Heck, I remember when I was living in Silicon Valley a guy got a $500 ticket for
having a gallon of muriatic acid in his garage. Kicker was he bought it from a
store about two blocks from his house, and every single house in his area had a
pool and stored pool chemicals including - you guessed it - muriatic. Guilty.

It was in the San Jose Mercury News back about 1994. Sheesh.

GWE

Yeah, we had a somewhat celebrated case in the St. Louis area where a
lady got served with a court order for TEACHING PIANO in her home!
I think she finally got a sympathetic judge to rule that what she was
doing was not a "commercial enterprise" under the local zoning rules,
but she was out of business for about a year. The problem was that
parents were dropping off and picking up kids at her house!

So, I suppose, you could probably be served with a court order to
cease and desist having friends visit you or your kids at your own
house, if your neighbors are crazy enough.

And, of course, there was the really celebrated case where the
Chicago school teacher couple were forced to rent an office, because
they were using TYPEWRITERS in their own home to prepare lesson
plans and tests for their classes in their home. This was back in
the late 70's or early 80's.

The bottom line is the rules are interpreted by "those in authority",
and they can have incredibly wide interpretation of the meaning of the
ordinances, until a court hopefully brings them back to reality.

Jon