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• Dick Gassman . March 17, 1999 Page 3 such an expectation of privacy where a property owner had placed a"No hunting/No trespassing" sign at the foot of a rural driveway, accompanied by "Guard Dog"and"Stop"signs further up the driveway. Infringement An inspector may infringe on a reasonable expectation of privacy in two ways: 1)by entry; or 2)by observation. A. Entry Physical entry onto curtilage will invariably be an illegal search2 if the inspector does not have a warrant or permission,regardless of whether the area entered upon is visible to the public. City personnel must have either permission or a warrant to enter the curtilage to abate a nuisance. A front yard conceivably may be within the curtilage;however,inspectors may go to the front door of a house,provided that the resident has not manifested an intent to forbid the intrusion of casual visitors onto the property. B. Observation Observation will only rise to the level of a search if the property holder has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area under observation, and that expectation is one which society is prepared to recognize. Most often this issue arises when a property owner has taken steps to protect his property from observation. No search occurs when an inspector observes the property from a vantage point accessible to the public. This is the best arrow in an inspector's quiver—if he remains outside the curtilage, he may freely observe those areas in which the resident does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. What a person knowingly exposes to the public is not a subject of protection. In most cases,the complainant will have seen the nuisance from such a vantage point—for example,his yard or from a room in his house. Thus, the inspector can seek to obtain the permission of the complainant to observe from the complainant's property. We also note that inspectors can use binoculars to enhance their vision when observing from a public vantage point. If a resident has endeavored to shield his property from the public's view,an inspector cannot take extraordinary measures to look into that property. When surveillance takes place from a position which cannot be called a"public vantage point," i.e., when the inspector makes a special effort to position himself where neither neighbors nor the general public would be expected to be, the observation from that place of what is within the curtilage constitutes a search requiring a 2Entry to abate a nuisance would more properly be termed a"seizure"for the constitutional analysis,but for the sake of clarity we only use the term"search"in this memorandum because it denotes the same action—infringement on the privacy interest of the property owner.