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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lizjewel, post: 2416842, member: 13874&quot;]<b>Mea culpa</b>: I am guilty of having spread <i>a myth</i> about <i>property taxes on closets </i>in the U.S. In my defense, this was told to us--my husband and me--when buying our first home in the U.S., in an older suburb near Philadelphia. </p><p><br /></p><p>The house was a solid three-story Colonial, stone up to the second floor, wood the rest, with a slate roof. It was built in 1927, had been lived in by the same family since. We purchased the 5 BR with attic and cellar home from an estate in 1971. Oil-heated our first tank of oil cost US$65.00 to fill up in November 1971. In February 1972 it cost US$224.00 to fill. The <i>OPEC oil crisis</i> happened between the two fillups.</p><p><br /></p><p>The realtor who sold us the house explained why the house had so few closets. He maintained that the dreaded &quot;closet tax&quot; had prevented builders of even larger homes like this one from including larger closets. F ex, one small BR had a 12&quot; deep closet, 24&quot; wide, with 3 iron hooks on the wall. The Master BR had one closet that would have been too small for even a child&#039;s wardrobe today. The 3rd BR on the second floor also had a 24&quot; wide closet,&nbsp; a little deeper.&nbsp; We used the two third-floor BRs as closet and storage space for stuff we didn&#039;t want to look at every day. There was also a roomy attic used for storage. </p><p><br /></p><p>There is info here and elsewhere about the closet tax myth:</p><p><font size="5"><b><a href="https://historymyths.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/myth-1-houses-didnt-have-closets-in-the-colonial-era-because-people-wanted-to-avoid-paying-the-closet-tax/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://historymyths.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/myth-1-houses-didnt-have-closets-in-the-colonial-era-because-people-wanted-to-avoid-paying-the-closet-tax/" rel="nofollow">Revisited Myth #1: Houses didn’t have closets in the colonial era because people wanted to avoid paying the closet tax.</a></b></font>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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