I've been served...

I recieved a citation in the mail yesterday from the city of Baltimore. My apartment has been declared "unsanitary" and I have 10 days to clean it up or the city will fine me $500 a day.

Now, I won't deny that my room is a mess. Maybe even a dump or a shithole. But I wouldn't call it unsanitary. I do have a ton of boxes, mostly of computer parts and ebay inventory, and packing materials for said ebay materials. There are also some clothes and papers on the floor.

But when I think "unsanitary", I think poop and dirty dishes, not boxes of iPods and bubble wrap. The Baltimore code handbook(pdf, page 13) says that "floors, furniture, countertops and surfaces must be free of debris, including human and animal waste and other unsanitary matter". The stuff on my floor is papers, and it's not even trash - it's stuff I need to sort.

My problems with this are many. First of all, I've violated the most vauge of laws - having a messy room. How am I supposed to know if my room is neat enough for their standards?

I thought that the point of cases like Lawrence vs Texas and Griswold vs. Connecticut were to keep government out of the bedroom - and now the govenment has literally come into my bedroom, not to tell me to lay off the butt sex but to tell my room is messy.

It is reassuring to know that Baltimore has so few problems that they have time to harass people about the neatness of their rooms. Guess all the drug dealers and murderers have been erradicated from Baltimore.

This is the worst possible time for this to happen, too - I've got four projects and tests due in the next 3 weeks. I was already going nuts trying to figure out how I was going to fit everything in, and now I've got even more shit to do. I Cleaning my room hasn't been a priority for me because most days I'm only home and awake for a couple hours a day. I was planning on doing some cleaning after Christmas break. I'm probably going to have to take time off from work to clean, and then take time off again to meet the inspector and have it reinspected. What a waste.

I think I'm the ideal Baltimore City resident. I pay Baltimore's stupidly high income taxes, and I consume practically no city resources - I don't have kids in school, I'm not on welfare, I've never been in jail, ect. But now the city is making me do what my mom tried to do for the 22 years or so I lived at home - make me clean my room.

I can't f'ing wait until I buy a house and move out of this f-ed up city.