18 verified laws filed under Property & Housing, each checked against the statute and sourced.
The claim that it is illegal to keep a donkey in a bathtub in Georgia is a fabricated legal myth with no basis in any Georgia statute, ordinance, or regulation. No equivalent law has been found in any other U.S. state either.
Oshawa's City Trees By-law (78-2008) makes it illegal to climb, damage, or interfere with trees on City-owned public land. The widely-shared claim that climbing ANY tree in Oshawa is illegal is an exaggeration — the restriction only applies to municipally-owned trees.
There is no federal law making dumpster diving illegal in the United States. The 1988 Supreme Court ruling in California v. Greenwood actually established that discarded trash in public spaces has no privacy protection — but local ordinances in certain cities and counties can and do restrict the practice.
The claim that collecting or storing rainwater is illegal in Australia is completely false. In reality, rainwater harvesting is legal across all Australian states and territories, actively encouraged by federal and state governments, and even mandatory for new homes in South Australia.
Colorado's notorious Prior Appropriation doctrine once made almost all rainwater collection illegal without a water rights permit. Since 2016, most residents can collect up to 110 gallons in two rain barrels — no permit required — but large-scale collection without authorization remains prohibited.
Despite widespread belief, there is no federal or blanket state law banning rainwater collection in the United States. While all 50 states permit it, a handful — most notably Colorado and Utah — do impose strict volume limits and other conditions rooted in century-old water rights doctrines.
It is NOT federally illegal to collect rainwater in the United States — there is no national ban. However, some Western states, particularly Colorado and Utah, impose strict volume caps rooted in 19th-century water rights law, giving the claim a kernel of truth that gets wildly overstated online.
The claim that Australia has a national law requiring all swimming pools to employ a certified lifeguard during operating hours — with fines over AUD $10,000 for violations — is false. No such federal statute exists; pool safety law in Australia is state-based and primarily covers fencing and barriers, not mandatory lifeguard staffing.
The claim that photographing someone's house in Western Australia without written owner consent is illegal has no basis in law. No such statute exists at the state or federal level in Australia.
Many Dutch municipalities include a ban on sleeping in public spaces in their General Local Ordinance (APV), under which homeless individuals can be — and regularly have been — fined. However, a growing number of cities are repealing or suspending enforcement of these provisions amid fierce public debate and legal challenges.
Hungarian building codes do require that rooms intended for prolonged human occupancy have direct natural lighting with a specific glazing-to-floor-area ratio. However, this is a construction standard enforced at the design and building stage — not a landlord-specific rental obligation carrying direct fines against landlords for existing tenancies.
The claim that Tunisia bans importing or selling blue-colored clothing due to cultural protection laws is entirely false. No such national law exists. The confusion likely stems from a genuine 1915 heritage decree protecting the iconic blue-and-white architecture of the village of Sidi Bou Saïd — a law about paint on buildings, not clothes on bodies.