EEEK, a mouse!!

[cody]

In Michigan, a "NO Trespassing" sign carries no legal weight for law enforcement or emergency personnel, none at all, to take it a step further all an officer needs is "probable cause" to enter a home without the occupants permission tho many would wait for the search warrent, if an officer feels that there may be a crime in commission or the possible destruction of evidence the officer can and will enter a home to sieze and preserve that evidence, before that evidence is removed from the site it's always a good idea to get the warrent, especially if the preservation of the evidence isn't an issue from the standpoint of admissability in court, it takes strong evidence of the probable destruction of the items to pursuade the judge that it was necessary to sieze it without following channels.  The idea of "a mans home is his castle" fell by the wayside many years ago in the supreme court, the idea was replace by the new premise of "probable cause".

[Len Silva]

They say "You can't fight city hall".  That's not true, you can fight them.  You just can't beat them.

[John316]

Thanks Cody. You reinforced a lot of what I already thought. I would doubt that Michigan and Louisiana are that different at all. I have a little background of having police officers, FBI, Secret Service, and CIA agents as buddies. One doesn't hang around them too much, before they start to catch onto the different "rules"....

B6G, Makes sense to me.

Len, you couldn't have put it better. Give a petty government official a little power, and he will use every ounce of it.

God bless,

John

[kyle4501]

Fighting city hall is like wrestling a pig -
You're gonna get dirty & the pig is gonna enjoy it.

If a judge isn't around, the next 'higher authority' would be the dude with the gun & a badge. 

I've seen the results in court & the differences an effective lawyer can make. The well prepared realize that truth & justice seldom make it past the first step at the court house, let alone past the court house doors.

Good lawyers will be well prepared by having studied more than just the applicable laws & codes. They will also research the others that will be in court (the judge, the other lawyers, the cops, etc.) so they will be able to present the 'facts' in such a way to support the interpretation of the law so it supports the perception you want.

You won't know if you have a good lawyer until after the judge makes his decision . . . .

[cody]

A good lawyer will also research past rulings on similar cases from other states, statues are always subject to interpretation and change, I learned a long time ago to not second guess a judge.  Thats why I alway stressed preserving the chain of evidence, I've seen otherwise strong cases shredded by a good lawyer.

[MacGyver]

As I said...  I wouldn't recommend anyone take the path I chose to take...  I was simply fed up with the bullshit from the idiot next door and his buddies constantly threatening to "impound" my lawfully owned property, so I took a stance against it and they backed down.

That's probably a 1 in 1000 (or higher) odds of that actually happening.  Yes, I was lucky they didn't try to do anything more.  Yes, it was likely a stupid thing to do.  But, it's what *I* did, and it solved the problem (and many others that would've cropped up had I simply complied and moved the bus to storage.)

Whether the threats were legal or not is irrelevant at this point...  The "friendly neighbor" pushed me to an extreme that I normally wouldn't have gone to, and after it was all said and done, the neighbor found out that I wasn't going to play his game of cat & mouse...  I simply wasn't going to be the mouse hiding under the porch steps.  I made sure he knew I was the leopard in the tree above his head.

-Mac

[Busted Knuckle]

Think honey vs vinegar. 
Sometimes, the easiest path starts off with more difficulty. 

Lots of people think rats live in the 'abandoned' cars on the neighbor's yard. This is what they want to believe because it places the burden on someone else. I have found the best results by having calm discussions with the county/ city officials - this is where knowing the law & its intent comes in handy.

It has been my experience that it is only a couple of noseybodies that are doing the reporting & the county is less than thrilled to see them walk in. Typically, the officials want the path of least resistance. (Huh, imagine that!) 
Good Luck!

Exactly what I said.... 'er sorta! I suggested sugar, but a nice coat of honey and cat food will work too!

  BK 

[HighTechRedneck]

One thing to keep in mind is that Mac's success with that method was in Louisiana.  A rather unique place when it comes to law enforcement and govt. officials.  As Mac pointed out, it probably wouldn't work most places.  And he did try to be cooperative and nice first.

Fortunately for me in my experiences, I always found officers to be much more open minded and cooperative when spoke to respectfully and as friendly as the circumstance allows.  As someone stated in another thread some time back and has been referenced earlier in this one, "Make every effort to show them you are a 'good' guy and not one of the 'bad' guys."  Speak friendly to them.  If the situation enables it, tell them about your plans and dreams for the bus.  Humanize the situation for them.  Maybe even spark a little interest/dream of their own. 

That said, some officers are in the job for the wrong reasons and are certifiable a/r control freaks with bad attitudes and being nice probably won't change that.  And if you are severely in violation of the law, they probably won't let it slide completely no matter what you do.  But even in those cases it can help ease the situation up a little.

