Would you want to live next door to this?

A story of my own to add to ...One Great City and his post about by-law enforcement (his follow up is here). I normally am a big fan of the folks over at by-law enforcement, but I just experienced my own WTF? moment with them.  Earlier this week, I reported a house to 311 that seems to have a roof made out of bright blue tarps, as per the Neighbourhood Liveability By-law, under Part 1, Standards Applicable to All Properties, Division 1 - Basic Maintenance Section 11 - Roofs of Buildings;

11(1) Roofs must be kept in good repair

I was just informed by the by-law officer (admittedly, a kudos goes out for speedy inspection) that there is nothing wrong with having a roof made out of tarps, with pieces of wood nailing it down, because it meets this part of the by-law;

11(2) The obligation in subsection (1) includes the obligation to ensure that

(a) roofs are constructed and maintained so as to prevent moisture from entering the building;

Apparently it does not appear as though this "roof" is leaking, so it's a-ok. I questioned the logic of this and even pointed out that it would seem then, if not violating the roof section of the by-law (wtf?) then it surely must be violating Section 5, General obligation to maintain property, which states:

5. Properties must be maintained so that they do not substantially depreciate the value of other land and buildings in the vicinity.

I got the equivalent of a verbal shrug as a response. Does this strike anyone else as being a bit under-zealous?? Had I known that I could just tarp my leaking roof, I could have saved a couple grand last summer. Heck, if word gets out, Dollarama is going to run out of tarps.

For the record, this house has been tarped like this since at least last fall, this is not a case of a property owner needing a temporary solution to an emergency that just popped up this spring. I also don't live next door, but certainly wouldn't want to!