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Comment by no1youknowz | Hacker News Reader

> Can it really be enforced?

Yes, it can be enforced.

For example, in the US. Housing associations have staff that run around in cars taking photos of literally everything. Grass too long - Fine. Bins out outside of trash date - Fine.

This happens daily. I know because I used to live at an HOA.

My point being, hire individuals with cars to keep track of houses. Have photos of non-residency and then impose heavy fine to recoup costs.

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Easier surely to use existing data such as number of letters delivered, electric bill, water bill, voter turnout, etc.. Amalgamate that and send a person to the property. Requiring property maintenance companies to register the properties they work on, eg "for health and safety reporting", might be useful too.

That doesn't seem feasible for an entire city at all.

If you are thinking about having someone driving around to photograph everything frequently, yes. But a couple of cars outfitted like the Google Street View cars, each given a section of the city to drive every other month or so is very feasible. You could also put cameras on any public transit vehicles to keep photos coming in from vehicles that are already being operated by city funds.

It wouldn't be a daily thing. Maybe once every other year at most. The cost would be minimal to the government to hire a few contractors for a one-day thing.

Sort of like how the Consumer Price Index gets calculated, then.

Why not? If you are looking at least 10k/house in taxes, it's very efficient to have a full time staff to check out the recently flipped (well...) MLG houses.

Just have a neighbour reporting line (/email/site). If you're really having trouble finding places, add a finder's fee of 10% of the fine.

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