311 complaint

A service request filed with the city, which can trigger an inspection; a complaint is an allegation, a violation is a finding.

Calling 311 about a housing condition creates a complaint, not a violation. The distinction matters for reading records: a complaint says a person reported something; a violation says an inspector confirmed it. Many complaints close without a violation because the condition was fixed before inspection, could not be verified, or was not a code matter.

Complaint volume is still informative. A building generating complaints every week has something going on, whatever the inspection outcomes say.