Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for January 12, 2019

yeah, let’s go out to eat! (oy, vey)

This was a stupid thread. You can do whatever you want to the inside of your house. It’s when you add a room or alter the outside that you need building permits. How would she have found out they were working on the home’s interior? Stupid idea.

I know this reply is late, but those of you wondering who snitched on Brad and Toni, it was probably the neighbors. City governments encourage residents to report any unauthorized building renovations, like my city does: https://mcallen.net/departments/permits/permits#residential, including this part: “Help us enforce our Building Codes, report work with out the required permits or licenses to: 956-681-1300 or devservices@mcallen.net”.

That’s the benefit of living in the city, you need govt permission to do what you want. Why? Because the Group Of Vicious Thieves wants their $$$$, which comes from permit fees.

When I worked for the city we got calls on zoning violations all the time. You can’t see everything, and so many people will report. Anyway what next? I will not predict even though I am dying to do so. HWE (hilarity will ensue) is my phrase these days.

Nice change of subject T.J.

TJ to the rescue once again? Gawd!

Nancy and Frank were my parents names. :’(

This time TJ’s shenanigans have caused real pain and deep financial distress. For the life of me, I cannot see the how G&K think this was/is an entertaining episode. TJ is wearing out his welcome; if not with the Degroots, then with the readers.

Time for TJ to seek separate digs.

From the looks of that woman, she has no lovelife and takes it out on homeowners who she can write citations for. She makes Ann Eiffel look good.

You technically need a permit if you do anything electrical or plumbing related.

It’d be funny if the inspector is Ann in disguise performing her latest scam. If so, shortly there’ll be a knock on the door of a “professional” carpenter offering to fix their problems for them.

Let them in the house TJ. Stop shielding the newlyweds.

Do they live in a stinking HOA?

Never, ever say that things cannot get worse.

While it is a false story line, it does point out the evils of government meddling in personal affairs!

I’ve said before, and I still say… some of the extreme reactions to these strips not going the way we want them to or think they should or how they’d go in “real life”? They’re like the response to Rorschach blots when the therapist says “What do you see here?” The response doesn’t say ANYTHING about the inkblot, but it says tons about the responder.

You see, Brad?

Do see what happens when you DON’T – SAY – NO?

If you had said NO to Old Smiley back in 2007 when the Weasel first asked to move in with you in the Horner Rental, you WOULDN’T have the Problems You’re Facing today and Shannon would have already had her own guest bedroom. The room Smiley currently INFESTS today.

Furthermore, If Old Smiley, was a REAL “Friend” as certain “fans” claim he is, he’d realize and feel sorry for and help pay for the damage he’s done today and MOVE THE HELL OUT, Never to return. And on that day he leaves, if YOU, and indeed the rest of the DeGroot clan, had any SENSE, you’d LET HIM LEAVE.

But You Won’t And He Won’t. Nobody’s gonna learn from this. You’re just gonna knunckle under and pay the fines and make the expensive corrections, and the “Hilarity” will go on. Maybe in another three years you’ll have the money saved up to move again only to have Smiley come up with another Predictably Stupid to divest you of it. And again, “Hilarity,” as My Most Respect Colleague LUANN1212 says, “Will Ensue.”

And don’t even get Me started on saying NO to Jonah and his Offspring…..,

I guess this arc ends when we find out who ratted them out. That must be the whole point, to introduce another troublemaker to the long list of people we already deal with here. I’m surprised she didn’t see Shannon. Btw, where is she?

You’re all missing the real tragedy here! Pork chops were lost! Show some damned consideration!

I hope that was the end of this pointless arc. Don’t care who told on them, hopefully we’re moving onto a different story line now. Please.

This points out one of the real problems of living today. Government interference.

See what a tangled web we weave when we don’t make a visiting child sleep in the living room?

What happened to Mr. and Mrs. D?

Depending on the area, building regulations are just more stringent in some cities than in others. There are valid reasons. Wiring can be faulty – smoke detectors may be required – carbon monoxide poisoning might happen (if fuel is used nearby) – radon gas build up could happen (in basements typically which is not the case here) – a room may need proper fan exhaust (again, typically not an issue for a bedroom). The point is, a ‘simple’ room renovation (to some eyes) can POSSIBLY open up more than a few cans of worms.

People blame TJ but the truth is that Shannon is the reason they did what they did.

Sure, they thought it was a minor job to modify the room, but youth often involves unwarranted optimism which leads to life lessons.

Regardless, Shannon’s well worth it.

Just for the fun of it…changing the number of bedrooms usually does require a permit because it affects the number of people the house is able to hold. It plays to the capacity of the HVAC, plumbing, electric, etc. There are states where it is easier to avoid inspections by technicality, but it would be wise to at least know the requirements.

