Rapids

HELP I live in a house in Grand Rapids Michigan and we just got yelled at for having too many people live here?

I live in a house with 6 girls and Michigan law in this area is that only four people can live together. The cops showed up at our door this morning and asked how many people we have living here, and we said 6. Are there any loopholes that will help us keep 6 people living here, we can't afford rent without it. Any ideas would be helpful.

Public Comments

1. Check the zoning regs. The only thing I can think of is a variance and petitioning the neighbors to get signatures to support it. You would need to be decent neighbors for that to work though. Why do you think the neighbors were bothered? Usually those limits are in family neighborhoods that keep family noise hours and keep up their yards. Do you? Could you? Are there neighborhood meetings where you could make your case and make people feel guilty for kicking you out if you stop having parties until 2 a.m. every weekend (or whatever?) ("We understand that we were being noisy and we are really not going to do that any more, we just haven't had our own places before and weren't thinking about it.... and if we've done anything else we should be keeping an eye on we really want to know so we can address it....We really want to be good neighbors..... If you feel you can, we have a petition at the door we would really appreciate it if you could sign.... )
2. Webcam. Seriously. talk to zoning.
3. More than 4 people can live in a house here. Probably even more than 6 people can live in a house here.