Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

EREREREEERRHEHREH

Some people my know I've had issues with people in the neighborhood reporting to code enforcement on me in the past. Now I had through it was simply people who would walk the park and were able to see over to the corner of my property and after I put in the line of bamboo, I didn't get a visit this past spring so I thought I was all sorted.

Apparently not. I'm venting here, ok? The other day code enforcement show up. At least this time she was able to give me a copy of the e-mail complaint. Here it is complete with typos and mistaken information.
Note, they sent this report in on 11, Dec. 2011 (but it seems their observations of the place are months old.)



Sigh,
First I don't believe there is a 7225 on Scott ave, one neighbor is 7229 and the other side is 7199.
2-as if it is my fault the street is unmaintained, so why are you driving down it if you live two streets over and two streets down on one of the paved streets and have no need to be driving on the unmaintained ones kicking up dust for our houses.
3-WOW, this person doesn't do things the way I think they should so you need to go searching their place and look for something you can charge them with.
4-I don't have any rooster, but a few months ago, some one did drop one off in my yard that I then had to deal with getting rid of!!!!!!! Idiot should have reported me immediately if they wanted me caught with a rooster.
5-the "over sized green hot water tank" is not a hot water tank, it is a water tank that I painted green because it was ugly shedding fiberglass and I wanted to collect rain water in it.
6-The white pipes circulating the "entire" front yard are really only on one side of the front yard and in the side yard. Personally I like my yard art but I'm sure this person complains about all the decorations and veggie gardens in the neighborhood.
7-I have to assume the Huge white propeller fans are my rain water catchment devices (RainSaucers.)
8-The vines growing on them (the propeller fans) is my tip off as to when they made their observations since I pulled the vines down in early October.
9-Also the huge pile of mulch in the front yard, what you've never seen a huge pile of mulch? It gets delivered and it usually takes more than an hour to spread the stuff around!!!! Oh, but this person probably hires a boy to buy bagged mulch to spread around their ornamental chemically treated plants after they rake up and bag all the leaves to send to the landfill so no, they probably never see a pile of mulch only the pile of bags.


So there is the picture before I was out of town for a week and came home to fine the vines growing up onto the "propeller fans" and a rooster dropped off at my place.

Very rude of them to drop off some ones pet and I call him a pet cause he was very friendly and easy to handle.

I believe we stripped the vines down October 9th and I have pictures from October 11 and 12 showing the area cleared of vine while I was hooking up the Zipgrow towers.



So now code enforcement has showed up and told me that I can't have my worm bins because "outdoor storage" is not allowed. (So now I have to try to hide them somewhere.)
And I will probably have to get rid of the chickens and ducks even though there is not nuisance and all the immediate neighbors think they are great.
And the code enforcement officer actually thought the rain water tank and collectors was fine and that the towers growing the food and veggies and kale was fine but she was still going to send the pictures up to her supervisor to let them make the call about if I was allowed to do that.

So these people are allowed to dictate what I can do on my property even through it isn't hurting anyone else (heck it's actually protecting the environment and water supply and food supply) yet they are allowed to pollute my water with their lawn chemicals and mowing and over watering. They are allowed to pollute my air with running the mowers and weed whackers and leaf blowers. And make noise with those things that I can hear at my house. Yet I am some how hurting their enjoyment of their property by doing things that they would never even know about without driving 4 blocks to look?

Come on people, my being the "crazy lady" in the neighborhood is not the cause of the real estate crisis in the country!!!!!!! I am not changing your real estate values one stinking bit.

SIGH

That bites. Can you put a fence around the entire property so the nosy neighbors stop bitching?

I like the ducks, they have lots of personality!

OMFG, that is unbelievable.
I had to read it twice to get my head around it.
Just unreal, so glad I live where I do.
Hope you manage to sort it/hide it, whatever you need to do.
Why do bored people have to interfere with everyone else?
Bah - Which means "crazy" in Thai.

BAH is right DuiNui. And it isn't TC that's crazy.

No way I'd get rid of my chickens without a fight. There better be some WRITTEN rules already established before they try to dictate what you can and cannot have on your own property. Have you checked to see if any exist?

Maybe you can get the neighbors on your side and have them write emails stating how much they like your way of doing things, like the sound of chickens and ducks, like the idea of someone growing their own produce on a small plot of land, like the idea of someone harvesting rainwater, etc...

Don't give anything up without a fight. The fight doesn't have to be dirty... Deliver a basket with some fresh produce to the woman.

i hopes it all works out for yor you
"If you were minding your own business… you wouldn’t be minding mine" ~ Hank Williams

Great idea, I like your style.

