I’ve got to vent and need your opinion

We’ve been working on our house here in town and I’ve gotten a few notices from the city that I need to, in thier opinion to clean my yard up. My yard isn’t cluttered and is about like everyone elses yard in these 15 to 20 sq. blocks, thier all about the same.

This all started a few years ago with someone complaining about the things we have and so the city inspector came out and took pictures without notifying us and came onto our property without notice, they just walked where they wanted. One of the first things I had to get rid of was an old steel round top refrigerator that an old guy gave me and that I had made into a smoker, these old refridgerators are the ones everyone trys to find because they work so well as smokers. Thier insulated and have the racks already in them, they make good smokers. Thier reasoning is , no old appliances in anyones yard. We’ve got a couple riding lawn mowers behind my garage that have tarps over them plus a trailer there that came from an old camper and all are on hard surfaces, its not thier just sitting there rusting away. One is a big Ariens and I’m going to put a bucket on the front of it and the other is my Cub Cadet that is a duplicate for parts for my other one that has my rear tine tiller setup on it, thier both 1450’s and in good shape. My garage is where I’ve been storing some of my materials for the house and so that limits space so I can’t put them in there. The city here wants me to store my scaffolding, 8 frames and 6 picks or walking planks, aluminum and thier expensive, all these pieces in the garage, this is a single stall garage and there isn’t any room because of my lathe and other building materials for the house plus a few engine blocks and yard tools.

So My wife and myself now have to take our greenhouse down thats built along side the garage just so I can store my scaffolding and the riding lawn mowers there that are behind my garage and tarped from the publics eye now.

I’ve been talking to my friend hillbilly Dave up by Elkader and hes been trying to get me to move up there where people leave eachother alone for years. So we’ve decided when were done with remodeling the house here and the garage were going to sell the house and move up there, in gods country, I wish I could say the same for around here but it sure doesn’t seem like it. We’ve been wanting to move up there anyway so in a short while, 6 months at the most were going to move and have been house shopping online and have found a few that are within our price range or we’ll build new if I can find an acreage along the turkey river, no more living in town.

Any of you other guys every run into anything like this, I mean I can see a problem if I wasen’t keeping the grass mowed and just letting junk sit around but I’m not. Some of the building and (hoseing) codes are completely rediculous, whats it like where you live, you got any complaints about your area too. I mean who do they think they are where they can tell me what I can have in my yard and what I can’t, I mean they even gave me trouble about parking my boat thats on a trailer in the front driveway. I just had to vent so now I’m done.

Dan, i raninto this years ago when I lived in a duplex in Brooklyn Park. I had a car that I drove daily, I also had a Conversion Van, that I parked next to the driveway. I got a letter fromt he city, saying I couldn’t have vehicles in my yard, that I was not using “regularly”…(they had pics too) I asked them what regularly meant, they said moved at least 1 a month… so every few weeks, I would get in and turn around the van… problem solved, but nothing changed I ultimatley moved too, it’s WAY better in gods country, he don’t much care what you have lying around Good luck, I hope you find your perfect slice of heaven

I hear ya Glen, here in town you have to move your car every 48 hrs, they don’t enforce it but they can if someone complians, Imagine that, complaining that someone dosen’t move thier car, I guess some idiots have nothing better to do.

Up by where I want to live everybody makes it a point to leave people alone, I know thats why they live there. I talked to hillbilly Dave about this and he said if anyone up here did that all you’d have to do is call the sherriff and that no one puts up with that kind of stuff, now that sounds like my kinda place. It completely blows me away why I can’t have an old refridgerator thats made into a working smoker, up off the ground and up on bricks in my back yard, completely moron stupid too me. The good Lord up above knows the diffrence between tools and something that isn’t, too bad the city dosen’t. Another positive thing is I’ll be 4 hrs from pool 4 and a little over an hour to LaCrosse, yippie!!! I’ve been around here too long anyway, time too move.

I lived in Marquette IA about 15 yrs ago & had a Pontiac grand prix with a junk engine in it so I baught another grand prix with a little front end damage for the parts I needed.I used a friends trailer to take it home. I returned the trailer and went back home this took 45 min tops when I got home I had a ticket on the car and a letter telling me to remove in one week or it would be towed on my dime. This kind thing happens all the time.

If you live in a town you will follow the rules set forth by the council. That’s their job.

