From the local government desk, Franz Kafka reporting

Thought I’d relate a story today about the insanity of local government.

We recently purchased a building which we intend to totally renovate.

Due to the age of the building, the number of people who live there and lack of attention by the previous owner, there is a vermin problem in the building.

The county health department cited the old owner and we find ourselves involved in an endless series of biweekly inspections.

We’ve renovated a lot of old buildings. And I can assure you that this type of problem does not go away with local treatment. You need to empty the building, ideally rip open the walls, and fumigate.

Because all of the tenants are scheduled to move out of the building 11/30 and because the tenants themselves object to continued local treatment (eg spraying of chemicals in their apartments), we asked that the department suspend the citation until 12/1, at which point the building will be empty and we will fumigate.

You can imagine how well this suggestion went over.

So, we will continue with the charade of spraying chemicals into peoples’ apartments and meeting the inspectors for biweekly inspections between now and 11/30, despite the fact that the tenants, we and the department know this will not solve the problem.