Vindictive Uses Of Government

Author Linda Brady Traynham

Harming your neighbor through bureaucratic means is on the rise, and why not, when anonymity is guaranteed and no action will be taken against you if your allegations are not true? Communists and the Code Napoleon!

Wasting our time in many ways is the result of increasing government intrusion into our lives. For a simple example of the latter, I had to fill out an IRS form for an extension until October 15th–and if you didn’t do that, why? What’s the point of giving the government money six months before you have to? There were three pages of instructions in very tiny print to assist me in writing down my name (see instructions), my address (see instructions), my Social Security number (that one they trusted me to handle), what forms I would submit eventually (that’s when I learned that an accounting for my Social Security counted as a W-2), and how much I thought I would owe the government. Well, gee, fellows, if I knew what my tax obligation was, if anything, I would have filled out an income tax form and sent it in instead. The government’s estimate of how long it would take me to read the material and respond was on the order of an hour and a half, not counting finding an envelope and a stamp and taking the completed paperwork to the Post Office, a twenty-mile round trip. Then I finally got around to filling out the Census short form and was offended enormously that nowhere did the thing ask if I am a citizen. Since the enumeration is used for apportionment of Representatives, it seemed to me that this information should have been of some slight interest to anyone conducting a census for Constitutional reasons. I was stumped briefly for how to put down our Segundo, who is half Indian and half Black, “mixed race” not being one of at least two dozen choices.

What started today’s article was the appearance on my doorstep of a very charming fellow from the Health Department, and in particular his reason for folding a paper over quickly: “Oops! I’m not supposed to let you see that part.” “That part” revealed who had complained. I gave him a sweet, brief treatise on my Constitutional right to face my accuser, and he replied humorously that I would learn that if we went to court, at which point he would be my accuser. Okay. We agreed that we didn’t want to go to court, and in atonement he said he wouldn’t write up a citation that would cost me eighty dollars for something I hadn’t done and didn’t even know about.

The fracus is over what one of our tenants has done, but the cause is that one of them dislikes the other two and found another way to make trouble. She is quite proud of herself and cannot begin to understand that she has endangered all of us. The hoopla is over a septic tank, a very simple system that normally needs pumping every fifteen years or so unless someone crushes the pipes in the drain field, or overstresses it, pries the lid off, and gets a submersible pump and begins spreading sewage over the landscape. Of course I disapprove of that, but the proper course was to come tell me, not call in the gestapo to poke into all of our lives.

I have four choices to get the Health Department off my neck: their choice, which is a ten thousand dollar aerobic system which requires costly inspections twice a year, to hook the second trailer up to one of the other two septic systems, to go dig up the drain field and see if that is the problem (after first checking the most likely cause which is water running somewhere in the house constantly, such as a leaky toilet or faucet, or if their drain lines are clogged), or to evict the tenant who is causing the problem and leave that lot empty. Sheila, the trouble-maker, was very excited about that option, until I pointed out that the rent hasn’t been raised in over a decade and I had not intended to do so as long as the income pays the taxes. I said gently that if I evicted Kristi I would have to raise Sheila’s and Karen’s rent by 50% to make up the lost revenue. She stuttered, aghast, “But then I’d have to move! I can’t afford that.” Smile. That works, too. There isn’t anything wrong with her septic system or Karen’s, and if I find a new tenant I can raise the rent significantly. The ideal solution is to fix the septic system and get rid of both Sheila and Kristi, since Karen is an ideal tenant who puts in endless hours caring for the grounds and built the small, beautiful fishing dock on the lake they can all use.

Want to get back at an enemy? Opportunities abound. Report one for animal abuse and it won’t even matter if there are no pets on the premises. The charge will remain on the “records” forever. Turn one in for child neglect or abuse–and, again, it won’t matter if she has no children, grandchildren, or small visitors. Think about how hard it would be to prove that you do not abuse or neglect your little ones, the humiliation of having to discuss your parenting skills with social workers, and, again, the consequences of having such an accusation made if you were a school teacher, a Girl Scout leader, or simply a pillar of the community hitherto.