You are correct that maybe the best place for you is the country. Personally, if I lived in town and my neighbor kept tarped “spare parts” machines I wouldn’t like it either.

To get around the issue I bought 7 acres and planted tree’s. Now I don’t care what the neighbors do and they don’t care what I do.

Hope you and your wife can find your corner of heaven. Life is to short to worry about the neighbors and what they think.

I know what your saying Cowboy, Id bet its because of the river boat casino there and the tourist industry it brings. Where I’m looking to go its very rural, bout as rural as it can get. Dosen’t it pi– you off though.

Ya I know Dutch, I guess i see it as an intelligent thing to do to have those things around to work on when you need something to do to kill time. I picked up on a couple garden tractors that went through the flood. I took them home, cleaned and oiled them up and sold them both.

I seen an article recently about how Americans have gotten to the point where they are the throw away society. I see those things and repair them and sell them to people who need them, too me thats what its all about. Kinda tells you where I’ll be hanging around at, with guys who have the same kind of garages and things on thier place. Most of those guys have a nice set of tools, power tools and are skilled, too bad some don’t recognise that but I’m the first they come too when they need help. If they keep doing this pretty soon alot of the city will be idiots only because all of the tinkerers and guys who like to fix things will be gone.

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If you live in a town you will follow the rules set forth by the council. That’s their job.

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Not always… where I work in Waite Park, when we added another building, we had to plant trees in a boulevard we had to build and also we need to keep it weeded or the man is on us. Right around the corner “behind Mills Fleet” is a car repair shop that mows the weeds around his “spare part cars” about every 2 months…. obviously, he is ignoring the letters which works too… he still has his business in town ??? Just take a drive behind Fleet, you will not miss what I am talking about

Rules and regulations. It’s how some people justify their jobs. I understand everybody’s point of view. But the facts are ordinances are passed to police everybody. Where would the city people be without ANY enforcement? It would be junk cars and appliances as far as you could see.

In my little town they passed a ordnance last year on who and where wood burning stoves could be operated!

Yes, Big brother is watching all of us. Yes the society is turning into robots who for the most part can’t repair and fix anything. (I’m one of those) But the people are also becoming more callus on how they treat and respect their neighbors.

Growing up in the city we all knew our neighbors and their kids. I’ve lived in the same place for 17 years and couldn’t tell you the names of my neighbors on 3 sides.

Solution is if you need to have stuff to repair get out of town and find old neighbors whose eyesight is failing.

On a different subject.

If you moved into a house adjacent to a hog farmer would you expect to smell pig sh-t? Amazes me when people want farmers to change the way they have farmed for 100 years just because they can build a new house.

OR… the people who bought houses next to the MSP airport then sued them to soundproof their house.
DT

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OR… the people who bought houses next to the MSP airport then sued them to soundproof their house.
DT

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Ya, thats another good one!

or move in next to a pig farmer, right by the airport…

no chit, our first home was across the road from a pig farmer…. he had about 2000 head at any given time (that’s alot of chit) and when the wind was out of the NE….. oh boy !!!

I think were all saying the same thing. Don’t bother the neighbors who work on things as you may need thier help someday. I respect everything my neighbors do and they way they keep thier yards, I think all the neighbors think the same way, we all do diffrent things because of the things we like.

Then you have those little white cars that drive around and look for old refridgerators in peoples yards. I can see it if it was junk and needed to be hauled away, but made into a smoker? Can anyone tell me the sense in that one, who cares if its not a store bought smoker, should anyone even care? Whats the diffrence if I have a home made wheelbarrow in my yard thats made into a planter because it was worn out useing and working with it, does it have to be store bought to be a planter. I mean can’t people use a little common sense and see what its being used for, its not junk that should be thrown away, its now a smoker, that by the way worked great.

What about tractor tires made into flower planters, thier junk tires, now thier made into a decent recycleable planter, I mean who cares what they were origionally made for, I think its creative as heck to see what somebody can do with discarded things.

You ought to see my front yard, its full of flower planters, garden plants, antique lillies, rose bushes, lilacs and peonies and a nice white painted cedar fence that dosen’t needed painting plus a nice white arbor that goes over the front gate and sidewalk. Dosen’t that have any bearing on what that says about the smoker I had In my back yard, you’d think it would. You’d think that would create a little discrepency on my back yard in my favor, but I guess some people can’t think or see that far.

