The King County Department of Assessments will be conducting residential property inspections in Woodinville, for purposes of assessment and valuation of the taxable properties (existing residences, residences under construction and vacant parcels). This process will begin now and continue into summer, 2013; the inspections will take place only during daylight hours.
This process may include: knocking on doors of residences; physical inspections of the front and rear of residences (including measurement); taking photographs of residences; driving slowly along residential streets; parking and walking along residential streets. Department of Assessment staff will be wearing and carrying identification, and will introduce themselves to residents encountered during the process.
The Department of Assessment staff will be driving either marked King County vehicles or personal vehicles.
The King County Assessor values property on a cyclical basis according to a revaluation plan filed with the Washington State Department of Revenue. Each year, approximately one-sixth of all King County residential properties are physically-inspected, while the remaining five-sixths of the residential properties are statistically adjusted. Fair market values are based on an examination of multiple years of market sales. Telephone contact for the King County Department of Assessments is 206-296-7300.
--Information from King County.
I think those scary stories are just because of location. There's certainly a lot more criminal activity in Yakima than Redmond.
Not true. Did the 2010 Census, locally. Scary stories came out of everywhere, including Woodinville, Redmond, Bothell, etc. Nice neighborhoods were not exempt. People are sick and tired of government intrusion. Private property is supposed to be a bastion of security and privacy. Strangers walking in your rear yard violate this expectation. We were told to knock on the door first, and then take care of business regardless of response. Many census takers stopped knocking on the doors and simply grabbed the front door GPS data point because of the frequent challenge. The front door of every single residence in the US was GPS data pointed and your name associated with that data point. I regret facilitating that data collection, and will do all that I can in the future to make similar data collections are uncomfortable for the individual doing so...