Another danger is the sheer magnitude of current laws, ordinances, and regulations. It would not surprise me if many of us are in contravention of some idiotic rule that would never occur to ordinary people, such as the one against giving kittens away on the public streets of Tacoma. Inviting (or giving an excuse for) a myrmidon of the Nanny State to come on private property is asking for problems, and decent folks all have enough sense not to do it. If we have a problem with our neighbors’ behavior we discuss the matter with them politely. Our enemies have no such restrictions and are protected by the very ukases which give them opportunity to strike us.

Yes, the tenant was wrong, but I suspect that her attempts to solve the problem without letting me know of it dates back to my mother’s fit a decade ago when one of the systems had to be replaced. It seems probable that Kristi feared that if I were obliged to put out a large sum of money I would raise her rent significantly or require her to move. The sort of pump she bought is pretty expensive…and it is also probable that laws or no laws someone in a mixed marriage who keeps pit bulls might have a little trouble finding another place to live, to say nothing of the expense of moving her house trailer. Thus does the Nanny State cause more problems than it solves.

The nice Health Department man (who didn’t quite whimper gratefully because I was sweet, reasonable, and supportive, but came close) pointed out to me and to the tenants that I am fully within my rights to cause them to bear the expense…but that doesn’t seem reasonable to me. What I rent is lots with septic and electric and water hookups, and I thought that was safe because I didn’t see how people could tear those up, as opposed to renting trailers which could be damaged. Well, turns out they can mess up septic systems, and since I have been informed that the one in question was pumped out last year my guess is that unless we find a water leak they have been flushing things I would rather not think about for reasons it does not behoove me to speculate upon.

One person’s vindictiveness has cost me most of today, has increased ill will over in the trailer park, and will take at least a couple of days of Asia’s time to determine whether the drain field will have to be replaced at large expense or I will have to go to the trouble and expense of installing a second septic tank and drain field for just one unit. The sole consolation is that since we are still under County regulations, not city, we will not be obliged to put in a seven to ten thousand dollar system but can use our backhoe to excavate a hole and get out for about a thousand in materials.

No, of course I do not approve of open sewage and standing water which draws mosquitoes. I repine openly for the good old days when civilized folk sprayed DDT around and kept the little biters under control. However, I disapprove even more of those who prosecute a vendetta by using the government to punish those they don’t like. My rules for renters are very simple: don’t damage anything, pay your rent on time, and don’t cause trouble.

Being the “queen” isn’t easy. What would you do, in my position, other than repair the septic system? Get rid of the slob who caused the problem, get rid of the one who is proud of endangering all of us, or ditch both of them?

My solution, very probably, is that Sheila is toast because she all but boasted of having turned the neighbors in three times in the last year and failed to grasp why her behavior is wrong when I explained it to her. A more fitting punishment would be to sic Adult Protective Services on her and complain to Animal Control that she keeps two large dogs chained outside her tiny travel trailer constantly, but I haven’t got the stomach for that sort of nastiness, for which she would surely blame the other tenants.

Then I’ll go put the fear of me into Kristi and her husband whom I have never met and demand assistance with the enormous amount of manual labor involved–and if they don’t fall into line, they can move. Great grief, they were told by the Health Department last year (I now know) to put the lid back on the septic tank. Disgusted, frustrated sigh. I know full well that people of that sort do not have the funds to move a trailer house, and as much as I would like for them to go it would distress Karen, who is Kristi’s mother. Yes, Karen should have taught her daughter better, and all of them should have had the sense to come tell me there was a problem.

The moral of this tale is that relying on government to solve problems causes a lot of grief without actually fixing anything, and that guaranteed anonymity offers great scope to those who wish to harm or annoy others. Editor Michael Rough suggested that this is similar to Bernanke, et al., running dirty “water” all over the ground while graft, corruption, power politics, and statist policies clog the works up worse than before.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 19th, 2010 at 8:39 am and is filed under Authors, Entertainment, Linda Brady Traynham, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.