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Neighbor building the Winchester Mystery House? Unceasing construction for 6+ years on single family home (self.legaladvice)

AtTheEolian が 投稿

I'm in Denver, Colorado.

When I moved in, about five years ago, my roommate mentioned that the house across from our building had been undergoing construction for at least a year (when she moved in).

They often work 7 days a week, and are frequently in violation of the noise ordinance by starting at 5 am or earlier. When I complain, DPD simply says noise complaints are at the bottom of their list of priorities (understandable) and that they'll get to it if they can. To my knowledge, they've stopped by once or twice and warned them to keep it down.

It is a single family home with a bizarre level of construction - they've put in and jackhammered up at least three driveways. They've fully replaced the roof twice. They've essentially installed a second basement floor, replaced brick, built brick fencing, etc. Quite often it's so loud we just can't get any work done (I work from home), and can't sleep, even with two white noise-makers.

I know this seems so minor, but after five years of constant noise, not even taking the weekends off, I am going batty. Is there any potential solution or way to address it? We've tried talking to contractors, my former roommate even left a note for the owner of the building, but of course we've never heard back.

tl;dr: constant (seven days a week) construction for 6+ years on single family home. Anyone to complain to? Any way to find answers of how long it will go on? Any rights for neighbors to enjoy some sort of quiet existence?

update: found the owner, looking into it now.

update 2: the owner appears to be a broker/real estate agent based out of Boulder.

update 3: it's my bedtime, and I will be calling about permits tomorrow. This now sounds even more shady.

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[–]derspinyQuality Contributor 476 ポイント477 ポイント  (21子コメント)

Do they have permits? If not, call code enforcement.

If they do, call your city councillor or your mayor and ask what you can do to have their permits held up due to the level of noise they're imposing on their neighbours. Be polite, but keep the pressure up. Appear at town hall meetings, write regularly, call regularly, go to every permit review and make yourself heard.

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 202 ポイント203 ポイント  (20子コメント)

Sorry for the 101-level question, how do I find out if they have permits?

[–]derspinyQuality Contributor 201 ポイント202 ポイント  (16子コメント)

Check with the city records office.

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 93 ポイント94 ポイント  (13子コメント)

Thanks, I'll do that.

[–]jason8001 82 ポイント83 ポイント  (4子コメント)

In my county and state we have to post the permits in the window by the front door... might be worth it to take a quick peek

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 69 ポイント70 ポイント  (3子コメント)

There's nothing visible, I've looked.

[–]thefallableuterus 91 ポイント92 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Here in Aurora they get very upset if your permit isn't displayed properly. I'd bet that they haven't had any permits for any of the work at all.

[–]Username_Used 22 ポイント23 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Or they have expired. Most municipalities have time limits on permits, after which they have to be renewed, usually with some kind of a review as to why they need to longer than the general permit time. In my town it's 2 years max before full review of site plans and progress.

[–]BAXterBEDford 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

In my state they require a designated box outside of any place that's having permitted work done that LOOKS LIKE THIS. If it's not there chances are they are doing this without permits and you can get them shutdown for that alone. If the work was done without permits there is a chance that they would literally have to tear out anything that's been done and have to have it redone with permits. And they'll also have some hefty fines.

[–]jupitaur9 24 ポイント25 ポイント  (6子コメント)

Some locations have the permits in a system you can access from the web.

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 24 ポイント25 ポイント  (5子コメント)

Fishing around that website, it doesn't look like there's one in Denver. Unless I'm missing something.

[–]ZombieRonSwanson 28 ポイント29 ポイント  (3子コメント)

it looks like you can look at all permits going back to 2012 as a PDF it sorts each year by month https://www.denvergov.org/content/denvergov/en/denver-development-services/help-me-find-/building-permits.html from skimming the site it looks like anything from 2000 to the present is available at their office either as hard copy or on a imaging system

IANAL

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 11 ポイント12 ポイント  (2子コメント)

Yeah, I've no idea how to search without a permit number though. Or am I missing something altogether where you can put the address in?

[–]jupitaur9 34 ポイント35 ポイント  (0子コメント)

There's a pop open under "Permit records for 2017" and previous years which has links to XLS files. These have the address in them. Save the file snd sort by address.

https://www.denvergov.org/content/denvergov/en/denver-development-services/help-me-find-/building-permits.html

[–]ZombieRonSwanson 8 ポイント9 ポイント  (0子コメント)

not as far as I can tell, your best bet is probably going to be contacting the permit office

[–]my_cat_joe 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I would probably just call the building inspector, or office thereof, directly. Their entire business is enforcing compliance. They'll be able to point you in the right direction.

