Dear Neighbor,

First I want to thank you for your policing of the neighborhood homes for violations. Without your efforts, it is clear that the common good would not be preserved. However, I would like to point out that underground water is not accessible by all due to the high costs of wells, so we felt that by allowing the water to rise to the surface and freely flow down the street, we were actually making this water a common good and accessible to all.

On a serious note, I thank you for pointing out the broken sprinkler in my yard, but I am sorry to inform you it is already being addressed. You see my irrigation system is on city water and I pay for this water. You comment that it has been broken for weeks/months (clearly you do not know which) but I can tell you that is has been less than a month because on Saturday I got my bill and saw that I have been using more water than normal. I immediately diagnosed this as my irrigation system and shut it off until I can make the necessary repairs.

I want to point out that in the future, I will be able to make this repair much sooner if you simply leave a note or let me know in person. We run our sprinkler system before dawn to limit evaporation, and often times I am not up and about early enough to see if anything is wrong with the system. However, when you choose to hide behind a code violation reporting app, it can take weeks or months for me to get notice that anything is wrong. In this situation, I probably would have never known given that this may not actually be a code violation.

We live in a great neighborhood, and what makes a neighborhood great is the neighbors. Neighbors do not hide behind their apps and report code violations. Neighbors support one another and alert one another to issues that may be detrimental to their property. I would let my neighbor know that they have a broken sprinkler because it would save them money. Only as a last resort should code violations reports be used.

So I thank you for the indirect help, but I am more thankful for my real neighbor who gave me a heads up that this was posted so I could address it.

Any future concerns please feel free to knock on my door or leave a note.