You say that you have no regulations about fencing and so there should be no reason why you should have to build a fence if that is the case.

I extremely recommend that you call your licensing office right away and ask for your licensor's e-mail address and her supervisor's. Write her an e-mail and CC it to her supervisor. Ask for the regulation in writing where it states that you must have a fence, the part about it being 2 feet from the neighbor's property line and ask why it is required for you to have one and not other daycare provider's in your area. Don't tell them which daycare's in your area don't have them only that you've spoken to other family childcare's in your neighborhood and they aren't required to have them. Ask them to communicate with you by e-mail only or in writing by mail via certified mail. Trust me, if your licensor has his/her head up his/her butt and is only giving you a hard time, asking for this in writing could loosen them up.

I had an issue here myself not too long ago about me having a swing. In CA there are regulations against having walkers, excersaucers and bouncers but not baby swings. I had a licensor tell me that baby swings were against regulations and that I would be fined if I had one. I asked her for the regulation where it said it and she gave me the run around and to make a long story short sort of implied that she could make my life difficult. I wrote her an e-mail which logged all of our conversations and asked her again to give me the regulation in writing. She called me that same day very annoyed and again responded that it was regulation. I again told her to send me an e-mail with the regulation in writing and where I could look it up. I told her that I wanted to have in writing. She then faltered and then told me that it wasn't an official regulation and that it was "frowned upon". So then I asked her to make things clear that if I did have a swing that since there was no regulation against it that I could not be fined. She didn't say a word. She did go on to say that a baby could only be in a swing when the baby was awake, not when they were sleeping. I asked her to write me an e-mail so that I could have it in writing which she never did so I wrote her an e-mail paraphrasing our conversation. The next time I had a licensor come in for an inspection (our inspections are always surprise visits and hardly ever the same person) I asked about the regulation and what the other licensor said and all I got was a "Hmm".

Sorry to make it so long but I just wanted to show you that if you document everything and then bring it to their attention and ask for it in writing they start to get nervous because you are asking for policy that they are quoting and enforcing that may not even exist. This could lead to a lawsuit so they may back off rather than getting into trouble. Or maybe there is a regulation but at least they can give it to you (make sure they tell you where you can look it up as well) so that you can see the full reg for yourself so you know what you have to do. I think it's bull-honkey that they told you to have a fence and now that there's a problem with how close it is to your neighbors property line when there are others in your area that don't have a fence. If you do need a fence then they should have disclosed to you that there was a limit as to how close it could be to your neighbors property. Hearing things like this gets me all worked up .

Don't let them strong-arm and bully you. If they make it harder for you to get your license for defending yourself that's an even bigger lawsuit for retaliation.

Reply