Failure to maintain the premises
The News Leader - www.newsleader.com - Staunton, Va.
Friday, McGratty convicted Anderson on a misdemeanor charge of failure to maintain the premises. Three additional misdemeanor charges were continued until Dec. 15. McGratty warned that if progress isn’t made on the property by the next court date, he’ll sentence Anderson to 28 days behind bars “and we’ll start all over again, only the next time we’ll start with six months in jail.”
These kinds of charges are complete and utter bullshit. I don’t care what the man is doing with the home, he could blow it up if he wanted, as long as he doesn’t hurt anyone while doing it, but forcing someone to “maintain the premises” is akin to slavery. You’re telling someone both what they have to do with their own property and what they have to do with their time. If the county wanted the house to be repaired to a certain condition, then the county should have bought the house (not that I’m for government owning any property, but you can’t have them demand something be in a certain condition and not have them willing to take on the onus) and fixed it.