her sewage) by way of a local media interview, they went after her the next day with an eviction notice. Usually, as the article I linked above notes, there would be warnings issued and a hearing. They skipped all of those steps and went straight for the eviction notice. And then the judge determined that the council could not force her to use their electricity (her solar panels provided enough for her usage), but they could demand she use the sewage system and the city's water unless she was able to show that her water tanks were safe for her to consume and to show that she could dispose of her sewage safely and legally or she would have to hook up to the town's water supply. To ensure she made the decision they wanted her to make, they shut off her ability to access the city's sewage pipes - so now she literally cannot flush the toilet until she hooks up to the town's water supply. Once she does, then they will allow her to flush her toilet.

The short of it is they don't want her to flush her toilet with rain water but with the city's town water because they are not making any money off her.

Hence the eviction notice and trying to repossess her house.

 

She had rain water tanks.

You know, rain..? Water that falls from clouds in the sky.