If I get sounding off on permits, I might be suspended forever. Have lived within one mile of the house I was born in for nearly 77 years and with hubby have built four houses in this same area. The first home was built with no permits whatsoever-we lived in the basement for two years while building, had an outhouse, bathed in a galvanized tub and drew our water by hand from a well. Things got progressively worse with each home we built. This last log home had me tearing out my hair. After spending hundreds of dollars on permits, the code enforcement officer hounded us with regulations. We have NINE smoke alarms, one in every bedroom, one in every hall,one at the foot and the top of the basement stairs, likewise the stairs between the first and second floor and one in the furnace room. Then these all had to be wired together to go off simultaneously. Whoops, thats ten, not nine, counted wrong. Then all electrical plugs within 15 feet of any faucet had to be a special kind, so we had to replace 10 four dollar plugs with 10 fifteen dollar plugs. The railings on our country porch had to be a specified number of inches apart (he even brought a small cicle of wood to test that it wouldn’t slide through any spaces in the railing.) What really made TSHTF was when he told us that we had to take our stair bannister down and cut four inches off as someone might catch a piece of clothing on it and fall!!! This guy wasn’t even a local. Just some smartaleck from away throwing his weight around. Got so the people at town hall hated to see me come through the door. They have you over a barrel as you can’t move in until you have him issue an “occupancy permit”. What a money making sham!
ROFL Oh boy don’t I know it...
Sometime I will tell the group about Ms. Brown and the septic system... Oh, or the electrical inspection - maybe the building permit requirement that you had to have an approved perc test before the permit but you couldn’t get the perc certified till you had a permit... Catch 22 Told them I was sitting in their office till they could figure out who was going to be first and who was going to be second. (Permit office wrote a letter stating that I intended to get the permit so the perc could be certified then back to permit office..)
The problem is when you are going through it, you can’t afford to make too many waves as you said - then you say wait till I am done with it and then I will do something about it - but we no longer have a horse in that race so we do nothing...
I'm fortunate, I lived in a house for 17 years in an area where you didn't get permits for anything. Now, I've got this man who *thinks* he has to have a permit for everything. I keep tellin' him if you don't ask and they don't see you doing it then you don't need a permit.