Man had incredible response after council asked him to hide his boat on his driveway

There are some pretty unusual property rules and regulations across the globe.

Here in the UK, you might not have known that it's actually breaking civil law to not have your house number or name clearly displayed.

That's thought to be rarely policed, however.

And one rule that California-based Etienne Constable hoped he could get away with breaking was having his boat on his driveway - and did so for four years with no issue.

Etienne's luck ran out though and he went on to receive a letter from his local code enforcement office instructing him to hide his boat from view.

To tackle the problem, he built a fence around his boat - but decided to make a statement with how he painted it.

Rather than painting the picket fence your usual shade of white, Etienne hired an artist to paint the boat onto the fence instead.

The artwork was done from the point of view of how the boat looked from behind the fence.

Etienne cleared the quirky idea with his neighbours beforehand - all of whom had no issue - and it's since generated a lot of attention around town.

In fact, photos of the innovative mural have gone viral online.

Images of the amusing boat mural have gone viral (KSBW Action News 8)

Speaking about the artwork, Etienne told KSBW Action News 8: "I'm not a rule-breaker but I like to make a political statement as necessary as well as a humorous statement and a creative statement.

"I'm all in favour of generating discussion and making people smile. The reaction is extremely more than I ever expected and we're just tickled about it. It's pretty cool."

Elsewhere, he hailed the mural to his boat as having 'hit the sweet spot between following the rules and making an elegant statement to the contrary'.

Etienne Constable thought the letter he received was 'ridiculous' (KSBW Action News 8)

Recalling getting the letter from local enforcement, Etienne said to The Washington Post: "I thought, ‘This is ridiculous,’ and my first reaction was to leave a nasty, nasty message at the city hall.

"And then I thought, well, I might as well build a screen... I’ll do what they want, but I’m not going to do it their way."

Etienne is yet to hear anything from the department that penned the letter to him, but he insists that they're shouldn't be an issue as 'it’s not like he's hiding anything'.