Well, it’s finally happened. My first run in with our HOA. And the The Covenant.
Seems the outside of my back fence (a 6-foot wood plank job), which borders a dead end street and is contiguous to an open brush field, has become the breeding ground for some broadleaf and tumble weed.
I’ve sprayed the area and pulled the weeds twice this summer — it’s a considerable stretch, but nothing an hour or two and some concentrated Roundup won’t take care of — but honestly, I don’t get back there very often, it being a dead end street leading to open prairie and all, so I’m not immediately aware when the newest weed begins to take root: the inside of the fence has a 2′ strip of landscaping rock separating it from the lawn, so the vegetation on the outside perimeter is not coming from me, but rather from seed being blown in off the prairie and taking root in whatever cracks it can find.
Which just happen to be along my fence line.
Evidently, this unsightly affront has angered the newest HOA board member, whose previous complaints have been about how the curve of my batting cage can be seen above the fence line (not a covenant violation, and no different from, say, a shed or a trampoline), and that some folks in the neighborhood don’t have white curtains facing outward (again, not a covenant violation).
Meanwhile, said HOA board member defies covenant rules by keeping her dulled orange hatchback parked next to her driveway on a patch of landscaping rocks bumped up against her neighbor’s yard. It’s not yet up on blocks, but honestly? I don’t see how much longer it can last.
So, being the equitable fellow I am, I filed a complaint. I figured, if this little Napoleon wannabe has decided that being elected to a board that almost nobody knows about makes her Emperor of the subdivision, it’s best to fight fire with fire. Most of us around here are live and let live types — hell, it’s the reason we moved out this way to begin with — but wherever you go, there’s always that one person who takes a minor bureaucratic role and attempts to dress it in robes and a big fat Pope hat. And that powerlust needs to be addressed before said bureaucrat begins marching on other subdivisions, or burning gypsies alive, or starting an Inquisition.
Only thing is, I learned today from the management company that our little Emperor received a “variance” — meaning she’s been granted special dispensation to break covenant rules, even as she’s intent on enforcing them against everyone else.
Which means that likely there’ll be some kind of wild west showdown in the offing, or else I’ll be set upon by the “Board” for having the temerity to question their authority.
And that’s okay by me. Because if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s petty tyrants — particularly those who rule from a position above the “law.”
The personal, it is the political.
LET’S ROLL!
*****
update: Not content to simply monitor my kudzu, it turns out the HOA board member in question is monitoring my site, and has reported this post to the HOA management company.
Apparently, what I wrote is “slanderess” [sic] — though it mentions no one’s name, nor does it mention the name of the subdivision, or even the city or state in which I live.
Again, I’m a live and let live kind of guy. But as you all know, I’m not one to be bullied, particularly by someone who wears the title of HOA board member like Wyatt Earp wore his badge.
At any rate, I anticipated this might happen, so I’ll just have to deal with it. Good thing I’m feeling spry.
Now I just need to find out why the management company sent my complaint — along with my personal information — to the board member against whom the complaint was being lodged. That doesn’t seem particular kosher to me…
Hmmmm.
You need to show up at the next meeting with a pope hat.
Sic the Armadillo on them.
Or a tumbleweed on your head.
“Only thing is, I learned today from the management company that our little Emperor received a “variance† meaning she’s been granted special dispensation to break covenant rules, even as she’s intent on enforcing them against everyone else.”
I love the smell of conflict of interest in the morning!
“And that powerlust needs to be addressed before said bureaucrat begins marching on other subdivisions, or burning gypsies in ovens.”
Wow – I had always viewed HOA/Condo/Co-op law as dull. Looks like I need to revisit those thoughts.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Sic ’em, Jeff! My HOA Gestapo wrote me up because the roof of my shed (maybe the top 3 inches of which is visible above my backyard fence) needed painting.
Up the Rebels.
Fight the power or the power will fight you.
HOAs are evil. Plain and simple.
It’s pure and distilled control-freakism.
I can’t foresee subjecting myself to such a band of nattering nabobs.
Oh, and in your new “board member,” you’ve obviously got a real winner. Get ready for some harassment now that you’ve challenged her “authoritah.”
The more petty the bureaucrat, the more… petty.
Jeff,
I got a pope hat you can borrow.