Why do I get the feeling that the strip won’t continue from here on Monday, but will instead switch to a new storyarc? Once again nothing of any actual consequence happened: the strip introduced a plan none of us figured was even still on the table (B&T still planned to get their own place despite all the work they just put in) only to tell us that now it’s scrapped anyway. We’re basically right back where we started!

Maybe we’ll get lucky and follow on with this arc, and have Frank and Nancy discover that these two have been doing substandard remodeling without permission. But based on this strip’s history, I doubt we’ll see any satisfaction on that front.

Where has Knute been?

Dog and 1212: Just to make me eat crow, G&K finally have TJ do something nice – on panel! So, okay. You win. He’s not a total freeloader and a bum! (Maybe they read comments, after all! /s)

But his function in life still appears to be a pain in the posterior for Brad and Toni.

And the way they resolved this, I think it safe we will cut to another arc next week.

And to those of us who predicted, the resolution would be the squandering of their savings, thus preserving the financial necessity of continuing this bogus arrangement of three’s company newlyweds!

A rather hollow victory, I suppose.

Someone above asks what happened to the senior DeGroot s.

From what I can tell, suddenly, Nancy looks like Luann with dark hair!

“Brad and Toni may be thinking of the next step!”

Why would they do that? They are RENTING that place. They were SAVING to BUY THEIR OWN HOUSE. Why waste money on a remodel for a home one is planning on leaving?

If you go back and take a look at the strip from 6/27/18 thru 6/30/18 it looks like Brad was on the verge of asking TJ to move out. But then ole Smiley (as Mordy likes to call him) forestalled that by jumping in and saying: “Yeah! I’ll help you build a room!” HE was the one who proposed moving the laundry room and knocking out a wall. And TONI, who usually shows much better sense, was the first to agree to it.

Brad should have stuck to his guns and said NO, and reminded them that he promised his Dad no more remodels without permission. As much “hilarity” would have “ensued” from that as anything that’s happened here.

I didn’t know inspectors had a right to come in a home to check on new up keep?

Toni and Brad are digging the hole that someday will bury them.

It’s still a mystery as to who tipped off city hall about the construction. After all, it was indoors, out of sight of any potentially vindictive neighbors.

First of all this is just a comic strip, get over yourselves. Second, unless square footage was added and nothing dealing with structural integrity was impaired, there is no need for an inspector. Greg is just adding drama. He is after all, the author. Have a great day.

Hey everyone – here’s something new to chew on. Take a good look at Frank, Nancy and Brad. Black hair on every single one of them. Then there is BLONDE Luanne! Is she a foundling? Or where did that recessive gene come from? Could there be another family member with blonde hair somewhere hidden in the backstory we have never seen? (so far!)

Today does something else: We see TJ as he really looks. Which may be why many of us hate his smiling face: The smiley face is forced!

Reading a few comments, it appears that people are siding with government regulation (government overreach). The only thing I see that Brad and Toni did wrong as far as changing a room was not asking the house owners’ permission first. People used to do things for themselves, and there is nothing wrong with that. When it comes time to sell the building, it has to be disclosed if anything was built, fixed, or modified without permits. The government should back off, and insurance companies should be more involved if they want to protect their investment.

tomorrow: Knute and Crystal at Starbucks !

Does this mean we’ll see Bev again when she’ll comes back to check the works? HOORAY!

Clearly they are in California.

Oh, great. Fast food tacos for the big family dinner.

Somebody get TJ out of town, for the good of all!

I was expecting the inspector to complain about the lack of smoke detectors.

This is a comic strip. Haters should head straight for the nearest exit. All others should enjoy the ride.

He could take Shannon with him, and they and Brad and Toni move millions of miles away from this comic page and I’d be happy. Signed the newly formed curmudgeon.

So who’s the jackwagon that narced on them?

At least “The Eyes of Bev” didn’t spot the BraToni “Love Lair” and have them re-do that.

Nice save, TJ

“In real life people learn from this mistakes”

No, actually if you reviewed your histories you’d see we’re constantly making the same mistakes. People make this mistake all the time, more often than not people GET AWAY with doing this… In fact, unless there was a large dumpster outside, there’d be very little clue in typical suburbia that they were remodeling and county / city would not likely send an inspector.

Most places stuff like that isn’t uncovered, even in a typical home inspection. I know both my parents and my inlaws bought homes in the early 80s, both of which had illegal drainage piping (apparently in the region I was in someone in the 70’s thought it was perfectly cool for you to have a drain line for sinks, dishwashers, and washers go out to the local creekbed or drainage ditch.

Neither of these houses were in city limits, so no one really enforced anything. It largely depends on where your at and how picky the locals are.

Now, don’t get me wrong, code exists for a reason. But our villain here is just not believable in most places – bureacracy would send a million letters and shoot fines and I doubt they would do their own inspection, they would contract that out (and of course bill you for it)

I still wonder how the inspector knew about the renovations. Also, there don’t appear to be working smoke detectors in the house, but the inspector didn’t mention that…