Peaceful Bushes.

Excuse me madam, may I inspect your bush ?
Yep, that is what the "peace officer " is going to say when they knock on my clients door for a bush inspection.
I kid you not,,, believe me, I wish I was kidding.
I just spent over 2.5 hours this morning going over some of the most ridiculous rules and regulations for renovating a house and garden in the town of San Rafael, Marin County Ca.

On my landscape check off list was item # 68 where the city requests that a peace officer come out and inspect the shrubberies to make sure that I did not plant a bush infront of the front door or blocking a window.
Now I ask you, is this really how you want your tax dollars spent ?
Who makes up these assinine code compliance rules and do they actually have a moderately functioning brain ?
Personally I would like to see the pared down police force trying to keep crime down in our community rather than go around arresting and issueing citations to suspicious shrubberies.
sheesh.
California is really getting retarded with some of their silly soft minded rules.
Do you think the bush police are cruising the 'hood in Idaho or Montana ?

This almost beats the scene that I saw yesterday of a gardening crew shearing a 'hedge' of poison ivy because the HOA wants all their shrubberies pruned into neat little squares and meat balls.

..... now that gives me an idea !

ROFLOL
pruning poison ivy????

Do any of these people KNOW what's going on in the real world?

Must not be much crime in San Rafael if that's the best thing the police can do with their time! Hopefully there are no stupid rules like that here--I'm going to be putting in a bunch of landscaping this fall but I guess if I don't ask about the rules, then I can just plead ignorance when the cops come around inspecting my landscape!

I still think the poison ivy pruning story is better though!

Yo from Arizona.
Formerly Palo Alto CA
We have a major infestation of HOAs some of whom actually employ "police" paid with the HOA dues. They are tasked with 'inspecting" for violations of CC&Rs. There is a movement here to have the HOAs eradicated. Some think they are the "Fourth Pilar" of the Government and illegal.

# 72 on my check off list askes me to submit the irrigation plan to the water department for approval as a condition of the houses' building permit.
Ok I can see that , but then you read how the water department wants their plans set up and that they require that the irrigation be set up with an ET system.
Do they know how much that costs and do they know that people have a hard enough time just figuring out their irrigation clocks never mind it computer connected to a weather station and inground moisture meter probe ?
Can't a person just simply look out their window sometime in December and say to themselves : " golly gee gertrude , it looks like the rainy season has begun , I betta go out and turn off the irrigation system".

I think if they are going to insist on these complex and expensive systems that they should foot the bill.
It is not fair to the struggling homeowner who has to choose between installing an ET irrigation system and buying a living room sofa to sit on and calculate their new monthly mortgage.

I agree, that does sound ridiculous...all it'll end up accomplishing is people don't put in any irrigation system at all and then they water with hoses and water-hogging sprinklers that they put in after the fact, which is much worse in the long run than a cheap control system that still has some user intervention required.

But you may be overestimating people's abilities to notice that it's raining and turn off the system--there was a house that I used to drive past every day on the way to work where the sprinklers ran every single day, 365 days a year, regardless of the weather. If they'd been one of my neighbors I would have said something, but since I only passed the house driving to work I figured they might not appreciate me knocking on their door at a ridiculously early hour of the morning to point out that when it's raining cats and dogs they probably don't need the sprinklers on!

I hope they stay away from me. No HOA here thank goodness. Bush Patrol!! What will they think of next? All criminals plant bushes infront of their double thick blinds-don't they?

The last time that the local law enforcement came to check on my plants was in 1973 when my clueless next door neighbor turned in my threadleaf aralia as a marijuana plant. Fun and games!!

Pruning the poison oak! LOL That's what we need. Maybe they should burn it and send the toxic smoke over the neighborhood.

I can believe it. I watched in rapt horror as Palo Alto building fashion police (8 people) had a meeting . A poor man wanted them to tell him how they wanted him to redo his facade of his commercial rented property and they could only tell him that his current plan wouldn't work. Then told him to get another architect drawing. He practically begged for them to tell them what was wrong with it and said that he couldn't afford another drawing, but they said that they couldn't do that. All they could do was tell him yes or no. Argggg. Guess he got the wrong architect.

On the other hand, my neighbor just wanted to build a pool 6 feet from my fence and we have 24 foot setbacks. He has a huge back yard but didn't want to cut down any trees. I did mention that the pool would be next to our bedroom windows but he didn't think that was important. I never thought that I'd be grateful for the planning office. He said that "He didn't ever use that part of his yard so wanted just to make it useable." I wish that I'd asked him if he'd ever heard of a patio. And what did he think that set back was for?