Storm's a Brewing?

Courtesy of an anonymous tip the QAC Torch has discovered that everyone's favorite political gadfly, Sveinn Storm got it into his head to do some renovation work on a house he owns in Centreville.

210 S Commerce Street 2

While it's nice that he's cleaning up such an eyesore on one of the main roads in Centreville, he should probably make the next person he attacks on Pave Our County himself.

First, he began this work before the town had granted him permission to do so. As you can see near the bottom of one of the pages of pictures, they were sent on September 15.

210 S Commerce Street 1

However, a quick call to the Centreville town office revealed that Mr. Storm had not yet received a permit for any of those renovations - as of September 22 he still hadn't received a permit since it was still awaiting final signatures.

Second, the town office says the permit indicates that Storm plans to do the work himself. That's another big no-no. Back on May 6th the EPA issued a ruling revising the regulations for renovations on buildings built before 1978.

That ruling specifically prohibits anyone from doing renovation work, interior or exterior, on a house built before 1978 unless they are specially certified for it by the EPA.

The house in question? Built in 1918 - but there's no record on the EPA's website of Storm having completed the necessary certifications. Illegally doing renovation work without certification is a serious offense, one punishable by a civil fine of up to $25,000 and a criminal fine of up to $25,000 and up to a year in prison.

If you're interested in notifying the EPA of these violations, you can use their online complaint/tip form, located here to submit info on Mr. Storm and his flagrant violations of the law.

Now personally, we here at the Torch might not care for these sort of regulations, but if Storm plans to attack others for their law violations he ought to look to his own house first, both figuratively and literally.