Free Essay

Dealing with Neighborhood Preservation

In: English and Literature

Submitted By startron1
Words 829
Pages 4
Dealing with Neighborhood Preservation
Mike Stephenson.
EN3220-Written Analysis
December 14th, 2012

Abstract
This is a short paper on one of my few dealings with Neighborhood Preservation in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The issue they had with me was the fact that our house had chipped and peeling paint on the exterior trim. The rest of the paper includes what I did to resolve the issue they had with me.

Dealing with Neighborhood Preservation
This all started when one day coming home from our capstone class there was a piece of paper taped to the front door. The piece of paper was from the Department of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation/Code Enforcement Division. It stated they were conducting inspections in our area and that our property was found to be in violation. The violations were for chipped and peeling paint on the exterior trim of the house. If the violations were not corrected within thirty days then there is the possibility of being fined up to $2,500.00.
Upon receiving this, I began to develop a step by step procedure to help resolve the issue, since most of my time was already being spent on work for our capstone class. The first step was to call and talk to the Code Enforcement Inspector. This step took almost a week to complete because we ended up playing phone tag with each other. Once we were finally able to catch each other, I was able to ask a few questions concerning the violations, time frame for completion, and to notify them of my school situation on the chance that we could work something out. It just so happened that the inspector understood and we were able to stretch the completion date as long as I stayed in contact with them and updated them on my progress.
The next step I took was to recruit some help from school, which ended up being my capstone group. Now, after getting the recruited help, next was to schedule a day or so when we can all get together and work on it. We choose to meet up on several of the days we did not have any classes. The day before the first meeting to work on the house, I went and picked up some soda, beer, and food to cook on the grill, kind of as a thank you to them for the help on the house.
Then morning of the first day of work on the house came, with the help of one of my friends we went to the hardware store to pick up four 2”x6”x8’ pieces of wood, nails, paint scrappers, paint, and paint brushes. Once back to the house we broke up into three groups, two groups began to chip off the chipped and peeling paint on the exterior house trim and the last group started to measure some of the exterior trim that needed replacing. Once they got the measurements, the four 2”x6”x8’ pieces of wood were cut to match. With those pieces cut to size, the old pieces that need replacing were taken off and replaced by the new cut pieces. By the time the chipping and replacement of the exterior trim was completed, most of the day has gone by. With most of the day gone, I decided to go ahead and put a few coats of paint on the newly replaced exterior trim and leave the rest for another day. Some of us were adding the coats of paint to the new exterior trim, while one of us began cooking on the grill. All in all, the first day was fun for all, we all had a blast.
The next day before class, I called the inspector to let them know how much we got done and to give them a rough estimate on how much longer the rest would take to get done. A few days passed before we all could get back together to do more work on the house. So, of course when the next day rolled around for all of us to work on the house, we had more soda, beer, and food to cook on the grill. More painting gone done on this day, however, there was still more to go. The last of the painting I ended up doing by myself on another day, but it eventually got done. The entire time this was being done me and my group was also juggling our capstone project which at times got rough.
In the end we were able to pull through completing the capstone project and myself finishing up the painting of the exterior trim on my house. I will admit, without the help from my friends and if the inspector wouldn’t have understood what I was already up against, I don’t think I would have had this finished in time. After all this, I see that I have friends here I can count on.

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