Don called the county inspector man last night. What a turnaround! After we got the ticket, as I told Danielle, the guy practically hung up on Don, he was so uninterested in giving us any information whatsoever. That was after we managed to get hold of him in the first place after calling for three days -- he told Don to stop "calling him all the time"! Anyway. This time, he answered right away, and was positively garrulous.
So apparently, somebody originally called him and said we weren't mowing our lawn. Fair enough -- we weren't, because we hadn't gotten to it yet. He gave us the ticket, we mowed the lawn, done. Except then our wonderful neighbor -- whichever one it is -- called him back, and said "Oh, we don't like their ivy, either." So, grumbling, he came back out, took a look around, and left his card yesterday. Unlike the neighbors, he realized the obvious -- that we're doing some massive renovation, and doing the best we can. Last weekend we sprayed the jungle at the back, as well as the side of the driveway and a couple of other bad places, with a broadleaf vine killer, which should take care of a lot of the stuff. It takes two to six weeks to kill things, but the vines on the shed are definitely wilting, and we're going to spray again this weekend. Don told the man all of this, and he said he sort of figured that was the case, and since it was pretty obvious what we were doing the county is perfectly happy to work with us. And he is apparently not particularly pleased with our petty neighbors, either. He definitely seems to agree with us that if they had a problem, they should have said something to us first -- the county doesn't enforce any of those damn codes unless somebody complains, and he's got other, more pressing work to do.
So there.
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8 comments:
Well that doesn't sound too bad :) Much better than some sort of building code issue!
Too bad about the neighbor though - we've been really lucky with ours, they're just glad that we are improving the neighborhood by fixing the house up. They are almost all seniors, and really into gardening, so I feel a little bad, but the house was in rough shape and they can tell we are working hard. Hopefully you're neighbor will back off now!
sandy
Which neighbor do you think it is? Maybe some plant killer could accidently drift over onto their property - perhaps on some lovely shrubbery. And is there a law about vines?
We have no idea which neighbor it is. And yes, there is a law about being overgrown.
Your neighbors should totally lay off.. renovators like us ADD value to the neighborhood. Its so spiteful to call the inspector on you. I mean really, Ivy is so inoffensive!
Ariana -- Well, to be fair, what they are probably complaining about is the back of the backyard, where the ivy has combined with other weeds to turn into a massive jungle which has grown significantly taller than I am. But still, it's not like we're not dealing with it, and it's not going onto anyone else's property.
Perhaps I'm missing the obvious, but did you have to pay the ticket after that whole mess?
Alex -- Nope. We mowed the lawn before the due date and called him out to reinspect (that was the three days of calling), and we were in the clear.
Yeah, I guess, but STILL they couldn't have talked to you first!
BTW, I hope you don't mind but I tagged you on my blog. See here for details:
http://www.becoming-home.com/2007/06/22/ive-been-tagged/
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