Which is the only thing you should wear (well, maybe some gloves) when you go out to use a flame thrower on the weeds (and maybe a certain rusty orange hatchback?).
the 50 cal muzzleloader is still the weapon of choice for harvesting the elusive orange hatchback in the most effective and humane way. Mind your windage.
I have a freak in my subdivision, that since she couldn’t call the ‘supervisers’ on my sprinkler sitting in my yard, she taped a note on it.
Makes me glad I live in the ‘sticks’. There’s about 200 feet to get to a house on either side of me, in some places in my neighborhood the distance between houses is greater than that. The house behind me is 9/10 of a mile away. The neighbor to my east had an engine block hanging from a 15′ tall a-frame in his backyard for over a year, who cares? About 10 houses down the people have 7-10 pickup trucks, several tractors and other farm equipment in the side yard, not all of which moves. The side yard does get mowed at least bi-monthly and they do mow around the non-movey stuff (it’s a farmer thing, when it doesn’t work anymore drag it out of the way and abandon it), again who cares? Curtains, I don’t even have them on the back of the house. Sure am glad we don’t have a HOA.
I have poison ivy along my back fence. So I keep my prig mouth shut.
I’ll never join a homeowner’s or condo association. They attract little tin tyrants as cowflops do flies.
HOAs and CC&Rs are not inherently evil, but are nearly always administered by petty tyrants. Because, to be honest, busybodies with nothing better to do are the only people with any interest in sitting on an Association board. A friend of mine once was on his HOA board, thinking he’d counter the nit-pickers than were annoying just about everyone. A single one-year term was all he could stand.
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the home o. association. that’s so gay.
Sounds like the battles in Academia: The fights are so vicious because the stakes are so low.
I’m actually curious how the little witch in the big Pope hat got that variance, because “no dead cars in the front yard” is usually Restriction Number One.
I was on the board of an HOA.
Once.
Shudder.
I’m so bored with the HOA.
actually I think it would be an awesome sitcom premise
In the meantime, Jeff, if you want to be rid of those weeds, put about a cup of kerosene–I use Tiki torch fluid–into your Roundup bottle. Kills everything, maybe even orange hatchbacks!
I’ve never dealth with an HOA, although during my final four years in Florida I did have to deal with a condo association. Surprisingly it was a very nice, and quite reasonable bunch. Of course that was my young and divorced days, all they really required of me was that I maintain a steady stream of girlfriends spending time at the pool.
the 50 cal muzzleloader is still the weapon of choice for harvesting the elusive orange hatchback in the most effective and humane way. Mind your windage.
I’ve always been partial to large chunks of ice, employed late on a hot summer night. To the best of my knowledge there is no way to lift fingerprints from a puddle.
My HOA was threatening to report me to the police for shooting a duck and a goose (which happened to be shitting all over my house and yard, and going after my daughter).
At the same time, in a nearby home, there were 3 families living there, one family of 7 on the top floor, a family of 3 on the main floor, and a family of 9 in the basement, with all of the kids under age 12 and being home schooled, which consisted of them playing on our playset, and playing in the lake, unsupervised. One time, I arrived home from work to find a 3 year old sitting on top of the roof of the playset, while a 4, 7 & 9 year olds had tied a long rope around their waists, and were waist deep in the lake, all unsupervised by any adult – the kids said that the 12 year old was watching them, in between X-box games. Suffice it to say that killing geese is bad, but letting 3 year olds climb on roofs and non-swimming kids roped off to each other and wading in a lake are quite alright.
The one time my wife and I were in danger of moving into a neighborhood with an active HOA, the people selling the house rejected our offer and sent a counter-offer that was higher than their original asking price.
We took it as a sign.
Tramboline? Is that like an all-girl saxophone band?
Major John, it is an area that is rife with petty tyranny and vengeance.
And when you start arguing over what the developer meant when the sub was platted in 1923, and where does the road end and the beach begin?
Total bloodshed.
Not have white curtains facing outwards? What kind of people are these? There are just certain things that EVERYONE KNOWS are wrong. If you let people choose the colors of curtains for their own homes, pretty soon all sorts of colors will show from the windows: chartreuse, navy, or even (shudder) taupe. You may as well let them hang laundry from the fences.
T&T
I agree with cowboy. Kerosene or diesel does a good job of killing things dead. I used to use it to permanently mark the outlines of the football, soccer, and baseball fields at the youth camp.
