I recently learned something many of you might not know yet. Neighborhood Code, historically understaffed, has been a "respond to complaints only" organization, which led to a certain amount of unfairness in enforcement. You could have had the worst-looking house in town and not get cited, but somebody else with only minor problems could have been written up. It all depended on who got ratted out by neighbors, which tended to make Code Enforcement a potent weapon in long-running feuds.
Now, I understand, NC officers are also expected to write up code violations on their own intiative, with a current goal of at least one of those citations a day each. The way I know it is that it was told to be by an officer who was at my house explaining why I had been written up for some spots of peeling paint that I have to have scraped and repainted. She had been in the neighborhood to inspect progress on a house that had been ratted out, and I was the lucky one whose house also caught her attention.
On the one hand, I'm glad that, after more than 20 years in this house, I don't suddenly have a neighbor mad enough at me to start using the city to make his point. On the other hand, this will cost me money I wasn't ready to spend yet. I live in an old house that always needs things done. So now I'll have to do one thing when somebody else wants it done, instead of in the order I wanted to do it. I had the house completely repainted four years ago and was budgeting to have it done again in three or four more. Guess replastering the bedroom ceiling will have to be postponed temporarily.
Excuse me now. I have to go move the garbage can.