[–]PM_ME_ALL_OF_REDDIT 22 ポイント23 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Highly suggest you do, if they get a citation they will only have a timeline to adhere to and unlike the pd code enforcement only does this and won't mess around.

[–]AndrewnotJackson 8 ポイント9 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Good to know how to check if a neighbor has their permits

[–]TheActualAWdeV 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I find it very appropriate to see you have 101 upvotes on an answer to a 101-level question.

edit; alas, no longer true. Then just an upvote for giving a good answer. And no more blather from me about upvotes.

[–]alice-in-canada-land 58 ポイント59 ポイント  (1子コメント)

It's my understanding that permits come with a closure deadline - a time by which the project has to be completed and pass inspection.

Perhaps you can ask City Hall to enforce any such time limits.

[–]ultralame 8 ポイント9 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yes, but they can be extended for a fee.

[–]elasee 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Just call your cities Building and Safety Dept. or whatever it's called in your city, and report the illegal construction. If they have pulled permits, they will tell you. If not, an inspector will check it out and issue them a notice to stop. If they don't stop, the city can take them to court and a judge will enforce the order.

Source: former building inspector

[–]armalitedan1 92 ポイント93 ポイント  (21子コメント)

Just curious. Is it some sort of trade school situation? Practicing demo and construction?

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 131 ポイント132 ポイント  (20子コメント)

We thought of that too! It doesn't appear to be, the contractors seem to be from lots of different companies, and not young/new. There doesn't seem to be any type of teaching going on, just workers working. It's almost always just 2 workers.

edited to add: we also wondered if this was some kind of weird tax write-off or way to prolong some sort of lawsuit settlement or something.

[–]pair_a_medic 176 ポイント177 ポイント  (13子コメント)

Sounds like a good way to launder money. A lot of shady contractors deal in cash.

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 75 ポイント76 ポイント  (11子コメント)

That's a good idea, none of the contractors have been like...the most popular ones in Denver or anything.

[–]Lucky-Prism 85 ポイント86 ポイント  (8子コメント)

I actually came here to say this. I'm in real estate investing and I've been reading about the uptick in real estate related laundering. It's becoming popular on the west coast where foreign investment is growing (primarily noticed in Vancouver and Bay Area). An investment LLC will purchase a home and leave it empty (also causing ghost neighborhood phenomenon). Then they will hire a gardening LLC, and then a property management LLC and maybe a contractor to replace the roof and other things every so often. Each of these side LLC's are really owned by the owner of the home, they are just being used to launder money.

It's actually pretty ingenous. If you're feeling like digging for answers you could search public record to find the owner of the property or home. Try to contact them about the property situation. If anything, you can find out if an actual person owns the house. If it's an LLC or company of some kind, I have a feeling something fishy is going on based on other details you've given. Maybe gather evidence and take concerns to police, or an investigative journalist.

EDIT: Also, get as many neighbors on your side if you decided to move forward with police. Have them all call in for noise violations or other reports as soon as it happens. Squeaky oil gets the grease. It's annoying, but sometimes people have to come together to get shit done.

[–]mrchaotica 13 ポイント14 ポイント  (0子コメント)

An investment LLC will purchase a home and leave it empty (also causing ghost neighborhood phenomenon). Then they will hire a gardening LLC, and then a property management LLC and maybe a contractor to replace the roof and other things every so often. Each of these side LLC's are really owned by the owner of the home, they are just being used to launder money.

That makes sense, but why would they actually perform the work instead of just pretending they did?

[–]Birth_Defect 18 ポイント19 ポイント  (5子コメント)

How is it ingenious? Replacing your roof often enough to launder money would surely draw attention and eventually someone will think "money laundering", like exactly what had happened in this thread.

[–]Lucky-Prism 38 ポイント39 ポイント  (2子コメント)

I thought hiring your own buisness to recycle money was ingenious. If done right they're covered by ambiguous paperwork and circumstance. I personally never would have thought about it until I learned more about realestate, and sketchy stuff that people do. Assuming this property is doing it, the fact it's been going on for 7 years and they haven't raised any red flags, or been shut down says enough.

[–]iguru42 14 ポイント15 ポイント  (1子コメント)

The "if done right" is the critical part. If the work didn't annoy the neighbors, then everything is great. You keep remodeling the house, I assume paying the LLCs far more than the work was worth, so on paper everything looks legit, and the money gets cleaned. But when you ignore your affect on the neighbors and annoy them with noise, the whole thing will quickly unravel once someone starts looking closely.

