Slashdot Mirror
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."
Is that near Sacramento? Or is it in Colifornia?
That's just what they want you to think.
How can they be brought up on Misdemeanor charges for this?
It's stupid. It's ugly. But why in the fuck is it illegal?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Bet that works great to keep the heat out of the house too...
Maybe they could use that as a reason to keep it?
I'll Find You Peer, If It's The Last Thing I Do!!!!
"The inside of the house is also covered with foil and the beds are covered with a foil-like material as well,"
So, these are the guys that buy those "space blankets"...
and now back to the fallout shelter...
Why don't they just cover their bodies instead?
Why not just ask the neighbors to turn their radio down?
The best part of this article is that was posted by an anonymous reader. That's irony. (and, if it's not, I'm sure the grammar police will enforce).
... they might have a point.
In a band? Use WheresTheGig for free.
easy fix, just line the inside of the house with foil.
love the antibot text field btw. same i cant read the fucker.
Though it seems to be a classic: http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-12/903959/tinf oil.jpg
(from San Diego)
just because your house is covered in tin foil doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
All they have to do is install it under the siding of the house, and it is legit, code-worthy, and kinda cool.
IANAL but I bet this treatment violates neighbourhood 'quality' standards.
One thing to remember, pot-houses do this to minimise the heat signature.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
If I'd have known I was causing them problems, I would've stopped trying to microwave their paint off their house as a practical joke.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
I'm sure there will be plenty of Tinfoil Hat Jokes and other posts, but after reading the article I'd say they need lithium, not aluminum. That is to say, the "radio waves" deal is typical in schizophrenic patients. Other common variations are people using radio waves to listen to what their thinking, people using high-tech devices to spy on their homes. The end result is a bunch of variations on the sheet metal siding. Those people that aren't familiar with metal and radiation commonly use cardboard boxes to cover all openings and windows.
A misdemeanor charge isn't what's needed, a visit from a social worker probably is. There's a difference between being unique and unusual, and having mental issues.
only here could a story about tinfoil freaks turn into a serious discussion about how effective it is and how they can legally keep it up.
Why not just re-do the house in aluminum siding? Then they can keep their crazy ideas and have a decent looking house.
Put in some Low-E glass windows with a metal reflective layer and a metal roof and they should be good to go - until someone tunnels under their house, of course.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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.
If, however, there is no radiation hazard, then nobody is affected and it's no more of an eyesore than all of the other satellite dishes out there.
Now, there are known places where radio leakage from assorted sources has caused problems. There was a metal stadium in the Middle East - forget exactly where - where, whilst it was under construction, power tools would turn themselves on and huge arcs could be seen. Turned out that the stadium acted as a gigantic radio dish and was not only receiving signals from powerful radio sources, but was focussing them too.
There have also been known cancer spikes in areas with (a) high humidity and (b) badly-maintained, sparking power lines. It is not yet proven that there is a causal relationship, but nobody has convincingly ruled it out, either.
This particular case, though, smacks heavily of a family being traumatized by George Bush's "War on Terror" (Sept. 11th, in and of itself, was really a fairly negligable event - ten times that number die each year in car accidents in the US, and more than a thousand times that number are currently in prison in the US for violent crimes).
Personally, I think the city should come to an agreement with the family. The family takes down the aluminum, agrees that the problem probably isn't real, but agrees to work with the city to sue the Federal Government for psychological damage to cover the expenses incurred and the treatment needed to deal with the PTSD the family has suffered with, because of GWB's attitudes.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well, you gotta admit, "Tinfoil Hat House" has a little more zing than your title. Yours is a little too factual, too journalistic. And all the words are spelled correctly.
I've never seen my house from that angle before...
there's nothing liberal about trying to keep some looney bin neighbor from bringing down the local real estate values.
or, if there is, then i'm all for it anyway.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
D'Souza family. Obviously culturally acclimated as their house is not garishly painted behind the metal sheets (I saw some detailed photos on a live TeeVee newscast) is nutzo. The whol efriggin family.
OR
OR
OR
There is a single, LONE NUT, in their neighborhood who coupled the magnetron from his microwave oven to an antenna and is actually tossing photons at the D'Souzas.
Seriously guys, which is more believable? It's California after all. Personally, you couldn't pay me enough to live in any city in that state.
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.
Please help metamoderate.
In that context, a strong reaction to a house covered with metal foil is most predictable. The only suprise is that the neighbors took the time to call the code enforcement people, instead of rounding up a lynch mob!
If your situation is any better, don't feel too smug. Housing costs are going up everywhere, and the same obsesssion with property values is spreading like a disease.
+2 Informative? Spilling cool-aide on some kids rare comic book has nothing to do with this situation. This would be more like taking your crappy comics and putting them next to his nice ones. Sure, it may not look nice, but the ACTUAL value and quality of his comics are not affected in any way. As soon as you take your nasty comics away his look nicer again. In order for your analogy to be correct, these foil people would have had to put the sheet metal on their neighbors house instead of their own. Frankly, I find the whole "they're making my house worth less" argument to be ineffective unless you are actively trying to sell your house. Thanks for playing.
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
------
In case you're wondering, this Web page is about my next-door neighbors. Since my neighbors have been driving me crazy and no amount of civilized reasoning and/or negotiations have worked - I have decided to dedicate a small corner of cyber-space to them.
My family and friends are constantly asking me to tell them the "latest" thing my neighbor has done so this page will save me from repeating myself. Besides, I thought it would be fun. Everything you read here is entirely true, that's what makes it so funny. Enjoy!
