Rainwater harvesting in the 1960's

The rainwater falls from the gutters into the cistern below.

It couldn't get more basic. Rainwater falls into a bucket for use here and there.

As fate would have it, my 92 year old neighbor, Olga, has been harvesting rainwater since she and her husband built their house in 1961. She has never been connected to the county water supply. I found this out the other day when she told me how they had been demanding that she hook up because it was the law. She lives alone now and has relied on her cistern for almost 50 years. She uses this water for everything in her house except drinking water. It is very expensive to run water lines from the road, as our properties are set back a few hundred feet. Not only could she not afford this but why should she have to. She was told that if she refused she would have to pay the water board $27 a month to continue to receive no service. I wonder what we'll have to go through when we build a 600 sq ft guest house completely off the grid? This is of course, part of my 10 year plan. In 10 years, I don't think we'll have a problem because the water supply will have already been depleted.