Ah, Wilderness! Mountain Man vs. the Building Inspector

Short form: a “mountain man” who lives on his own 500-acre plot of North Carolina mountain property, has had the entire state government land on him due to “building code violations. Such as:

lumber that isn’t “grade-marked,” meaning it doesn’t specify the mill where it was produced.

But…

The lumber’s not stamped with a grade because he produced it himself at his own sawmill, from trees felled nearby, he says.

The whole point of the guys property is to live primitive. But the nanny state just can’t allow that sort of thing.Heck, he might even have mugs of more than 16 ounces! The Horror!

To me the system should be simple: If someone owns their own property and uses it for their own private use, then building code inspectors need not apply. If someone owns property for public use, for *conventional* purposes such as grocery stores or book stores or churches or brothels or whatever, then the building code inspectors should do their job. If someone owns private property for public use, but it is *unconventional,* such as a mountain-man retreat or a rocket test site, then the building code inspectors should be able to inspect, write a report, and hang their findings on the front gate with a “caveat emptor” for the public.