" can be entered if there is a complaint or activity that gives reason for an inspection"
Yup, that's right .... your inspector should have no qualms about taking that compplaint or reason to a judge and requesting a warrant. That's exactly what warrants are for: a check on the inspector's opinion of 'reasonable.'
Now ... for the bonus question: are these fears of unjustified inspections well founded? I say, without qualification, 'yes.'
Many of you know that last summer I bought a house, a real fix-er-upper. Within days of my taking posession, I had an 'inspector' come by, remarking on my 'remodeling project,' and wanting to come in.
The only problems with his request were:
1) I wasn't doing anything more (at that point) than moving in;
2) I had already met with the city inspector;
3) He wasn't the guy I met;
4) His car had plates from another state;
5) His ID had nothing to do with the building department, and was designed to mislead (The huge red "DHS" letters apparently referred to some 'Dept of Human Services,' rather than "Dept. of Homeland Security); and,
6) His topics of conversation kept changing.
Who was this guy? We'll never know. What's clear is that he tried to gain access where he had no right to be.
