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Tinfoil Hat House

An anonymous reader writes "A family in Sacromento has covered the side of their house with aluminum to keep the radiowaves from their neighbors at bay. The city has given them one week to remove the life saving shielding or face charges."

10 of 896 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'm not a Californian by Kethryvis · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because it's a housing code violation. It looks from the picture like it's touching the fence/house next door and in CA (at least in Sac, I live there) it's illegal to build or have any structure connected to your house touching or within x amount of feet of the fence. Our neighbours behind us built some rickity lean-to on their house which used our back fence as one of the walls and we called the housing code people who came and told them to tear it down.

  2. Re:Legalistics by gameboyhippo · · Score: 3, Informative

    But they don't have the right to put up whatever they want. Especially if they have neighbors. You see, if the town becomes ugly, then the value of their property diminishes. It's kinda like me going over to some kids house and spilling kool-aid on his super rare comic book.

  3. what a crock by SuperBanana · · Score: 5, Informative
    The D'Souzas said the bombardment began after the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that the radio waves have caused them health problems ranging from headaches to lupus.

    As someone who has a family member with Lupus, I call absolute bullshit on this.

    Lupus causes haven't really been figured out. Furthermore, there's absolutely ZERO medical evidence that EMF/EMI causes or even aggravates Lupus. Trust me, I looked and looked after her doctor told her to "avoid cell phones and wireless devices whenever possible". I even emailed two mailing lists- one for researchers, one for patients- and came up with nothing. Nobody had ever heard of this. Furthermore, if their theory wer correct, we'd be seeing an explosion of Lupus cases (we haven't).

    The D'Souzas said they will comply with the order and remove the sheet metal, but they also plan to gather evidence to show city officials what they believe is a problem with radiation.

    That will be pretty tough, given there's next to no evidence EMF/EMI causes anything in people, and a lot of studies showing it has no discernible effects.

    The inside of the house is also covered with foil and the beds are covered with a foil-like material as well,"

    Sounds to me like they'd be a lot better served spending their money on a psychologist, not tin foil. Self-diagnosis ("radio waves are making us depressed, and giving us Lupus!") is a textbook sign of a hypochondriac.

  4. The 9/11 anniversary and psychosis by Quirk · · Score: 4, Informative
    "The D'Souzas said the bombardment began after the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks"

    There's an interesting, if not well defined, link between trauma and psychosis. Delusions and paranoia seem to have a strong link to widely shared public "concerns". I recently talked with a psychiatrist about paraniod schizophrenics and mentioned that there seemed to be a recurring theme of religious delusion and persecution. He, in return, said that in the 50's, paranoid schizophrenics, frequently complained of persecution by communists. The bogey man of the day seems to morph readily into paranoid delusions.

    On a less humane note, it's scary these people are procreating, but just to help things along this site should validate their paranoia.

    --
    "Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
    Cohen
  5. Re:I'm not a Californian by kylemonger · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not health code, fascist community code, as in "no trucks up on blocks in your front yard", "no neon Looney Tunes paint job for your house", "no satellite dish antennas", "no running a bordello in a residential neighborhood", that sort of thing.

  6. Re:At least they're taking extra precautions... by SacredNaCl · · Score: 3, Informative

    The only problem with buying lots of mylar and mylar space blankets it the visit your get from the DEA after the hardware store reports you.

    They started offering cash rewards to store owners here to report that kind of activity, it doesn't matter that most people buying it aren't running a grow op.

    --
    Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
  7. Re:Too bad he's running the site off on 28.8 Kbps by dozer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Or link to a non-slashdotted copy.

    http://totfc.net/misc/rednecks/

  8. Re:Glad I'm not a Californian anymore by core+plexus · · Score: 4, Informative
    Yes, it's a hard life. Not paying state income taxes or purchase taxes, getting a check from the Permanent Fund every year for approx. $1,000, having all this fresh air and clean water and room to roam. Then there's the gold mine that I own. What a hassle it is to throw back the small gold so it can grow bigger. Heck, I remember once, when it got to -20 below zero for a couple of days. I had to drive almost an hour to find good skiing.

    Yep, I'm suffering here.

    -cp-

  9. Re:Too bad he's running the site off on 28.8 Kbps by cyphem · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google offers some pictures, small but neat. Excellent story :-)

    --
    Reading this signature is senseless so don't do it.
  10. Re:Private property by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 3, Informative

    Private property is private property.

    And municipal housing codes are municipal housing codes.

    When you buy a home, you're agreeing to abide by the rules in that location that pertain to home ownership. Some such rules are just common sense, like requiring a permit to dig around underground where the utility lines are. Some of them are excessively onerous, like Homeowners' Association bylaws. The rules in this case seem to fall somewhere in between.