[–]bulksalty 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

What if the goal isn't to launder money in the host nation, ie all the money is clean, it's to move money out of a nation with tight capital controls?

[–]bastionfour 7 ポイント8 ポイント  (0子コメント)

It's difficult to prove.

[–]vokabulary 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

well this guy's been at it for 6 years !

[–]MallNinja45 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Squeaky oil gets the grease.

Not trying to be a dick but it's "The squeaky wheel gets the grease."

[–]takingphotosmakingdo 15 ポイント16 ポイント  (0子コメント)

yeah launder or payoff front. Maybe they all are tied to a known dirty union? Not saying unions are bad, but maybe the are all related via one.

Seeing your other comments maybe it's a front for a cartel?

[–]Ur_house 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Agreed, this does sound like money laundering. With that, they have so much cash they don't care about burning it, as long as it ends up legit in the end (if you've seen breaking bad you'll know)

[–]MiseEnSelle 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

First thing I thought of too.

[–]916hotdogs 13 ポイント14 ポイント  (5子コメント)

Have you thought of talking to them?

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 48 ポイント49 ポイント  (4子コメント)

Mentioned in another comment, there's never a boss there, only workers, and quite frequently they only speak Spanish, and my Spanish isn't good enough to move forward with a conversation.

[–]nostaruponthar 8 ポイント9 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Google translate is an amazing app. We used it to converse when building our house and it made a world of difference. Speak in English and it will translate and they can read what you said in Spanish and vice versa.

[–]andpassword 6 ポイント7 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Could also be immigration 'laundering' I suppose...would you or anyone else be able to tell if the hispanic-appearing workers are the same ones every time?

[–]sarcazm 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

¿donde esta tu jefe? (Where is your boss?)

Anote su número de teléfono (Write down his phone number)

[–]chst4917 57 ポイント58 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I haven't read all the other comments but I work for the City and County of Denver building inspections department and when we get reports of work without permits we send an inspector out to check it out. If they don't have the right permits for what they're doing they get a cease work order. At that point they can get all the permits (which sounds like it will be a lot of money) or will keep working and have some legal issues on their hands.

Our office is 720-865-2505.

*It's also very possible that the existing work isn't up to building code in which case they couldn't just buy permits and be on their way. It's likely that they would have to make corrections. Regardless, were a good first stop to get the city looking into it.

[–]mn_sunny 41 ポイント42 ポイント  (4子コメント)

Is H.H. Holmes planning on moving in next door?

[–]maniclucky 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Ooooh. I actually got that reference.

[–]MonsterBurrito 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (0子コメント)

They've spent that last five years just building the greased chutes.

[–]Birth_Defect 40 ポイント41 ポイント  (2子コメント)

This is the greatest mystery I've ever seen on this sub, please post an update one day. Also don't get killed by the mob for ruining their money laundering scam

[–]Insectshelf3 12 ポイント13 ポイント  (0子コメント)

My biggest question--who the hell is funding this? The construction is redundant. Replaced the roof and driveway multiple times. Why? I must know.

[–]squidkiosk 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Something tells me the mob wouldn't try to attract attention like this.

[–]TriggeringEveryone 134 ポイント135 ポイント  (18子コメント)

TIL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_House

[–]Computermaster 9 ポイント10 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Here I was expecting it to turn out to be a Supernatural reference.

[–]CharlesDickensABox 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I toured it when I was a kid. It was pretty cool.

[–]City_Chicky 39 ポイント40 ポイント  (7子コメント)

You mention it's the house across from you, have you tried talking to the side neighbors of the construction house? Maybe they have insight or can at least join you with additional concerns/complaints to the city about noise outside quiet hours, permits and code enforcement.

Another idea: Maybe try googling the legal owner (from county tax records) to see if it gives you any insight? They might have the same personality quirks as Ms Winchester.

IANAL

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 35 ポイント36 ポイント  (6子コメント)

I like the idea of figuring out the legal owner. I'm going to work on that now.

I'm going to look into the permit situation, and then start asking our neighbors.

[–]BowserKoopa 11 ポイント12 ポイント  (5子コメント)

Getting the legal owner is easy in most counties in the US.

Go to your counties appraisal site and feed it the property address. That's it, really.

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 13 ポイント14 ポイント  (4子コメント)

So uh, I did that. And nothing comes up for this address.

https://www.denvergov.org/property

[–]BowserKoopa 18 ポイント19 ポイント  (3子コメント)

Some of these searches can be really particular about formatting. I'm more used to searching by owner rather than house#, but I can recall at least one situation where all last names were uppercase and truncated to the first ten letters...

