The process-- what a process!

So here I am, packed into our third bedroom a.k.a. the world's tiniest office, and back to back with Paul,
now a third of the way through October, healing slowly from the brutal and nerve-wracking business of THE COUNTY. We say these words with the same fear as we say "global warming" or "government deadlock!"  A syndrome we seem to suffer from a lot around here these days..

Anyway, as soon as I knew for sure we had sold our Renton house I started packing AND working my tummy off, (I WISH), getting paperwork done.  Dennis the Builder, (hereafter called DtheB) had recommended an architect so lickety-split we sent off our drawings to them and got them going on an official set of plans.  Then -- they had to be sent to another company to have them converted to ENGINEERING drawings also.  (Just how do we put up the roof on this behemoth) kind of thing?

DtheB downloaded all the paperwork to request the permissions.. there are a ton of them and I'll show you what I mean.

Septic system
Well
Propane tank
Generator
Garage
House
New road access
Water report
Soil report     blah blah blah.

The propane tank is for my gas cook-top and a fuel supply in a power outage... which can last a long time in the boonies.  The generator will back up ALL the main power systems in the house.  The well means no more bally water bills.. yea.  The septic system takes all our output and turns it into ashes!

In a general urban environment many of these are not required BUT our lot isn't IN an urban an environment, (which is of course why we like it a lot) and doesn't have access to water,  gas or a sewer system. All that is very common around these parts and there are many businesses set up to assist homes with that.  There are companies who come and inspect your septic and there are companies who pop round and fill up your propane tank without even being asked !  Yahoo!    HOWEVER it gives "THE COUNTY" lots of reasons to throw their weight and our dollars around!

So one evening DtheB came over to the yellow house and spread drawings all over the available (few) flat surfaces gathering together all he needed. Then (after Maggie misterstrone), he and Paul sat down and filled in forms for an hour.


They tend to look like this:
Are you
Black                              White                     Asian                            Hispanic                  Alien

Now the average dude is going to tick one or the other as applicable and that's what we did.  WRONG!

Having assembled this six inch pile of paper,  Dennis and I go off to THE COUNTY and we sit and wait just like potential jurors waiting to be picked.  An hour later we got picked and sat in front of a young lady whose job it is to
a) take your money
b) pick holes in your submission.
Which she did very effectively.

This was an interesting exercise in self control and patience-- both commodities being in short supply in my character!

My eyebrows began dancing when she said she wanted a full submission for the garage-- I muttered "it's four walls and a roof! "  And then shut up and bit my tongue. DtheB was a saint and sat there saying "ok I can do that" over and over again.   Much of the hour spent here, (after an hour waiting to be picked) is now a musty memory but I do remember that we have to answer ALL the questions as in:

BLACK    Only when bruised      WHITE   Yes especially in the winter     Asian  Nope but I like your food   HISPANIC (around here that means Mexican) Nope         Alien  My husband thinks so!

So all that nice paperwork we did was rejected as we'd not answered ALL the questions. This one struck me as pretty asinine.

Do you have  Gas  Nope  Water Not your kind   Electricity  YEP!

What is your main source of heating?

Excuse me, I just told you that I only have electricity!?  How else am I going to stay warm dude?

And finally I heard her say. "Oh you need a SWM," which she pronounced SWIM.  "What's that"  says DtheB (who has worked his way around a ton of county nonsense and is by now also beginning to raise his eyebrows).  "That's a picture AND a narrative " she replies very calmly. So, you want me to write you a novel eh? Ok - this might be something I can be good at!
 By this time the tip of my tongue is bleeding from being clamped between my teeth.  But DtheB quietly says, "OK I can do that!", and I mentally wish that I had his patience.

So we pass some things with colors -sort of.
We have a soil report-- in my last blog I showed you a photo of Paul going off to dig up a bucket of soil--they need to know that if it rains the water can be absorbed into the terrain you know!

We have a well report-- I'm not allowed to drink the water from my well without filtering it or I will turn brown apparently as there's a bit too much iron in it.  Well as I'm perennially anemic this sounds like a good idea to me but-- gotta get a $1000 dollar filter machine!  OOOO KAYYY!

Great-- our well is 100 feet from the septic system!  KEWL-- we got that one right.

And the land will percolate well enough to cope with the multiple bedrooms we plan to put in.. Great!

And on and on.

After our official rejection, DtheB went away, we got a plan for the well which the original owners hadn't bothered to do and finally, DethB went back with all his papers which got accepted.  It is a measure of the bloody and bowed nature of this exercise that even DtheB was heard to mutter, "these people are over the top!"

In the final analysis they approved the paperwork and summoned me back there to collect it.  The first time I went there I navigated by following DtheB's back bumper... this time I had to find it on my own!  ULP!
The county planning offices are in fact in PORT ORCHARD which is about forty miles away and much map studying was done beforehand to get there. A GPS is promised for my Christmas stocking!

I sat there, (this time I got "picked" quite fast,) and then another assistant/county civil servant sat in front of me for five full minutes and said----nothing.  There were several phrases running through my mind,  the mildest of which was "wassup?"  through to words which you can only imagine, and finally I sniggered and said, "you're so quiet!"  (At this point I was truly proud of my restraint.)   And she said-- she really said...

"Lots of the departments who were supposed to sign off on your submission haven't done so!"

And I said, "does that mean I don't actually HAVE permission to build?"

And she said, honest to goodness   "oh yes, I'll just sign them off on the computer."

And I thought... "what am I paying you over 11000 dollars for?"  (Actually that damn pile of paper cost at least $17000 after all these reports and stuff.)

DtheB launched into action while we were waiting, (as did a nice lady who works septic systems) and we have tons of people offering to put in a septic system for us AFTER we cut down lots of trees.  Paul and I went around the property at the weekend tying red tape around spindly and sickly trees signifying that they are on death row.

And so it goes-- next a report on Poulsbo and some of the amazing and delightful things about it, one of which is the local emergency room where I ended up recently on a Saturday night having tried to cut off my thumb!

Thanks for reading...(-_-)