Street permits for movie and for still-photo shoots are now integrated with the City of Austin searchable permit database. Evidently, though, there’s still no requirement for advance notification of any kind.

Today, it’s only still photography, and there’s only one generator, with its attendant Diesel fumes and throbbing noise. We guessed what was on the way when we saw the big unmarked white trucks roll in this morning before it was quite light. But we knew for sure when we saw the folding director’s chairs being unloaded.

This gets old really fast. This project is scheduled to be for one day only. We’ve had people set up for way longer than that, for filming. These were just some of the inconveniences: driveways blocked, trash strewn, curbs broken, over-powering smells of cooking, bright lights, noise of every description, ubiquitous cables, landscapes trampled and chopped down, and much, much more. We did enjoy the artificial rain, though, provided courtesy of an antique pumper truck that had done real fire-fighting duty in its day.

Today we’re thankful that we’re expecting delivery of no packages, that it’s not trash-collection day, and that our newspapers were dropped off at 3:30 am as is usual; otherwise, past experience causes us to believe we’d be just plain out of luck if we were were expecting any of these to occur.

So, think twice before offering your property as a location. I have noticed, though, that when people do this their next move is usually to put the real estate up for sale. Neighbors like us take steps to be cut in on some of the bucks, but others don’t think of it and suffer entirely without recompense.