Can I put one of these in my yard and not get harassed by the City/neighbors? I saw a POD that was dumped in the street outside my neighbor's house. Sorta like this:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattle911/library/pod_-44472.jpg

They have street parking and the POD takes up one or two street parking spots in front of their house. I really don't have a problem with this, but got to thinking that if a whole side of the street was like this it would be ridiculous.

Just curious and assume someone on here knows more about this that I do. I have a storage unit down in south OKC and got to thinking that over the long run it would pencil out that I would be better off buying a 20' used shipping container for around 2 or 2.5 grand and have it dumped in my back yard instead of paying the storage per month.

I have plenty of room in the back yard, just don't really know if its something that is gonna get me in hot water down the line...

We rented a smaller pod type container from Uhaul and it was placed in our driveway. We were told it could not be on city property or on grass/dirt (had to be pavement or gravel). We only had it for 45 days and had no problems. There was a house on SE 44 near Sooner that had a big one for many months on their driveway.

... better off buying a 20' used shipping container for around 2 or 2.5 grand and have it dumped in my back yard instead of paying the storage per month.


If memory serves, inside OKC you are expected to have city permit once you add a portable structure above a certain size. I don't recall for certain whether it's above 120 square feet or above 140, but I think it's the latter. Even for sizes below the threshold, the city can have their say on where it is located, i.e. off easements, x feet from fence line, etc.
Then again, if you have great, or very disinterested, neighbors, over time many folks elect to roll da bones and take their chances.

It wouldn't qualify for permanent placement on the street. Temporary structures like that can stay...temporarily. But even an RV isn't supposed to stay on the street, you're supposed to put them in the driveway, so there's no hope for a pod. Even vehicles that aren't being driven will be ticketed (my uncle got one of those because a neighbor thought the car didn't run...but it did...just didn't drive it very much). Heck, you're supposed to get a permit to build a storage building, so good luck with that one.

I seriously doubt the city allows for pods to be in the city street at all. Sure, you could probably get away with it for awhile (city tends to give 30-day warnings). We had a neighbor with a lawn care business. The city ticketed him for parking his lawn care trailer in the street. Told him it had to be in his driveway or attached to a vehicle. The problem with the driveway was that the trailer was so long it blocked where the sidewalk would be if not for his driveway. City ticketed him for that too. He finally broke down and rented a parking space at a storage lot.

As for non-running cars. We tried in the past to get the city to respond to a house that had their driveway, curb and even part of the front yard filled with cars. The owner died and the relative who got the house used it to store stuff and let a guy (felon) work on cars for cash on the property.

City said the cars in the driveway couldn't block the sidewalk (so the owner parked them sideways). City said he could park in the front yard as long as the vehicles were behind the furthest most structure of the home (garage stuck out further than the main living areas, so he parked in the grass next to the garage). They said the cars had to have valid tags and air in the tires. And, unless it was obvious the cars were inoperable, then they couldn't do anything about them parked in the street as long as they face the right direction.

As for him running a mechanic shop from his unzoned property, that is illegal, but the city said we'd have to prove it and that there is nothing illegal about a person doing non major mechanic work on their and/or their friends cars. We finally got him, but it took alot of doing.