Bus nuts have a bad wrap to overcome anyway because of some of the stereotypes out there.  I mean no disrespect to skoolies, I have seen some really well done ones over on skoolie.net.  But you also have to admit there are enough of them out there that shout psychedelic drugs, wild thing, or rebellion against "the man" very loudly.  I'm not even saying anything about the right of those people to express themselves.  But it does cause a lot of people to conjure a less than flattering image in their mind when one says "bus conversion."

So as someone referenced earlier, it helps all bus nuts every time one of us presents themselves to the public or authorities in a way that improves the perception of bus conversions.  And unfortunately it goes against the perception of us all when one of us gets backed into a corner and reinforces the negative perception.

[MacGyver]

Thanks, Mike...

Like I said...  I tried to be nice about it up front...  I showed that the bus was legal and legitimately parked on our property...  It was pure luck that I found out who was actually phoning in the reports, and that he had JUST retired from the very same board of code enforcement...

Because he was a 'favorite' over there, they gave his reports priority and refused to back down...  I had the choice of either hiring a lawyer to fight them in court, move the bus as demanded or taking the path I did.  I had very little to actually lose at the time, and I was just fed up with the crap... 

I will add that my letter to the board was CC'd to the Sheriff's dep't. and put on file, but I'll also add that my threats were directed specifically at the board for their obvious legal breaches in their demands.  I never did get the story about why they backed down, just that they did and haven't bothered us since.

I did find out some time later that the guy that kept phoning in reports (the recent retiree) was told that they could no longer address the issue because I had demonstrated willingness to use lethal force to protect my property, and that he should not, under any circumstance, approach me directly and provoke a confrontation if he valued his life. 

I thought it was rather funny, honestly...  I did threaten to shoot anyone on the property engaged in the illegal removal of my property (the bus), but really had no way to back up that threat.  At the time, we had no handguns... Only shotguns, but no ammo...  We did have a couple of Japanese swords, but they were decorative and unsharpened (except for the tip, which gave me a nasty set of stitches when I was a kid! lol)...

I can only assume, at this point, that they felt the risk of a confrontation leading to mortal injury wasn't worth the risk of providing favoritism to the neighbor...  I also had no violations with the bus..  It was legally registered, insured and inspected.  It was parked on the side of the house behind the shrubs...  The guy across the street just didn't like the fact that he could see it from his front lawn.

And...  Since then...  He's actually turned into not such a bad neighbor.  I'm guessing he's either been nice since then so as not to provoke me, or, he's decided that it just isn't worth going to war over a bus.  Either way, I don't care...  The complaints abruptly stopped and no problems since.

And, as I said, it's not a path I'd recommend...  Chances of the same outcome would be very, VERY low. 

I will say that I know of no tow truck in this area capable of towing the 60 footer I had in the first place.  The folks that eventually bought it from me owned a tow and truck repair shop and their biggest tow truck was only capable of dragging it across the field it was parked in.  Aside from that, the guy said that the bus was too heavy to actually hook and tow away and asked if I'd be willing to drive it to their shop because he wasn't comfortable driving it himself (he'd never driven a bus that large)...  I went ahead and drove it for him and showed him how everything worked once it was on-site.

He was happy with the purchase, but only wanted the engine/transmission and the Webasto water heater. heh...

-Mac

[cody]

One aspect here that hasn't been addressed and i'm curious about is the nature of the violation, if would either be a civil or a criminal violation, I'm guessing it was a zonal violation which places it in the area of a civil infraction, a criminal complaint has a box where the MCL (michigan criminal code number) is entered, if it were in another state their number would have to be entered, as far as a civil infraction would go, the local deputy could hand deliver the 'notice of intent to hold a hearing' but would have little if any authority to enforce a zonal violation, after the hearing in court the decision would be enforced by the local law enforcement agency but being civil in nature would tend to place it on the backburner unless the court docket was such that they had time, in many communities the court docket is so jammed up that they may make an attempt to get compliance but if immediate compliance isn't attained they usually throw it on the back burner until later, and is sometimes forgotten or placed as inactive until such a time as an ordinance with teeth is enacted, by then it's usually grandfathered in anyway.  In most communities a threat of lethal force is usually addressed by a swat team tho so I would give that a lot of thought beforehand.  I live in fear of watching a "breaking news" story on tv and see officers approaching my house lol.

[John316]

Cody,

You should see the Swat truck we have here...LOL...I am not sure what they use it for. It looks more like a tank.

God bless,

John

[cody]

Michigan is too broke to allow us to think of that, in the cities swat teams are very busy but in the upper penninsula a swat team is mainly active after dark and mostly after mosquitos lol.

[HighTechRedneck]

I live in fear of watching a "breaking news" story on tv and see officers approaching my house lol.

Yup, that would sure put a skid on the whole day.  lol

And you wouldn't even have time to do something like Clint Eastwood did to a bus in his movie "The Gauntlet".

[HighTechRedneck]

Cody,

You should see the Swat truck we have here...LOL...I am not sure what they use it for. It looks more like a tank.

God bless,

John

Kind of like one of these:

[cody]

Wow, your mosquito's must be monsters.