Ridiculous Occupancy Inspection

[Lane Forhetz]

Hello All Fellow Landlords,

   I have been having a bunch of success in St. Louis (North County). It really is a great area for appreciating properties which rent between $1000-$1400/month for houses under $100k. I am on my 4th rental, but now I am hitting some reisitance from the city of Florissant.

If any of you are investing in St. Louis, I am sure you are aware of the extreme overstepping of Florissant regarding Landlord rights. My biggest complaint is Florissant's occupancy inspections. Now, I am no slumlord - I take great care of my properties and fix them up to look good enough to resale well (this particular property has a brand new kitchen). However, their occupancy inspection on my rental property was absurd. Here are a few items they highlighted - repaint concrete sidewalk which had been previously painted and now chipping and replace a cast iron plumbing stack, which is functioning PERFECTLY, only because it is STARTING to barnacle. Now, I have 4 properties with cast iron stacks, and I've seen my fair share of bad cast iron stacks. This stack has at least 10 more years to it and it's one of the better looking stacks I've seen, having been painted black. Let me be clear, the barnacles are extremely MINOR.

So my questions to you all are, can I fight this? Do I want to, if I'm going to possibly be buying more in the area? I've heard I can get a certified plumbing to write a certificate stating the stack is in perfect working order. And as far as aesthetics like paint on a sidewalk/porch, why are occupancy inspectors concerned with such a minor aesthetic item? Shouldn't they just be worried about safety items and major aesthetic issues?

I'd love to hear any experiences with Florissant, MO jurisdiciton. I'm seriously considering sticking to other municipalities.