I know all these rules are made because of past violations by others but my smoker worked and didn’t need to be hauled away because it was an old appliance and you couldn’t see it unless you walked onto my property so whats the diffrence, the smoke that was visable coming out the top when I used it?. I won’t move into a house thats near a pig lot, I know what thier like. For the ones who do and don’t like it, move down the road further or get use to it. If I was the farmer I’d put it on as heavy as I could get it, they’d get use to it in a hurry or they’d have to move lol

sounds like a socalist society to me. get involved to protect our way of life, before it’s to late

So what did the city say when you explained this to them?

That I had to obid by the laws, get rid of the refrg/smoker and I’m presently disassembling the greenhouse or pay a $150 fine for each violation. I should be done tonight with the greenhouse and have already taken the smoker to the salvage yard. Its a shame thats why were moving where we can live where we want to.

I have a neighbor who keeps older cars in his drive,he’s got a side business repairing cars. One don’t run and it no longer has any tranny fluid – I know,it leaked out and onto my yard. I now have a spot where the grass won’t grow.

I asked him to (at least) keep the fluids off my property. I haven’t called the cops or the city but his grandfather – who willed it to him – must be groaning in his grave. He took extremely good care of the place while he was alive.

House on the other side just changed hands too. It was bought by an irresponsible active alcoholic 23-year old with trust fund money. He’s turned it into an unlicensed rooming house/party palace. Garbage all over,cars parked in so tght they need MY drive to access all the spaces. …If I don’t call,the cops are there every other week – More often if I call. The noise from the thrice-weekly parties carry mostly to MY house first,and they get louder as the night goes on,not quieter.

No open burning in the city? Ya right,those bonfires blaze away right near his other neighbor’s garage. …Junk cars? A couple that haven’t moved since the day he parked them in his backyard – a few days after he moved in. The unmowed grass next to my garden seeds my garden. I may as well sprinkle bluegrass there every week.

Shootin’ CO2 powered “machine guns” off the porch ain’t kosher in the city either.

I only call the cops when the parties interfere with my sleep,(or when there’s a fight) but I’m STILL the “@$$h)!&” neighbor. I tried to be a good neighbor for thefirst year but screw it. He feels it’s his right as a property owner to disrupt the entire neighborhood.

I should pick HIS garbage from MY property whenever the wind blows? With all the young men hanging aroung there,they can’t manage to take all the garbage to the curb every week? In THIS heat,it stinks…the dog crap from the shepard he just HAD to have but has never been on a walk…??? You’d think he’d do more than just make a pile o’crap alongside the stairs,being that young pretty girls come visiting. I’ve heard (and chuckled at)the complaints when they step in it…

Do you affect your neighbor’s property value negatively? THAT’S where your right to have “spare” vehicles and mowers and appliances and construction suppiles and…stops and HIS rights begin. He didn’t bargain on living next to a salvage yard (or in my case,a frat house/rooming house/tavern/ghetto on one side and on the other,an auto repair/salvage business.

I try to keep my place looking nice,most of my other neighbors do too – sometimes I wonder I bother…..This behaviour will continue until myself and the other responsible neighbors begin to call the cops AND THE ALDERMAN for every possible infraction.

I never wanted to grow up to be “that” guy. Neither did my other (decent) neighbors. I agonize over every call to the cps and wait ’til I’m mad before I do. Besides,I think he’s got a scanner because the noise usually quiets before the cops get there – and picks up again when they leave.

That’s enough of a rant. Besides,I have a feeling the OP was in jest.

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I try to keep my place looking nice. Some of my neighbors make me wonder why I bother.

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It’s called pride

I keep my yard looking nice and mow atleast once a week. As for the scaffolding, it was leaning up against the side of the garage and was out of the way and stacked nicely. The refridgerator was against the garage between the house and garage. My back yard was taken care of like the front all weeded and trimmed. My firewood was stacked nicely and in no ones way, I still can’t figure out thier beef. If I had a neighbor who was having parties until the wee hours of the morning Id call the cops too. I guess I’m not wired to live in an area where theres too many hoseing codes because thier too restrictive for me and my couple riding mowers I have behind the garage and I do want to get another round top refridgerator, if I can find one, to make that into another smoker to replace the one I had, maybe I’ll send them the bill for having to build another one. Heres too better days ahead and a better area.