CH: Red Letter Day
And so, my fellow flying monkeys, I have the results of Red Letter Day.
Today was the day I met again with the city regarding the 30-day VIOLATION NOTICE. The notice meant that I had 30 days to fix a whole host of issues. With no advance warning.
My hope was that by showing good effort through working every day (save one) since getting the notice the city would bestow some mercy on me.
And today….
…they added a bit more than 4 months to complete the work.
Ross happy.
THE PLAN:
I am not happy with the two top 12-inch boards. I am gonna replace them with the normal narrow siding. Yes, I will later remove this work when the porch roof is created but that is years away. I am soooooooo wanting this ONE section to look its best.
NORTH WALL. I will remove peeling siding paint and prime white.
WEST WALL. Ditto.
NORTH KITCHEN WALL. I will prime white the left part of the wall. I will properly restore the right side.
I will install proper narrow siding to the right, and prime white.
This work will satisfy the NOTICE. Then I can finish the east side of the cat fence, and then move inside the carriage house to GET IT FINISHED.
It is now Friday night. I am soon gonna have some wine. And offer a toast to our Sandra Lee.
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Will you be relocating the door or doing that at a later date?
Hi, Scott. My focus is on having the NOTICE satisfied as quickly as possible. So, at the moment, I plan to move the door later in the year.
Great work, man!
That is great news Ross, this takes some of the pressure off.
So glad! Prayers answered! Relax!
Whew.
I know, Brad!
So happy and relieved for you Ross you’ve worked so hard to try to get the items done and not compromise the work while you do so. I’m glad they recognize that and I hope you are able to get their items checked off in that timeframe. You inspire me to keep working on my own project which is going very slowly.
Thank you, Rebecca.
Slow movement is good! It’s vastly better than no movement!
Very true!
Great news! I’m still grumpy at whoever complained, but I’m happy the city is being reasonable.
So glad you were given a reasonable time frame!
Mazel tov from New York! And yay!!!
Congrats on the extension. That four months is going to go fast. But it will be a huge leap rather than a baby step to get all that done. It also pushes you closer to turning the Coach House into income property. (I agree with the previous poster; don’t rent the Cross House. Given that comment I think you will be sorry.)
If you can get the Carriage House in shape to move in you can finish renovating your current house and then rent that out for income. Then you could live in the Carriage House until the Cross house was ready to move in and then rent the Carriage House too. You’d either have two income properties or you could then sell your current house and use that money to get the Cross House ready faster.
So many possibilities and they are coming really fast.
Hi, Mary! My current plan is to:
1) Finish the NOTICE work.
2) Finish the east side of the cat fence.
3) Finish the interior of the Carriage House so it can be rented.
4) Finish the house I live in so it can be sold.
I anticipate that this work will carry through 2023 and 2024.
I am so relieved that the city is working with you Ross. I think your plan is very sensible about what to do next and the carriage house will look much better for it. I am rooting for you Ross. Many of us don’t comment much but we love you and we are with you all the way. Please consider the offers of qualified volunteers.
The “no prior notice” bothers me, considerably. As does the ridiculous day time frame for the improvements. I feel these to be a somewhat personal affront to the integrity of craftsmanship. (And so, I beg pardon for saying … fuck whomever complained.) I am also relieved the time frame is extended.
With revised plans in place, this feels doable. 🌻
This is standard for city code enforcement. At least it is from my experience which is minimal. It’s starts the day the letter is generated, not the day you get it, so there is a lag while it is mailed and goes through the system. So you don’t really get 30 days. You get 20-25 days. In order to meet the deadlines you usually need to have MONEY and hire people. They also tend to pile on piddly, nit pick stuff just to pad it. Remember, fines raise revenue. If you get a nasty inspector they’ll also ADD stuff once they come and inspect. While I certainly understand the need for code enforcement as we don’t want unpermitted buildings to fall down on their neighbors, some of it is just ridiculous.
Expecting Ross to fix the entire Coach House in basically 23 days is just insane. Unless all they wanted was for him to spray the thing with a coat of white paint, no scraping or sanding, no primer, no repairs, just paint it, then yeah, maybe he could have got it done. But that just makes the actual work harder down the road. It defies the “do it right the first time” rule and wastes time and money.
Personally, I hate outside forces coming in and basically dictating to me the order in which I have already planned to do things. Making me work to their priorities, not mine. Mostly because of some tight-ass whiner or jerk with a vendetta.
I have a little experience with this stuff. Usually the 30-day notice is just standard. They probably have a pre-printed form! Normally, unless the place is really aggressive, it is a call to come in to the City and talk. And with someone like Ross, who has a proven track record of moving things along, they will generally be helpful and super lenient. There are those landlords out there who simply never respond. Those bad actors are the folks that eventually get into some trouble.
That’s my experience where I live. The city code enforcement is pretty understanding with people who make a good faith effort, and typically gives pretty generous extensions if you are showing steady and serious progress to correct an issue.
The folks who get into real trouble are those who try to ignore citations, don’t show a good faith effort to resolve them, or slumlords who don’t show any respect for the property or neighborhood. I’m glad we have property standards and enforcement for those cases.
I’m with you, mlaiuppa – my own similar, minimal experience, tells me it’s a tight-ass whiner or, jerk with a vendetta – probably, one in the same.
Ross, I say: do some serious swearing, some educated drinking, 🍷 and keep the focus on getting the notice work done … according to an … abridged, albeit more agreeable plan. If a job is well done, it shows & it will register.
☮️ 🍷 🖌 🔨
Peace, wine, work, repeat … 💗
Surgery a success & ready to go home. Complications let me an extra day. Discharging today & finish healing at home,