Wednesday, August 29, 2007

A Varience....

So the man goes to the municiple office to talk to the inspector, who is still pissed off about the whole thing. We find out that the neighbor who called apparently called many times and he was trying to blow them off. But they were insistent that he do something about it.

Then he started giving the man a rash of shit about how he should fine us, and what we did was illegal. And once the building is down it no longer exists. And how what we did voided our home owners insurance. And how variences rarely go through because it is like asking them to overlook the laws and let us in a sense break the law. blah blah blah...asshole!

So we find out that we have to go to the zoning board to get the variance. The office is down the hall, so the man takes a walk. The zoning board woman, is the BEST PERSON EVER!!!!! She was going to sign off on the whole thing right then and there and let us build the garage because she knows that the garages in our neighborhood all sit on the property line and there is really nothing you can do about it. And moving it is a royal pain in the ass and it's expensive. So she wrote a letter allowing the variance and sends it to the inspector. Who threw a shit fit. Little bastard...

So she calls the man and tells him that the inspector is making us go through the whole board meeting process even though she has authority over him. But WHATEVER!

So she prints out a letter that we have to leave at the door of all the neighbors in a 200ft radius and even prints the letter out for us. Has us put an ad in the paper, cause it has to be made public record. So we had the letters out and wait for the meeting, which thankfully was only 2 weeks away.

In the meantime we start to do some investigating to find out who called. We had our suspicions because the neighbor across the street kept coming over to "see what we were doing". And they kept making comments to the effect of "I didn't know you could do that" and "I hope they don't make you tear it down".
Cause comments like that wouldn't put any suspicion on you would it? Fuckers...

We come to find out that they tried to expand their garage and were turned down 3 times. Like that is my problem. And they are the first ones to call the cops on people on the street. Then I find out that the guy who lives there likes to roam around the other neighbors yards to see what is going on, especially when construction is going on.

So during the waiting period for the meeting, they suddenly aren't outside working on their yard anymore. Suddenly they are scarce. Hmm odd behavior isn't it?

We talked to other neighbors and they suspected them as well. We started to get concerned about someone showing up to the meeting to say something against our garage. Everyone seemed to think that they wouldn't show up because we would know it was them for sure. So we thought that would be the case.

to be continued

Saturday, August 25, 2007

A puddle in the sun...

Ok it's the nephews birthday today. And yes it will be around 98 degrees today.
Oh and did I mention the party is mostly outside?

Kill me.


Update
Ok it was like a bajillion degrees outside. I literally sweated through my clothes and just dripped down my legs all day. It was so hot I didn't even drink my alcohol because I would have been death of dehydration.
I vote for no more summer parties outside, fuck the pool.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Garage Woes...

Yes it's been a while, stop whining.

A bunch of crap has been going on lately.

We decided that when we sold my house we would use the money to pay off the second mortgage and rebuild our garage. The garage that we had was a completely dilapidated, termite infested cesspool that had been falling down for years. It literally had holes in the roof and the walls were rotting to the point that you could push on it and poke a hole through it. So we couldn't even use it for basic storage because it wasn't even rain proof.

So we were told by neighbors that if we rebuilt it wall by wall, we wouldn't need a permit. We talked to just about everyone whose properties touched ours and no one had a problem with it. They all gave their blessing and said thank god you are getting rid of that eye sore.

So the plan was to take it down wall by wall and rebuild. We enlisted the man's aunt and uncle (B & C) and they proceeded to start demolition. Well the wall by wall thing didn't really go as planned. The whole thing was so rotted out that as the walls were coming down, the roof started to come down with it. It literally just kind of fell down. So B & C cleared everything away and rebuilt the thing as fast as they could.

3 days before completion, the inspector shows up. And he was a tad miffed. He walked around the yard and went off on B & C and the man's dad, who just happened to be there that day. He told us we had a week to tear it down and if it wasn't down he would fine B&C and the man's dad 2 thousand each for every week it was still up.

So B & C got the roof off and the man contacted the Inspectors office. This is when we find out that a neighbor called and turned us in for having no permits. &!*&@^#

The inspectors office tells us that we have to contact the zoning board about the garage because the garage is sitting on the property line. So in order to keep it where it is we have to get a variance. Which involves scheduling a meeting with the board. And notifying all neighbors in a 200 ft radius of the meeting, so that they can come and voice their objections. So this put the whole garage on hold for over a month.

to be continued...

Monday, August 20, 2007

Sad

Went to a funeral today. Second one of the year.

It was my cousin. He had diabetes. Apparently what happened was he had the flu. So he couldn't keep any food down and that made his already crazy blood sugar worse and he slipped into a coma. They aren't sure how long he was in a coma before they found him, because he lived alone.

So he was in a coma for 5 or 6 months and he just deteriorated. He kept getting infections and my aunt finally decided to tell them to not treat them anymore. He was brain dead and not getting any better and they were only prolonging his suffering at that point. So I think it was a good choice, because he wouldn't have turned around had they treated the infection.

They had the funeral blanket pulled all the way up to his chest because his arms had started to curl into a fetal position during the coma. I don't like to walk up to the body at a funeral, there is something about it that just doesn't feel right to me. I only did it once at a child's funeral and it was the worst experience I have ever had. Seeing from across the room works for me.

Sorry to bring down the mood...