After six months in the new house, I came home yesterday to find a letter from the City of Seattle Department of Design, Construction and Land Use that read:

A City of Seattle inspector has noted that violations of local ordinances exist on the premises identified above.

To avoid receiving a formal “Notice of Violation” which may carry penalties of $15 to $75 per day, please take action to correct the violation(s) checked below.

x Cut and remove any vegetation constituting a fire, health or safety hazard

x Cut and remove any vegatation on the property or the adjacent parking strips which overhangs any public sidewalk within 8 feet of the ground.

You can’t tell from the perspective of their enclosed photo, but my 6’3” frame had to jump to reach those branches. My guess is that a nosy neighbor reported the folks across the street (you know, the ones with waist-high weeds, two shopping carts parked in the front yard with a potpourri of empties scattered around the premises, who yell at each other from two feet away while sucking down longnecks — so unsophisticated, I mean really) and while the city was out on their cleanup crusade, reveled in our low-hanging fruit, so to speak.

Or it may have been that the city was had grown accustomed to citing our residence for petty violations — before our ownership — for noise disturbances and the like. When wife & I first looked at the house, we loved it for its charm and spaciousness, but it was rough around the edges and required a lot of maintenance, work that we’ve only scratched upon so far. There were a lot of guitars and Marshall stacks and soundboards throughout the house, nothing out of the ordinary for this city. We made an offer that afternoon.

The Name-Dropping Part of the Story
The next day our real-estate agent called back to say the offer was accepted, and by the way, the current owner is Dan Peters, the drummer of Mudhoney (and former fill-in drummer for Nirvana). So that explained the collection of recording equipment in the basement, the Alice Cooper doll in the bathtub, the Touch Me, I’m Sick sticker on the fridge. They were selling after ten years in the house. On a later visit, I mentioned to Dan that I’d seen his band play in Omaha about eight or nine years ago. “At the bowling alley?” “Yes.” Wife & I laughed at the coincidence and fancied images of past Northwest punk rocker parties in our house with Eddie Vedder stumbling down the uneven stairs, Kurt & Courtney bickering on the porch, Chris Cornell scarfing down potato chips, leaning on the kitchen counter. But no such evidence arose. All that’s left is a well-insulated practice room in the basement where you can scream and never be heard.

So last night I trimmed back the tree to appease the Inspector and any nine-foot pedestrians who walk up our street. While making our mayor proud, I noticed those neighbors had finally harvested the field of wheat they’d been growing in the front yard all spring. How irritating it is to be judged. How even more disparaging it is to judge. These thoughts never crossed my mind when I rented. Each month I paid my rent, and thought about the next place I was going to live.