Bodhi- Sorry this has happened to you and hope it gets resolved soon. At least you don't live in a condo where you can get busted for having a Hyena on your door as part of your Festivus decorations, this happened to me and I told the old lady who complained the Hyena was actually smiling at her...some people!

don't feel bad, there is a woman in my area that regularly rats out her neighbors because they don't get their trash cans up IMMEDIATELY after the trash truck picks up the trash (because they are WORKING trying to make a living and don't get home until after 5:00 PM). she calls the city 6 - 7 times a day to rat out her neighbor. neighbor gets home and finds her answering machine filled with messages from the city telling her to pick up her trash cans. bad trash cans, bad bad bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r12kp3g9Hs
:D:D:D:D




We used to have a neighbor that called out lots of things but that stopped when we started mowing her lawn and cleaning her snow in the winter:cool: Overall though we've gone so far as pulling an engine from a W124 on a bright sunny Sunday and not been bothered. Since we have almost every tool known to man the neighbors would much rather be nice to us then not be able to call us when something breaks....

I think its quite the advantage living in New England, there are counties but they are just geographical designations that don't have any authority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_england_town

Well, I'm the private type, so if the inspector asked to see the inside of my house, I'd tell him that he could see it, on the condition the he produced a valid warrant sign ed by a justice of the peace, and a signed and sworn affidavit from the person complaining, so that when nothing is found, you can sue the pants off the one that complained.... Without that, the inspector will have to break the door down, at which point, you'll be more than glad to defend your property.....
A friend of mine did that in Canada to a national police officer... That officer hasn't come back since.... That was over some neighbor calling to complain that he had an illegal rottweiler. He didn't have a rottie, he had a fila.... Much nastier, but not banned...

^^^ Why would he want to pick a fight with the county? For one thing, they hold all the cards in this situation.

If the complaint is over unmowed grass, then maybe the inspector will show up, see the grass has been mowed, and then go away.

If such is the case, then yes, he'll see the grass mowed and leave. But, if he's demanding to see inside the house and garage, that's a different story. I'd tell him to pound sand, and no, they only hold the cards you give them.... He would have to came back with a warrant signed by a justice of the peace, along with the signed and sworn affidavit of the person accusing you. Isn't one of the fundamental rights of the US constitution to be able to face your accuser?? If it no longer is your right, then you have lost a major right that your founding fathers spilled their blood for....

So even if the garage door is closed 95% of the year they can fine you if you were to open it while they are there?

Should he answer the door armed or unarmed?

Try Plan B: Mow the lawn; clean up the house if it needs cleaning; remove potential fire hazards if any and let the inspector in. No reason to turn this into a junior version of Waco.

code violations rarely go inside, it is mostly things like grass condition, parked or junk cars, signage etc that the county has deemed detrimental to property value. I got cited for some junk trucks in my backyard because my renter at the time decided to cut up 50 or so skids for firewood, in the front yard. I had pictures sent to me of the skids in the yard in many stages of disassembly along with shots over the fence of my old trucks in the rear of the yard. Code enforcement does not grand father in existing conditions like my trucks so I was told to remove the skids and the cars in 10 days or face a $100/car/day fine. I had to take vacation to go to Oh and sell my old trucks and bronco. I could have kept them if I wanted to insure and license them. I know exactly who it was but in the end I cant blame them but I blame my renter for the skid fiasco.

I agree this sucks. It is so much easier to just knock on your neighbor's door and talk to them. If nothing else, it puts you in a much better position if you are forced to involve your city/regional government later. You can tell them that you tried to work it out on your own but the homeowner wasn't responsive.

Our city and county expressly prohibits anonymous complaints. If you want to complain about a neighbor you must fully identify yourself before the city will send a bylaw inspector. One of my neighbors did a huge backyard pool reno last summer that left the pool area inadequately protected. The 70 feet of shared property line we have is immediately adjacent to his pool, and I have a three year old that I don't want drowning in his pool. I looked into the process just so I knew what I'd have to do, but first I knocked on his door and shared my concerns and asked him to rectify them. He had the whole thing fixed properly in a matter of days.

Its amazing what you receive in return if you treat most people with a degree of respect. It is a shame your neighbor didn't offer that respect to you.

It is there to make sure that your mess doesn't affect my resale value.

What happens if I do that and it affects your property during resale time? Will you be as generous then when you have to take a beating because the neighbors' houses look like garbage although you spent big bucks to make yours look good? I chased away the buyers on my neighbor's property during his sale time and made it difficult for him to get his price. Every day that goes by is a day he was losing money. Nobody to stop me at the time because there was no HOA. Just me and him and as long as I didn't break the law, there was nothing he could do. I made the yard look bad and I know there was at least one buyer that I scared off. She didn't like it that a neighbor would work it so that it was legal but unethical and she decided to withdraw her offer or not put it in.

And having heard that from you, he would go home, stymied and sad, curl up in a ball and cry, right? I know a shop that did that and the fire inspector wrote up everything he could find and they had to close the business. Sure, I can't bang down your door without a warrant but you bet that if I want to find fault with you, I can.

Bodhi, I think this is a neighbor that doesn't like you for one reason or another and this was one case where he had some excuse to get you into trouble. My neighbor called the cops on me for having my dogs poop in his yard. When the cops came, even they admitted that they knew it was bogus from looking at the bag of picked up dog poop. It was because he didn't like me running my dogs around in MY yard unleashed. I called my lawyer to make sure that the easement between the sidewalk and road was public access. Lawyer said it was as long as I did not block his egress and ingress. I bought a bright neon pink leash and walked my dogs to the easement areas around his driveway and let the dogs pee there to kill large swaths of grass. Did that every morning at 0715 when he left the house and even showed him the leash. Must have made his day. His luck went downhill from there. Seems like all kinds of issues happened to his yard. Even his kid's sandbox was not unaffected.

May I ask what, if anything, had you done to introduce yourself when you moved in . . . perhaps becoming more "neighborly" as well?