2003-06-30 - 11:33 p.m.
The letter sat in the mailbox all day Saturday while we got into one of our big energy bursts of home improvement. We decided to change the little room off the kitchen into sort of an open pantry and we borrowed my son's big vehicle and went barreling out to the suburbs to buy some new shelf units. One thing led to another and pretty soon we had dragged out, unloaded or rearranged half of the furniture in the downstairs and decided to repaint. Then we had to fly into action and get the mess all cleaned up because my son and daughter-in-law were coming over for a cook out..... It was a fine day. There is nothing we love more than a big messy project. With all that action, we completely forgot to check the mail and I didn't think to do it until Sunday afternoon when Piper was at a friend's party and I was happily puttering around the house.
There it was. A letter from the city codes administration. My first thought was that they might be citing us for the uneven sidewalk and steps in front of our house-- I'd been afraid that might happen. But no. The city informed us that the new fence we just built was in violation of the city's Fence and Wall Code, chapter 27 which prohibits fences over four feet tall. I was stunned. To begin with, the fence was a replacement of an existing fence. We built the new one in exactly the same style, the same size and in the same place as the old one which had been there since the eighties. So it is not against code to have an old, rotten fence but as soon as you fix it, it becomes a code violation? The letter stated that we had fifteen days to "correct the violation." I looked out the window at the new fence that had cost so much time and money, that we worked so hard on, that looks so nice..... and imagined cutting it down to four feet tall. Imagined how ridiculous a little short fence would look where it joined the taller side fences. And all I could do was cry.
I know that tearing down a new fence is, comparatively, not a tragedy of epic proportions. But it hit me like bucket of cold water in the face. It is so hard to afford and keep up with all that is required to maintain a house and we try to be responsible homeowners. And now we have made this huge investment to improve our property and the city can actually make us tear it down? How could the codes people possibly justify coming after us when there are slumlords all over the city who won't even cut the six foot tall weeds on their properties or get rid of abandoned cars.
It was Sunday and nothing could be done, so I just wandered around the house, angry and depressed for three hours until Piper came home.
We have different views of these things, and I knew she would have some idea about how to fight it. We looked at the city codes on the internet, and got further depressed because the codes stated that anything built or added after March of 2000 was out of compliance. The penalty for failure to comply is a $500 fine or imprisonment. Good lord.... we could go to jail for this. I could just see it.... Me in an orange jumpsuit...
"What are you in for?"
"A six-foot tall fence."
Piper quickly wrote an impassioned e-mail to the city codes administrator, our city councilman and everyone else she could think of who might be able to help or advise us. I hadn't even thought of that. She works with a lot of important people in her job, and she has an attitude that you can talk to the right people and make things happen. She's my hero. Really. I, on the other hand, neither respect nor trust "authority" and have the perception that they will crush me under their heels at any opportunity. So my only tactic is usually just to try and stay under the radar. Maybe it is a holdover from my radical days, but whatever the reason, it isn't a terribly useful attitude for a grownup in this world....
I stayed up until 2:30 playing video games because I couldn't sleep and didn't want to have to lie there and think about it anymore. What little sleep I did get was a storm of bad dreams and dread.
This morning, Piper made some calls and found out that we might be given an exception to the code if we could prove that the fence was in existence in the same form previously. So that became my day. I left work and went downtown to the Landmarks Commission to look up a photo of the house taken in an area survey. I found it and the fence was exactly the same in the photo take in 1987. I wrote up an affidavit explaining the history of the fence, illustrating it with copies of the survey pictures, some of our photos date stamped 1999, and a polaroid of the new fence. We got the whole thing notarized and delivered to the codes office by 3:30 this afternoon.
I don't know what I expected, but the codes office people were nice and polite, and the Director, after looking over our packet, rather congenially agreed that the fence was pre-existing and we would not be required to tear it down. "We'll consider the file closed" were the words he used. That has a nice definitive ring to it.
So. We went from panic, anger, and depression to resolution in twenty-four hours. My relief is so great, all I can do this evening is to keep sighing. But I always think of this: now we are back to where we were. Nothing gained for all that grief except the right to continue on in the way we thought we would. I used to have a little sign up over my desk that said Imagine you lost everything you had-- and got it all back. That idea has meant different things to me at different times, but essentially I was trying to remind myself not to wait until something is threatened to appreciate it. Some things have to be taken for granted, I think. But the fence isn't one of them... not now, anyway.
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