Well… apparently my new side hobby is becoming a resident of my own house.

As many of you know, Washington County denied my Short-Term Rental permit. I was all set for a July launch, and then… record scratch.

According to the county, there are two problems.

Problem #1:
Our house sits on Agricultural (A-20) zoning.

This would be the same house that has been sitting on that exact lot for 88 years. Not a new subdivision. Not a speculative development. Not a tiny house dropped into a hay field.

Just my grandmother’s home… quietly existing since Franklin Roosevelt was president. Apparently somewhere along the way the zoning forgot to catch up with reality. Somewhere over the last nine decades, somebody apparently looked at it and thought,

“Yep… definitely agriculture.”

Fortunately, that problem has a solution. I’m filing for a zoning change to Residential. It’ll probably take a few months, This should only require a few public hearings, several committee meetings, approximately 400 pages of paperwork, three notarized signatures, two maps, a blood sample, and the blessing of whichever county board happens to be feeling whimsical that afternoon.

I’m optimistic.
Kind of.

Problem #2:
The county says the home must be “owner occupied.”

Interesting requirement, considering out of 500 Airbnb’s in Washington County exactly ZERO of them are owner occupied. This is where things get… entertaining. So as of this week, I’ve officially begun my quest to become a Pine Valley resident.

Mission progress:

1- Changed the address on my driver’s license. Now I just need to visit the Driver License Division to get a shiny new plastic card proving that, yes, I apparently live in the same house I’ve owned all along.

2- Registered my truck in Pine Valley. It now officially identifies as a mountain vehicle.

3. Changed my voter registration. As an unexpected bonus, I now get to vote in Washington County elections. I won’t name names… but there are a few commissioner races that suddenly became much more interesting. Strictly for civic engagement, of course. Never for comedy reasons.

4. Update my address with payroll. I’ll get this done next week. Will this change anything meaningful? Probably not. Will it create one more official government document saying I live there? Absolutely.

Every piece of paper becomes another exhibit in what increasingly feels like an episode of Law & Order: Bureaucracy Unit.

Here’s the part I still struggle to understand–There are hundreds of Airbnbs throughout Washington County. Many of them are vacation homes. Many are investment properties. Somehow they managed to navigate this maze. Meanwhile I’m trying to rent the home my grandmother lived in, in a tiny mountain community with no grocery store, no shopping center, no traffic lights, and a population that occasionally loses to the local deer.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

Yet somehow I’m the one threatening civilization.

The people who have stayed here have loved the quiet mornings, the cool mountain evenings, the hiking trails, and having a peaceful place to escape the Las Vegas heat.

So we’re not throwing in the towel. We’ll work through the rezoning process. We’ll keep checking the boxes. We’ll collect every government form known to mankind.

And if that’s what it takes to eventually welcome guests to my grandmother’s home…

Challenge accepted. I’ll apply for rezoning… I’ll change my residency… I’ll attend the meetings… I’ll file the paperwork that will allow me to file other paperwork…

Stay tuned.