HN: need advice/help | Hacker News Reader

HN: need advice/help

22 pointsscaredhacker14 comments

I'm a young hacker who's in a bit of trouble.

Without getting too long winded, I'm recently out of college and living in a home I inherited after my mother passed. I was lax about maintenance while in school (and take full responsibility for that.)

The city health department sent me a letter about my house's paint-job and I tried to comply.

Apparently my paint-job was insufficient, so they brought legal charges against me which resulted in 2 years of probation and 30 days of jail if I'm unable to fix it in 60 days. The obvious thing to do is hire a professional, but I'm completely out of money now. The court tacks on hundreds in fees, which has drained my account.

I've never run afoul of the law and this whole experience has made me terribly afraid. I never set out to hurt or bother anyone in the world - all I do is solve math problems and write software for fun.

My request is that if anyone has any sort of little programming work that I could do for some small amount of money, then I will do it. Posting this is extremely embarrassing for me, but I have very little options left and I'm really struggling.

I can be reached at scaredhacker@gmail.com. If this post is stupid or bothers anyone feel free to remove it, I'm sorry.

If it's the city health department, then it's probably a matter of some lead paint ordinance you're (accidentally) violating. Was your house built before 1980?

If it's lead paint issue, then probably the paint is flaking off somewhere in copious amounts. Or it was flaking off, and it was improperly encapsulated (ie, wasn't adequately scraped off, and/or the paint you used to cover it up wasn't approved for that purpose by your jurisdiction).

Assuming this is the issue, were you able to reach all the painted areas of your home that are flaking? Have you read your city's lead paint ordinances and/or health department guides to find out how to properly remediate/encapsulate lead paint? This could help you discover what you did wrong, if anything.

By the way, whatever you do, never sand or heat lead paint, or scrape it without wetting it first with water and wearing a proper respirator. And never do any lead paint work with young children anywhere nearby (they're very susceptible to lead paint poisoning).

source: worked as a house painter back in college. (None of my comments are medical, legal, or professional advice, obviously)

Can you get a home equity line? You can get credit on very good terms this way and I think it is reasonable to use it to fund improvements to the house.

I will look into this, thank you very much.

I'm not well versed in finance, etc. so this will be a good real-world crash course :P

A home equity loan is exactly what people usually do. Depending on your credit rating you might be able to get a line of credit on the home which works something like an "on demand" loan.

But this is very important, if you get a loan secured by equity in your house, you can lose your house if you don't pay it back. So check the loan terms carefully. Given that professional painters will generally paint the place for much less than $10,000 you should be able to do this. Also you should be able to talk to the city and show them proof that you're in the process of getting the house painted and they should be willing to give you extra time.

Welcome to adulthood, parts of it really suck.

Thanks for the straight talk Chuck. The equity option may be good for me, especially since I probably wouldn't have to borrow too much.

> professional painters will generally paint the place for much less than $10,000 you should be able to do this

Unfortunately, lead paint remediation will almost certainly cost more than $10,000 unless it's a tiny house. You can find unlicensed operations that will charge less, but then you risk the very large fines for hiring an unlicensed operation for hazardous lead paint remediation. I wouldn't risk it since the city is already looking into the situation.

But I do agree that you should be able to get an extension if you can show a good faith effort at addressing the problem, unless your city health department is totally unreasonable (always possible, I suppose).

I have no advice except to wish you good luck with this. You are being bullied by big brother. Keep up the fight. Keep it legal. Some good advice in this thread about getting a lawyer etc. Keep up your studies and remember you have a good life ahead doing what you love, and this is a hickup.

I really hate these stories of "the system" needlessly causing stress and suffering to people who have not done anything wrong. I see a lot of these stories from the USA which give me the impression it is quite risky to live there with respect to rubbing 'the law' up the wrong way even if you are morally or literally innocent.

Personally I'd look into getting a visa to work in UK/Europe/Australia. There isn't as much love for needless suing and incarceration. Controversial. Happy to be downvoted :-)

I'm not an lawyer, but I think you need one. If they're bringing criminal charges against you, then you may be entitled to a public defender (if it's civil charges, then you may not be). Either way, a fact-finding mission to the courthouse may be in order.

Thanks, I'll see about a public defender. Edit: unfortunately, I believe it's a civil matter so I don't think I can get a public defender.

Civil matters don't usually end with either probation or jail time. If you can't afford counsel, I suppose you might be able to find an attorney who would trade you representation for some development or technical services. Other options might be legal clinics at nearby law schools, or pro bono programs. You can also call the local bar association and see whether they have a referral program.

I know you weren't really asking for information, as such, but you might get some useful tidbits if you include the city (and possibly the ordinance you ran into). Maybe there some advocacy groups in your city that can help you out.

I was able to find a local legal aid society through my state's bar association, so thank you. Looks like they accept volunteers as well, perhaps they could use some tech service as you suggested.

Have they said why your paint job is insufficient? Its hard to imagine that it would require a professional.

I've received practically no information from them aside from the legal letters.

They seem unwilling to send a person to walk around the exterior with me to point out what I've specifically done wrong, preferring instead to just mysteriously drive by at a time of their choosing. (they're worse than the cable company :P)

Check out Upstart, LendingClub, and Prosper for a quick, reasonably priced loan.

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