[AT] Tractor Shop Question

[Cecil E Monson]

> 
>         The trouble is that most of those one size fits all regulations were originally passed to protect homeowners from unscrupulous or incompetent contractors and builders, not homeowners from themselves. The original purpose is kind of debatable in itself since as long as you check reputations most of them (at least local ones) have a reputation to maintain and guard it carefully. Now the bureaucrats have twisted, lied and perverted those regulations not to protect people but to give themselves power. Local planners (not all) can be some of the most power mad little Hitlers you ever saw.
>         I not only consider it acceptable to bend some of those regulations (a lot of which will not stand up in higher courts anyway), but I also consider it a responsibility to bend them...      I also write the occasional newspaper piece putting them down. The latter does keep me watching my back a little.   


	I had a run-in with one of the local building inspector's offices
over regulations regarding rental homes. I owned two houses on a large split
lot and had tenants in both of them. The regulations say that rentals are to
be inspected once a year to be sure they are up to standards. One year I got
a notice after an inspection that I had 7 days to fix a problem with one of
the rental houses. The problems were a hole in the wall behind the front door
and garbage piled up in the basement. The tenant had broken off the door stop
and had slammed the front door open hard enough to knock a knob sized hole in
the wall. He had also been too damn lazy to take his garbage to the dump and
had been piling it up in the basement. I called and asked the inspector if
they had told the tenant to fix what he had damaged and was told that the
problem was mine, as a landlord, and not the tenant's. When I asked who they
thought had piled the garbage in the basement, they said it wasn't their
responsibility. Their's was to tell me to correct it according to the law.
IMHO, it was a poorly written law in a two bit town. I sold the houses as
I didn't need the aggravation. I heard last year that they had been sold
again. Tough.

Cecil
-- 
The nicest thing about telling the truth is you never have to wonder
what you said.

Cecil E Monson
Lucille Hand-Monson
Mountainville, New York   Just a little east of the North Pole

Allis Chalmers tractors and equipment

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