Burning issue costs neighbour $270,000

I think its good when irresponsible burners are punished, they give the whole industry a bad name. They specifically said twice that it was a stove (not a boiler) and it was installed in his garage. But the guy is burning all year? Why/what is he burning in the Summer? Has to be garbage or something. Why is it in his garage? I would hate to live next to someone like that...

Yeah, it's kind of suspicious if they are burning all year round (the neighbors had the windows open). Paper mill smell? Wonder what they were really burning?

It's interesting to note the chemist's mention of all the compounds in "smoke" which a modern EPA stove doesn't emit (much). The vast majority of these things are consumed in the reaction. He had to have been a real A-- to believe the neighbors were just going to go away.

The smoke issue was the main reason for retiring the old Fisher; i just KNEW the neighbors would have something to say when I started burning 24/7. We're on 1/4 acre lots and I could fog out a couple dozen homes if I wasn't careful!

Hmm: $270k would buy a lot of gasifiers...

Chris

Fools lilke that give the rest of us fools a bad rep.

Ever drive by a State Park on a summer evening? The smog is so bad from the campers wood fires I don't see how anyone can stand being in the campsite let alone living near it. Lots of mills in canada and everwhere which emmit plenty of smog but no one closes them. I don't think it sets a good precedence to be able to penalize one person for his or her smoke emmitance with such large fines. The attorneys got the bulk of payment and certainly were in it for that share. If their smoke was bothering the whole neighborhood they should have been able to stop them from burning before such action as this was taken. Just my thoughts.

Remember that the offender probably had plenty of time to shut it down....but I assume they fought it and that is where all the money comes in. There is a difference between the allowed pollution of a plant that employs 100's and supplies tens of thousands of people with products...and of a residential property. We can't start (in most cases) an auto body painting operation in our garages either.

The fools (burners) should have stopped sooner and been reasonable. You certainly cannot expect neighbors to not be able to enjoy their property.

I went through this with a neighbor on a much smaller scale.

Burning garbage / trash and green crap from his landscaping service in one of those backyard burner chiminea things.
Police would show up with different neighbor's complaints, but he was alwys able to convince them he was "smoking" fish.
Finally got the fire dept. captain to show up on a Sunday morning and busted him with the lawn bush trimmings all cut up to stove size and the kitchen garbage barrel feeding the chiminea. (no can of sardines this time).
All burning stopped.

He's at it again.
Sometimes he burns at night.

My neighbor has given me permissio to put a camera on her garage (the guy has planted 12 foot arborviaes around his yard when he was forced to pull his 10 foot fence down.)

I could care less about burning a bit of wood in a chiminea. the jerk burns garbage. Plastic, food, green crap, you name it.
He doesn't get it.

Geez, if he's a landscape/contractor, even could be pressure treated lumber. that stuff is not only smoky, but toxic

BrotherBart said:

The meth they are cooking in that garage will cover the fine, no problem.

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Did someone say Meth?????? Not that I would know what that is or anything. *innocent look* UGG????

billb3 said:

I went through this with a neighbor on a much smaller scale.

Burning garbage / trash and green crap from his landscaping service in one of those backyard burner chiminea things.
Police would show up with different neighbor's complaints, but he was alwys able to convince them he was "smoking" fish.
Finally got the fire dept. captain to show up on a Sunday morning and busted him with the lawn bush trimmings all cut up to stove size and the kitchen garbage barrel feeding the chiminea. (no can of sardines this time).
All burning stopped.

He's at it again.
Sometimes he burns at night.

My neighbor has given me permissio to put a camera on her garage (the guy has planted 12 foot arborviaes around his yard when he was forced to pull his 10 foot fence down.)

I could care less about burning a bit of wood in a chiminea. the jerk burns garbage. Plastic, food, green crap, you name it.
He doesn't get it.

