newjerseynewsroom.com

BY LORI SENDER

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

THE MAYBE CHRONICLES

It's 10 a.m. on a Tuesday and no one is answering the phones at Borough Hall, each extension bearing the same message: "Bradley Beach is not available." The same was true each day last week when I called. Stopping by at the Code and Construction Office is just as futile as a thick clipboard of unanswered memos attests.

My message is added to the pile. The young woman behind the counter shrugs and tells me that the code officer is on vacation. "Who is getting back to all those people?" I ask. "You can't rent your house in this town without a code inspection, and if he's AWOL how can you rent . . . oh never mind."

I'm met with a blank stare. If a tree falls in the forest, if no one responds to a phone call to city government, that begs the question of who exactly is running city hall. The problem with writing this article, I'm aware, is that it's first person, too subjective, and I probably just sound like a pissed-off rental property owner. So be it.

The new code officer in town is a mystery. He's strutted into this small seaside town with a combination of boots of steel, a harsh whip and a penchant for vacationing during high summer rental weeks. We've owned the house for over 15 years and put in our share of sweat equity, not to mention new roofs, a new furnace and endless painting. But this guy has sent our punch list to new heights. Whereas before him, it was the usual 9V battery for a cranky smoke alarm, or a touch-up of paint, suddenly the number of required improvements was topping 30.

"But we passed code just last year with the previous code officer," my husband says, when we finally reach our guy on the phone.

So we oblige: outdoor handrails for our house (someone may trip walking down the steps, beach chairs, arms and umbrella a blurring metal jumble); new handrails in kitchen (someone may fall over the steps with laundry in their hands—not that there wasn't more laundry ninety years ago when the house was built); sanding the mudroom (it's a mudroom for God's sakes); antitip for stove (someone may throw open the stove door and stamp on it, and around sundown the entire stove may tip over).

So we spend the months of July and August sprucing up the place.

What's a girl to do but move down to Bradley Beach and put her 12-year-old son in sailing camp in nearby Belmar. All the while playing construction manager while attempting to relax floating on my back in the ocean between jobs. Nothing like wondering if you remembered to buy that dead bolt for the attic when a fresh wave smacks you across the head.