A citizen’s committee tasked with updating Winston-Salem’s minimum housing codes came up with some regulations that would make the average city home owner safer. Some of their recommendations were ordinary. Others were rather bizarre.
Among this list, one regulation in particular really struck me, not only for its uniqueness, but also because of the peculiar enforcement problem it poses.
For example, the committee is suggesting a new requirement that kitchen sinks cannot be used as a lavatory.
Bruce Bailiff, a code-enforcement supervisor at the neighborhood services, said that inspectors see evidence of people using their sinks this way when their toilets are broken.