Background:
My neighbors moved into the house next to ours in October 1997. It's a brand new neighborhood with new houses. Everyone's house looks beautiful but that's about to change. The new neighbors seem like normal people until shortly after they move in (more later).
First, let me say that my redneck neighbor is not destitute or under-privileged. The guy owns a business, drives VERY nice new cars, he just doesn't care about his house. In order to protect the ignorant, we'll call him John Doe # 8 or JD8 for short.
October 1997 - They are here!
Well, it should have been a sign of things to come but my neighbors move into their brand new house. Inventory: 1 artificial Christmas tree, clothes, stereo system, TV, no furniture). The Christmas tree is nicely decorated (remember, it's October). We can tell what the tree looks like because the windows have no miniblinds so at night, you can see right into the house as you drive up. They have also decided to wrap some strands of Christmas lights around their front porch railing. I guess there's no electric outlet nearby because they never turn these lights on.
October 1997 - 1st Home beautification project
It's dark outside, I'm standing in front of my house and my neighbor does the following: He gets in his car, drives it up to the house on the other side of my house (this house is still being built). He backs his car up to the construction site and opens the trunk. He calmly proceeds to load up the trunk with bricks and 2x4s. Pretty clever, huh?
The following night, at around 9:00pm he decides it's time to build a mailbox post. It's very nice. He used the stolen 2x4s from the previous night. It looks like it's made out of 2x4s except he didn't steal any that were long enough so he nails a couple of them together to get the correct height - I mean, it has to look just right! The mailbox post is not very sturdy so he braces it with an additional 2x4 (at an angle). Click here to see the mailbox (no bracing 2x4 though).
He uses the bricks as edging for his flower beds. They look nice. Especially with the newly planted bamboo trees and the ten gallon fish tank (no fish, just water).
November 1997 - The fence!
I wake up to my wife telling me, "Hey, it looks like JD8 is working on a fence". Well I don't think much of it until she tells me that he's trying to build a fence around the entire house (front and back) and that the fence is going to be chain-link. We have some "covenant rules" that prohibit you from putting up a silver chain-link fence. Also, you cannot have any fence go past the back of your house. By now, I am freaking out. I can see the property value falling faster than his mailbox post.
Anyway, I get to work and at 9:01AM I call our builder. I explain the situation to him and he agrees to pay JD8 a visit before the concrete around the metal posts dries. Sure enough, I get home after work and the posts around the front of the house are laying on the street. Not exactly what I expected but at least they're out of the ground. Tra
Yeah because gods forbid anyone who owns property or a home should be allowed to do as they please with it just because they own it. They must be forced to conform with government approved standards. If they can't handle that then perhaps some time in Siberia will teach them a lesson. If they offend a second time then the neighbors should be allowed to lynch them.
But only neighbors who are party members in good standing.
Who are these assholes who insist on acting like individuals anyway? Fucking Americans.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Tinfoil on the inside of your house. After all, you don't want them to know you're on to them.
You know who I mean
R(k)
Or link to a non-slashdotted copy.
http://totfc.net/misc/rednecks/
Of course, I just waited for station identification and found out which AM station I was getting. It turned out that the 50KW AM station nearby away had one of their three towers collapse in the 1989 California earthquake. Until they replaced it, their output pattern was distorted. I was in a really strong lobe.
Adding a small bypass cap across the phone line helped the problem. But it took more filtering to completely cure it. I had to have the telco guys add some filtering on their side of the demark. And, years later, when I got DSL, that had to come out. Huge hassle. Three telco visits with test gear to get DSL working properly.
I'm sorry. They might be as crazy as SCO but private property is private property.
If the neighbors or the city really has something to gain with their house looking good they should either offer to pay for more attractive tin foil or offer to buy their house from them. Forcing a private property owner to decorate their home a certain way at gunpoint is not part of a free society.
On the downside, you live in Alaska.
Yep, I'm suffering here.
-cp-
On the other hand, try being the one _propagating_ the radio waves. Flight path restrictions exempted, amateur radio operators have a federal license to a 100 foot tower and 1000 watts output. Happy homeowners' meeting announcing that.
Google offers some pictures, small but neat. Excellent story :-)
Reading this signature is senseless so don't do it.
Yes, it's a community code. It means the community got together and a majority decided that they wanted to live in an area with certain rules. Nobody is forced to live in the community and that same community can act to modify those codes whenever they please.
This has nothing to do with race, national pride, or an unchecked autocracy. Therefore, the fascism label simply doesn't apply. I suggest you learn the meaning of a word before you start throwing it around.
That sounds just like New Hampshire...
Just without my own personal gold mine.
or a bonus $1,000 a year...
"Honey, we're moving to Alaska!"
*smack*
"Honey... recent developments seem to imply that we're staying in N.H."
I'm too lazy to enter a sig. Hey wait a second! You tricked me!
-20 below zero? Why, upstate new york gets colder than 20 degrees (above zero). I'm moving to alaska, it's warmer! ;)
Different strokes.
Some people would rather have good schools, a community, clean air, clean water, and a large amount of freedom.
Others think that having a selection of 20 good Chinese restaurants they can call at 2:00 am for take out is more important.
i will say that the people with the tin foil home are NUTS!
If they REALLY believe that they are getting bombarded then just use a grounded fine metal screen. The could put it on the inside of there home and Spackle and paint over it! Oh wait the paint will probably cause there hair to fall out and their nipples to invert. Chemicals you know.
They should not worry. I have informed my bosses at project Majestic to shift from microwaves to ELF so their shielding is now useless. Thank goodness HARP is on line now to deal with trouble makers like this.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.