Have you tried popping into the fire station down the street? Maybe a tenants rights organization?
I may try the police station, if not the fire station. I don’t think a tenants’ rights organization is appropriate here; none of the parties involved is a renter.
I just called for the 3rd time in the past few days to try to get him ticketed. The 911 operator I spoke with a little while ago suggested that maybe the police won’t ticket him if the parking lot is private property (which none of the other city officials I have spoken with suggested). I’d like to find that out one way or another, because I don’t see the point in wasting my time or police resources on it if it’s not going to accomplish anything.
Maybe this weekend I will stroll over to the local police station and see what they can tell me.
TROs will know which laws and city departments handle stuff like this; after all, a lot of rental units are condos.
And firefighters take fire seriously, and therefore take egress very seriously; if there is anything they can do to help, they will know.
When you go, bring photographs. If you can date stamp them with your phone or camera, then get a few days’ worth before you go.
Haven’t exactly been giving this a ton of thought, but I find myself thinking that this ought to be addressed FIRST through the condo association. Yeah, it would be a pain in the ass, and could make relations among tenants worse, but since this does occur entirely on private property, I would imagine the cops would want you to pursue private recourse. If you get some kind of a determination by the condo board, you could probably use the cops/courts to enforce it.
Your husband is president. Have him take whatever steps are possible - either a unilateral notice/warning/fine if permitted, or call a board/tenant’s meeting to do the same. Going to the cops impresses me as - I don’t think passive/aggressive is exactly the right term - but indirect, expecting others to fight your battles. The fucker is doing something that he ought not, and that pisses you off. Stop beating around the bush. (Sorry, don’t mean that as critical as it sounds.)
If you go to the PO/FO, what is the chance they will find this an infraction by the entire condo association - for allowing this to occur. They might issue some kind of citation or enact proceedings against the entire association, leading to legal fees that all will have to share.
If you are trying to get the other 2 units on your side, you can be upfront about pursuing this, even if it results in fines against the entire association.
But I again express my near total ignorance of condo law.
I am not against trying this, but a) I’ve seen what happened when former residents have tried the exact same thing with him at prior meetings (we’ve lived here for almost 6 years and he’s been an asshole from the moment we started the process of putting a bid on our place…I have by necessity omitted a lot of backstory); and b) I’d like to know what my actual recourse is if he refuses to cooperate so I can use it as ammo at the condo meeting.
The problem is that the condo rules don’t spell out what permissible penalties are in any kind of useful detail, nor exactly what steps have to be taken to give the unit owner to remedy the problem before penalties are imposed. I have learned the hard way (via my parents’ divorce decree, which stated that both parents were required to contribute to the children’s college expenses according to their ability, but not how that ability was to be determined, nor by whom…but I digress) that a contract that doesn’t detail who enforces it or what the penalties are for noncompliance is pretty damn useless.
My friends who are real estate agents (and one of whom was the agent who found our place for us) actually suggest that mentioning this might be one way to get the rest of the association on board. Especially given the high-profile enforcement of safety issues involving decks on small apartment buildings in recent years.