>Don't you just hate all those stupid rules and regulations. Who sees your backyard anyway? Why should the city care about a fence in your backyard ... I wonder what would have happened if you had torn down the fence instead of repaired it? <g>

Even I wouldn't have liked that. The patio is still... under construction, literally. The house being a fixer upper, you can imagine the amount of junk that appears and waits to be cut and fed into the garbage can. While the city will take away some stuff, it refuses to take the rest, so junk sort of achieved long-term presence there :).

>In our neighborhood we have a "covenant" that you can't park an RV in your yard, uncovered. So people in our neighborhood are erecting these huge barn-like buildings for garaging their RVs (along with all of their other junk) ... they're more of an eye-sore than the vehicle itself would be.

To me the worst eyesore are all those colorless vehicles. Poor people probably didn't have the money for the color version, so those graphite, dull gray, metallic, drab and whatnot family defense vehicles are everywhere. Though, about the time I had enough and started complaining, all of a sudden they changed the fashion, and in the last three months vehicles in nice colors are everywhere. Except in my back alley - my neighbors seem to be stuck with their old B/W stuff.