Why ordinary Americans are prohibited from building and renovating their own homes

[RussianTroll]

I do most everything around here: electrical, plumbing, carpentry, yada yada. With the exception of disassembling and cleaning the boiler (no shop vac), but I should've been doing that too. A couple years back a guy did it that was due to retire, and nearly a year later everything in the basement started turning dark gray/black and when I had it serviced again they charged me more than twice as much saying it was "plugged". Conclusion: the tech that was getting ready to retire didn't feel much like cleaning a boiler that day.

Some parts are harder to get for homeowners. I had a hell of a time locating a relay box for one boiler but finally found one; nowadays you can get just about anything online though.

You need to be careful with certain disclosures to some entities, like insurance companies, and if you live in an older house (like I do) and you involve the power company for whatever reason, they might possibly force you to bring everything up to code.

Twice now over the past few years they tried to stop us Americans from working on our own vehicles, but it didn't go through the last time either (luckily). Trying to force us to take our vehicles to the dealership and pay through the ass. I know if I do the work myself (at a fraction of the cost) that some care will be taken with some attention to detail because it's mine and I actually give a shit about it. I couldn't even pay a shop to put new tires and balance them properly if at all, plus I like to grease up the components when I got the wheels off – as if the shop would do that.

Wow, that's great!!!
I have a country house. It's a small house, about 40 square meters, which our family bought about 25 years ago. My late father grew various exotic crops on the plot under the house (20 acres), like Brussels sprouts and Chinese cabbage. There were 5 apple trees of different varieties, a pear, a plum and berry bushes (strawberries, strawberries, currants, chokeberries, etc.) on the plot. Lilies of the valley and wild garlic grew on the ground, the sprouts of which we plucked from the ground for a snack after drinking. Sometimes I spent the night in the house, just to listen to the nightingales singing early in the morning (our dacha is located in the nightingale ravine of Saratov).

Everything in the house, from gas supply, water supply, sewerage, Internet to electricity, my brother and I did with our own hands. No one from the municipal or state authorities has ever come to us and issued us fines. We installed the meters ourselves, paid according to their readings, and no one checked us. We only registered the meters with the relevant state authorities and periodically checked them.

This is freedom. In the summer, we live at our dacha as we see fit. And the regional and state authorities do not interfere in our lives. And they certainly do not issue fines.