And btw TC, I love your yard art, your work is nothing short of inspirational, it's fab.
As Mr Bill says, don't give up without a fight (I know you won't) - surely the fact you are (as you say) protecting and nurturing your environment should count for something.

Again, good luck in sorting it.

Dui.

Thanks all for the good wishes.

How long are the codes? Do you have a copy that you can check against the things in the yard? In our area I think we are limited to two chickens, and only hens, but I remember when we signed for our lot that no farm animals were allowed.

Oooh man. I hear you TC! We bought our first house recently and were SHOCKED by the rules. No animals of any kind except for a short list of animals (no chickens, goats or ducks) and even those can only be kept as pets, not to be eaten. You can keep fish as long as you don't sell them and they stay in the backyard. You can raise edible plants, but only in the backyard. It seems that enough city dwellers have a disgust and disdain for self-sufficiency that it's cramping my style! What's wrong with our living spaces reflecting a little of our personality? I don't want my kids to be drones that go work for The Man 9-5 in front of a computer (like me), then come home to a completely sterile, lifeless environment. Then we tell them to be creative and think critically! Man, I just realize there's a soapbox under me here.

be careful how you fight it. I am out 4-5k in legal fees and 4-5k in repair costs on the civil case so far plus they ran around testing a bunch of stuff with those not very accurate field drug tests and I am out 16k in legal fees and bond on that plus I am in the news for running a drug lab with almost 200 grams of alleged morphine. The news people don't bother to print retractions after the stuff comes back from a real lab showing its not drugs.

the good news is there might be a civil case against the city for 3-6 million. still not worth the headache.

Wow, I would definitely check the city laws regarding this and the stipulations on your house. Like kthignight24 I was shocked at what makes it into the house title information. Mostly by "well intentioned" people trying to protect themselves by dictating how we should live our lives. Without going into details, our neighborhood rules (which were written in the 50's and were attached to the sale of the land by the original owner) prohibit certain races from owning a home in the neighborhood - they could still work in the neighborhood as domestics (like they'd want to ). Obviously in todays world these are not enforceable but it still makes you think.

I believe gardens are usually allowed which may be in your favor and maybe why they didn't ding you for some of the other structures.

I like Dave's idea of the fence.

On a less serious note, perhaps you should dig a chicken and duck pit to hide them in the front yard. With a little luck the nosy busybody will fall in and the chickens will finish the job

Pancakes: Your case sounds like a PITA and though I'm not a lawyer the newspaper sounds like it owes you something as well.

sorry to hear TC..... people like that should have a full dump truck of cow or hours manure dumped in there front lawn and then call code enforcement LOL


but I can say, I really really want some of those white propellers LOL

JT

TC I cant believe people are that narrow minded and petty, I hope the fleas of a thousand camels infest their arm pits. Hope it works out for you.

Oh I've tried and tried sifting through the County codes, problem is they are written to be very specifically ambiguous.

I mean if I read the part that says Poultry raising or keeping/Poultry & Eggs as meaning I can't have them, well then I can't grow vegetables or melons either, nor citrus fruits, nor have any ornamental plants or any crops. But when I asked code enforcement year ago about that part of it, they said "aw no that is only if you are raising the crops or vegetables commercially, like running a truck farm or bringing in grove labor to pick your citrus, it's fine to grow it for yourself." So I took the same track with the chickens, if you are only growing them for eggs for personal consumption then as long as you keep them in a clean manner and make sure they are not a nuisance to the neighbors then there should be no problem.

Sigh unfortunately we have people who are too interested in making sure everyone else is kept down.

Those white propeller fans are for sale. However I am recommending a new mounting method for them since up high like that it's hard to keep them from getting all catty whompus so I'll be adding buckets to help support them better.

I think I need to paint signs on the water tank
"RAIN
WATER
TANK"

Then maybe on the buckets
Rain, Water, Collectors

Any votes on the colors I should paint them?
(Assuming of course I'm allowed to keep them, but since a lady down the road from me has bottles and bowling balls mounted on 10 foot rebar stakes around her yard, I don't think the rain saucers are any worse, at least they have a secondary purpose as well as being "ART")

Have you asked the drunk bowler lady down the road if she has had any complaints on her yard art?

Maybe the nosy neighbor is jealous because she can't grow anything.

Next time you get a load of manure/mulch delivered, put some in a wicking bed out front and grow some tall flowers that will hide the yard but still let sunlight in.