If you go to a mapping website and enter an address, it will usually correct errors in naming for you.

Try dropping the street type from the search (e.g. "ct", " ave") and be as brod as possible.

If they use a map based solution, find your house and you should be able to see nearby plots and their plot numbers.

If you want you can PM it to me, or someone with more history in this sub...

I'm about to go to bed, so if you do do so, I won't get around to it soon.

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 33 ポイント34 ポイント  (2子コメント)

No worries! Thanks, I actually found the owner!

[–]my_cat_joe 6 ポイント7 ポイント  (0子コメント)

See how many properties are under that name too. Try to get as much information from public records as you can.

[–]KBCme 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Please update us if/when you find anything.

[–]canteenpie 52 ポイント53 ポイント  (2子コメント)

Not American, but the noise control chapter that you linked mentions that:

"For the purpose of determining compliance with the provisions of this chapter, the manager of environmental health and the chief of police or their authorized representatives are hereby authorized to make inspections of all noise sources and to take measurements and tests whenever necessary to determine the quantity and character of noise."

You've obviously tried contacting the police, but maybe try contacting your city's department of environmental health?

Good luck!

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 23 ポイント24 ポイント  (1子コメント)

That's a good next step, thanks!

[–]canteenpie 11 ポイント12 ポイント  (0子コメント)

No worries mate, hope you get a result!

[–]redditRW 43 ポイント44 ポイント  (7子コメント)

I find it fascinating that all these contractors are getting paid over his length of time. Or are they?

You might want to check (again with the county) to see if there are liens on the property from contractors who have not gotten paid. Perhaps they get stiffed, come back on a Sunday a year later, and jackhammer the work they put in.

I mean, I really can't imagine why anyone would need to do the same work again and again.

If you can establish that contractors are not getting paid, get a friend fluent in Spanish to write this simple fact down; maybe even a list of names. Next time work starts, carry the card over and give it to whoever is in charge. It sucks for them if they are being taken advantage of. They should know upfront if there is a long list of other people who haven't gotten their money.

In fact I'd be willing to bet you'd have a very quiet day.

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 38 ポイント39 ポイント  (6子コメント)

It was the same company that ripped up the driveways and put in new ones, and I think the same roofing company. Today the people with chainsaws were the same ones doing landscaping like two years ago, so I doubt they're not getting paid.

[–]pixl8r 30 ポイント31 ポイント  (5子コメント)

Look up that company and call them. The workers may not know/care/be able to do anything about noise ordinances, but if you make it clear that you'll be gathering evidence and making regular complaints, the management might.

[–]AtTheEolian[S] 18 ポイント19 ポイント  (4子コメント)

Yeah, I'm going to start doing that. The bummer is that most of the contractors are just in regular trucks, no signs or names or anything.

[–]JerryLupus 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (2子コメント)

How do you know it's the same guys a year later?

[–]paletooth 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (1子コメント)

most of the contractors are just in regular trucks

since OP only listed three instances of seeing the same company come out more than once, i'm guessing they don't fall into the "most" category.

[–]redditRW 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

If someone is a day worker, they can work for different contractors--and still look like the same guys.

[–]USOutpost31 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

It sounds like some sort of Showcase or Demo home, which would make it arguably commercial. It also sounds like the Broker knows this.

Permitted home repairs are one thing. Constantly doing renovations to test or demonstrate products is another. Permits also have an expiry, though they can be renewed. Most places have a limit on that as well.

Two roofs and more than one driveway in 6 years is a Commercial enterprise of some sort, no question

It could also be zoned Commercial or she could be flying under the radar.

Its shady but how enforcably shady is the question.

[–]tominsj 30 ポイント31 ポイント  (6子コメント)

As a long-term resident of San Jose it's cool to know people know about the Winchester mystery house!

[–]GibsysAces 6 ポイント7 ポイント  (3子コメント)

As someone not from San Jose it's on my list to visit when I come over.

[–]tominsj 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (2子コメント)

I've been many times as a child and adult, it's such a weird fascinating place. I understand they are doing a documentary on the Winchesters and the house. Should be pretty cool.

[–]GibsysAces 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (1子コメント)

The tiffany windows alone sound awesome

[–]tominsj 8 ポイント9 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I always liked the stairs that went no where, to confuse the ghosts.

[–]Filmcricket 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Always wanted to go. Kid-me was fascinated by the story behind it.

[–]tominsj 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I been a couple times as an adult and it's still facinating, just less spooky

[–]mystyc 27 ポイント28 ポイン%