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A 1/4 stick late at night set off inside that Chimnea would solve that issue

I'd like to know where you can get 1/4 sticks. I'm stuck with pyrodex in a soda bottle. It's still fun but then don't have the sharp crack of the real thing.

It is for sure very rude and inconsiderate of a neighbor to burn trash in a wood burner or any other type of fire place, fire pit, ext....But I am also one of those guys that feel that its not always the governments job to tell somebody what they can and cannot do on there own property. That goes for zoning and everything else in MOST cases. If I had a neighbour that was really doing something that was as bad as the complainants in the above article made it to be, I would move. Not trying to get political cause thats not my goal. But we cant expect the government to do everything for us....cause then there would be no end in sight.

FIREFIGHTER29 said:

It is for sure very rude and inconsiderate of a neighbor to burn trash in a wood burner or any other type of fire place, fire pit, ext....But I am also one of those guys that feel that its not always the governments job to tell somebody what they can and cannot do on there own property. That goes for zoning and everything else in MOST cases. If I had a neighbour that was really doing something that was as bad as the complainants in the above article made it to be, I would move. Not trying to get political cause thats not my goal. But we cant expect the government to do everything for us....cause then there would be no end in sight.

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Well, good, then you ought to be downright thrilled with this one since the government refused to do anything about it. This was a civil case. The people had to go through the hassle and expense of suing the morons to get them to stop.

And if you really think it's OK to force people to have to move because a neighbor's activities are causing damage over the fence and there's no recourse, I have no words for you. Yes, people should be able to do what they want on their own property, but not on other people's property, which is what was happening here.

You are correct it was a civil case. And often times laws are constructed off of case law. I only stated what I did because of what the complainants lawyer stated about being upset that the government did not intervene. As a matter of fact, there is a small town less than ten miles from me that is in the process of creating an ordinance that would completely ban the use of any type of wood burning appliance to heat the home, during any part of the year. Its yet to be seen how far its going to go, but this is what its going to come to as more and more people complain about smoke. Especially now, due to all the people coming out of the wood work putting stoves in because of the price of oil. I dont blame them one bit, but down the road its going to be the government telling us we cant burn wood anymore. Its already started.

FIREFIGHTER29 said:

You are correct it was a civil case. And often times laws are constructed off of case law. I only stated what I did because of what the complainants lawyer stated about being upset that the government did not intervene. As a matter of fact, there is a small town less than ten miles from me that is in the process of creating an ordinance that would completely ban the use of any type of wood burning appliance to heat the home, during any part of the year. Its yet to be seen how far its going to go, but this is what its going to come to as more and more people complain about smoke. Especially now, due to all the people coming out of the wood work putting stoves in because of the price of oil. I dont blame them one bit, but down the road its going to be the government telling us we cant burn wood anymore. Its already started.

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Then it's up to you and me to vote the bums out because that's the way democracy works. But I doubt they's seriously try to do that. And it wouldn't even be a threat if people weren't such jerks about burning garbage and crap wood in ancient polluting stoves. There's no smoke to complain about from an EPA stove. And if people are rushing to buy them, there's no way elected officials will get away with banning it.

In my opinion, the government should have intervened because the jerk was making life impossible for his neighbors. If a local government is so stupid that it can't figure out how to ban the bad stuff and preserve the good, then throw them out of office. But individuals should not have to be forced to bear the burden of going to court to keep their right to enjoy their own property. Your freedom ends at my nose, as the saying goes. I have no problem whatsoever with a densely built town banning smoke. But there's no reason to ban all wood-burning. I live in the country with "next-door" neighbors a quarter mile away, so it's not an issue for me, but if I had somebody 50 feet away burning crap in an ancient non-EPA woodstove, I would have every right in the world to want somebody to make him stop.

http://www.pressrepublican.com/archivesearch/local_story_078050059.html

Here's a town near me talking about a burning ban due to some inconsiderate burners, granted it's a burn barrel not a stove in the garage. Can't believe people would actually burn things like diapers. Come on!