On 12/3/2011 10:10 AM, worker bee wrote:
On Sat, 03 Dec 2011 07:32:03 -0500, Norminn wrote:
his son took one of his gas cans and put it inside the condo! The FD
enforced .. very nicely .. using the right kind of can, away from the
structure.

I understand. Out here, everyone does 'something' against code.

For example, you're not supposed to grade more than a certain number of
cubic yards of soil - but of course, nobody can even see you with a
bulldozer, so people grade all the time.

Every once in a while a neighbor complains and they put a stop to it and
stop them from touching the land for a certain number of years.

We had seawall repairs done at our condo..about $35k?..and shortly later
the newer condo next door had a major pipe burst which flowed onto our
property and eroded a lot of soil from behind the seawall. I enjoyed
nagging the city from time to time because some of the city building
dept. were real a--holes. I sent off an email to the bld. dept, asking
whether the city had signed off on the grading of the neighbor's lot
during construction. The neighbor had a huge paved lot and all of their
downspouts emptied onto that...curb around their lot had a channel that
let all that water go onto our property, which was a huge amount during
summer t-storms. I'd paid attention to what was going on, and had
researched a number of serious problems our condo. When the city
got my email, and nice engineer and a student intern came out; engineer
was impressed with what I knew and understood about the problems.
Shortly later, the neighbor had some minor adjustments done, including a
culvert that dumped their water into the channel, rather than onto our
property. Didn't stop the neighbors in that condo from letting their
dogs poop in our yard...I have been really impressed by the gall some
people show by walking their dog into our property to poop; strangers
with no axe to grind )

Likewise with cutting trees. Every single tree over a given diameter is a
protected tree. You're supposed to apply for a permit to cut, even
diseased or fallen trees (although the permit will be granted for sure
for those).

If a neighbor complains, the inspector will come out and cite you for
cutting down your own tree!

Similarly, there are quite a few 'unapproved auxiliary buildings' out
here that have electricity or which are greater than 120 square feet.
These buildings just go up without anyone but your one or two neighbors
noticing the hammering and sawing noises. Since it's a scenic zoned area,
you have to be away from the road by quite a distance (I don't remember
how many hundreds of feet but someone once told me what it was and I was
shocked at how far from the road it must be to be legal.)

Most of these well-lit too-close-to-the-road illegal sheds are completely
ignored - but if someone calls the inspector out on you, you have to take
it down.

There's even a guy whose pool layed unfinished for five years which I was
told by a neighbor was because he tried to build it without getting it
inspected.

Even the lines to 'my' built-in gas-fired barbeque I was told wasn't to
code when the propane guy first inspected the house to fill up my new
1,000 gallon tank that I added after putting in a concrete pad.
Apparently the previous owner put in a rather large pool shower&
equipment room and barbeque pad without getting permitted and nobody
complained yet.

That was a fairly serious issue in FL, with all the foreclosures and
whatever nasty disease the mosquitoes were spreading at the time.

Another neighbor had called code enf. about attic rats

Wow. I didn't know rats were a code violation. I have those big rat traps
all over the basement! I get a rat a week on average and keep a jar of
peanut butter in the garage just to bait the traps.

In FL, rats are about like termites...don't wonder IF you'll have them,
only WHEN. It is basic practice to keep trees away from structures.
Rats chew up wiring, holes in structure, etc.. Elderly folks should not
be forced to live with rats because they have rats for neighbors )

We do have vector control guys out here. There are three types.

One does mosquitoes. One does rodents& snakes. The third does bigger
stuff like the mountain lions and deer and coyotes.

When the neighbor was foreclosed on, he put mosquitoe fish in their green
pool and koi pond to eat the buggers and put up a big sign "DO NOT REMOVE
THESE FISH" right next to the pool - so either the vector control
helicoptor noticed the green pool or someone must have asked them to look
at the pool.

As for the rodent inspector, I guess he would be the one to suggest there
are rats, but, there are quite a few mice, moles or groundhogs (I never
can tell which they are), rabbits, and rats out here that I wonder what
you can possibly do that's illegal to attract them. Our garbage goes out
weekly in three very large bins - blue for recycling, green for
landscaping,& gray for trash (which is almost always empty as I can't
imagine what goes in that bin other than food-soiled items not worth
cleaning for reclying and not worth putting in the compost pile).

Likewise for the mountain lion guy. There's not really much he can do
except tell you to fence your lifestock with a tall fence that has an
overhang to protect the top. But I don't have livestock so I don't know
what reason someone would call code enforcement on me for that. Out here,
you can't shoot a mountain lion unless it's threatening you or your
property anyway. We actually see them probably once every few years but
we hear about them in the news about once every few months overall.

So, I guess I'm wholeheartedly agreeing with you.

We live in glass houses. There must be a code violation or two on almost
every property out here, especially since I don't even KNOW all the codes
(for example, I can't imagine what rat codes I might be violating just by
setting the numerous traps).