Tech problems abound in this coots house lately. Hopefully most are solved. Today I am not going into the tech world however. Today I am more than slightly pissed off about a couple of things that I received in the good old US Mail today.
This is not about my mail carrier or anything like that. Don’t shoot the messenger and cliches like that, but it is only about 30 yards from my desk to the mailbox….
Anyway, I get 2 letters in the mail today that just got me fired up. The first was from our new dentist. Some quick background, our old dentist just retired and he was of the old school that still used handwritten bills. He didn’t charge very much and was fair about getting paid. But he retired. NOw we have this new guy. Not a bad dentist but after this letter today I have serious misgivings about his office staff. That is where I should be hiring out, to fix the bungling load of BS that some people let their office get into.
But I digress. This letter I got today, January 20, 2011, was a bill for some dental work that both my wife and I had done back on December 10th. Here comes this bill, today, after the insurance payments have gone to the office, and it says we are 30 days past due! Now, I asked the specific question back in December, “Do we need to make any payment today?” to which I was told, “No, it goes to the insurance first and then we bill you.” Pretty standard. But now, the first bill I get is already past due?????
I am confused and of course I didn’t get the mail until after the office was closed. Friday though….. I think I may just send them a check that has been passed though my dog. Onto the next thing from the mail bag.
The city I live in has no crime. No drug problems, no speeders, nothing. At least that is my perception today as I opened up yet another warning from the Code Enforcement division of our fair city. These things are getting ridiculous. I did see the Code Enforcement truck going up the street yet again yesterday. I think I had 3 violations last year, I guess I am lucky that I haven’t gotten fined.
Growing up I had no idea that these Nazi’s were around. I had no idea that the city had codes that needed so rigorous enforcing. I now know that there is such a thing. We moved into this house 4 1/2 years ago. It was the eyesore of the neighborhood at that time. No grass, dying trees, freaking garbage everywhere. So we moved in and cleaned and cleaned. The neighbors thanked us repeatedly for getting rid of the stink.
We found piles of garbage in the flowerbed just off of the front porch where it had just been dumped. Anyway, it was not quite a year later when my daughter got sick and was in the hospital the first time. The year went by and the next summer we got the first warning from the city about not having landscaping.
Much arguing later and money for sod borrowed from my Dad, it was all hunky dory. Jump to last year. You can park on gravel here if it is something like 3 feet deep and colored just the right shade of Aryan. My gravel is not very deep and has some weeds. Trailers can’t park there. Fine I’ll move it to the backyard. I got a ticket for parking my car on the street the wrong way. I didn’t know that was a problem. Apparently the city needed my $25 worse than I did.
This time I got a nice printed letter that at first glance, seemed to be an actual ticket. It was just marked warning however. And, get this it was for parking, on the gravel again but the gravel was covered with snow, how did they know? My issue with this, I can’t park on the snow, I can’t park in the street because of an ordinance about snow plows (which don’t bother to come until way to late as it is), I guess I need to figure out how to levitate my second car.
This letter also dinged me for not having ALL of the snow removed from the sidewalk within 24 hours. Now, I know this is an actual law but the only snow that I knew of on the sidewalk was of the kind that had been shoveled but hadn’t melted because the temperature never topped 25 degrees. Like I said, there is no crime in our fair city and the city needs revenue. Code enforcement must be the way to go.
I have stories from friends about these same people but I would like to hear from you guys. Have you had experience dealing with the city over “code enforcement”? The comments are open below, share your story!
-Justin
Justin,
I feel your pain. Times are tough all over. Here in my community (unincorporated) we don’t have your kind or problems but we do have others. We have the homeowners association. Did you know that it is illegal for me to have a window box sitting on a window ledges that was clearly designed for nothing else? $1,000 fine if I persist in being the eyesore of the neighborhood. Then, of course, I have no right to plant cheerful spring bulbs in my front yard either or have a potted plant at the entrance to my front courtyard. The coup de gras (or however you say it is when they invited the California Highway Patrol to cruise our gated streets for traffic violations. They chased my 25 year old so into our driveway when he forgot to fasten his seat belt after picking up the mail. $100 find. You got to feel for those government folks. It must be hard.
And they wonder why we get tired of the government. When we bought our house we rejected several that were in homeowners associations for just those types of things. I would never be able to afford the fines for flying my pirate flag.
Have you read about the people who get nailed by their HOA’s for flying an AMERICAN flag??? That is a heinous act of anti-Americanism. I will have to look up some links but there are several instances.
Can’t wait to heard what Bob has to say on this subject; no doubt an ear full. Sad but true…ordinance enforcement has really become a by-word for revenue generation. Instead of government taxing your butt to death; they’re gonna enforce it to death. We are Doomed.
Ralph…li’l ol’ me? You think this might set my calm, non-confrontational self off?
Well…yer right, but…
Right now is when I wish COC had video comments enabled it’ll take a while to type this one up…it’s a story about a lyin’ county code enforcement jackass, provably false testimony in court, provably false statements in a sworn affidavit, an open admittance of perjury in court, a lawsuit of 8 million dollars against various county officials including the sheriff and district attorney…and a fired code enforcement officer.
And no negatives for me. Almost.
Th whole thing later…either in another comment, Monday’s post, or in the political section of JuicyMaters.com.
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click that little box thingy for a video comment
Justin,
Stop indulging Bob. He is hard enough to take now!
Also Justin, don’t forget that the Coots have already spoken about Cash Cow Cops and we don’t like them.
http://cantankerousoldcoots.com/down-with-cash-cow-cops/
Oh I know about those cash cow cops…a pain all over the country. And as for Bob, video comments are kind of cool, maybe it will help our community to actually get involved. Maybe I can leave his video and put my own audio like mystery science theater. That could be very entertaining.
Justin,
I can see you now as the naively cheerful Mike to Bob as the evil professor (Where can we find him those bilious green glasses?) or do you prefer to be Joel?
This may be apocryphal… But its still a good story…
San Fran cut street cleaning schedules to save money. Good right?
Not so much.
Net loss of revenue from parking violations during street cleaning hours.
Dave….loved that one. Although all bureaucrats are constantly looking to cover their asses; every one of their decisions seems to find a way to come around and bite ’em there anyway.
Gouge, gouge, gouge. Everyone is out too gouge… I guess it could be worse… we could be getting tickets for living in the streets… now that’s rough…