I used diesel to permanently mark the outlines of my name in the middle of my high school rival’s football field. Signing your name to an act of vandalism is not too smart, especially when you are the QB playing them that Friday night.
You should take a picture of every weed along your back fence, then apply for a “variance” for each of them.
Isn’t conflict of interest covered by your state’s non-profit law, which is what usually governs HOAs? Because that could be your hammer right there. All it would take is one letter cc’ed to the state attorney general’s office.
Or you could do what a guy in my neighborhood did when he got tired of the overzealous grass-height policing: grow corn. Not covered by city code. Eight feet of brown, ugly, perfectly legal vegetation.
Gabriel – That is a positively brilliant idea. I have been trying to find something to do that is not covered by our HOA, but will drive the busy-bodies on the HOA nuts. Petty, sure, but they used the phrase because of the children when condemning me for killing geese, and I almost lost it.
Gabriel,
Corn is a variety of grass.
T&T
Any godforsaken patch of earth that can be redefined as a “garden” for growing food crops is usually exempt from aesthetic regulations, but your HOA may have closed that loophole somehow. The forgotten old agricultural laws can still be pretty powerful weapons, though, at least here in VA.
So if your HOA is the Covenant, does this make Madame Napoleon the Prophet of Regret?
…I am such a nerd.
No HOA is cool when I want to let my grass grow because I’m being lazy; not so much so when the neighbors paint the trim on their yellow house a bright aqua.
I’m tempted to go over there with a brush and roller and prime it white. I’m figuring, how does that call sound to the police?
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Someone painted my house trim white.”
“…click”
We don’t have a homeowner’s association in my neighborhood, which is close to work but still considered a “developing area”. Our area is a mix bunch of ugly little concrete houses, typically filthy with 5 cars in the yard and bigger nicer houses, with younger people who are definately on their way up. We bought the house primarily as an investment.
Last summer, we received an extremely nasty note on our mailbox, threatening to report us to the county if we didn’t “clean up our yard”. Of course, it was unsigned. I wouldn’t have been so bothered except our yard is mostly one big tree, some bushes, dirt and a little grass- we’ve found there’s not alot you can do wht it not to mention, I always think its polite to ask someone to clean up their yard before you threaten them.
Basically, this little incident confirmed what I was pretty sure of in the first place- neighbors suck.
Slanderess? Hahaha! She thinks you’re a girl!
Down here in the south the only HOA’s around are generally ignored unless they start selling it near a school house.
Besides my street is populated with a bunch of good ole boys who pitch horse shoes, drink beer and shout at the babes driving bye. They don’t complain when I do 50 foot long street painting or erect another wierd kinetic sculpture in my yard. I like the people, I like the realness of it. You can keep that uptight manicured lawn tennis club type all to your self. This past summer a large hickory tree fell in my yard and 3 neighbors showed up with chain saws and log splitter turned the whole tree into firewood. Now thats good neighbors.
Sounds like you’re being stalked, Jeff. Apply for a restraining order, get a 500-ft. restriction, and the poor sap will have to monitor your kudzu with binoculars.
Cover the whole area with blue tarps, Katrina-style to kill the weeds. And next time do what I do, which is to buy a home in a black neighborhood. Since covenants and HOAs are essentially Jim Crow era institutions which have outlasted their usefulness, they tend to not be popular in African American neighborhoods. The real estate is surprisingly reasonably priced as well. My neighbors are neighborly, and I cut my grass when I damn well feel like it.
yours/
peter.
Jeff,
I know some people out in Ft. Morgan with a bunch of goats. Maybe if you let the goats loose to take care of the weed problem, Napoleon would back off a bit.
It’s worse than ‘slanderess,’ Jeff. By describing actual events and things she’s done, you’ve effectively Swiftboated the poor woman.
I hope you’re happy.
I’m up in suburban OH (on a plateau in the middle of a marsh/nature reserve, actually) and have had 3 complaints about grass height from the HOA since I bought the place. Once the city cut it 3 days before the drop-dead date and sent me a bill. Am seriously considering just paving the whole backyard.
Almost all of my neighbors are fantastic. And very few people around this way want an overweening HOA.
With property values already depressed by overbuilding, the last thing these folks should be doing is chasing away people who moved out to rural communities to get away from this kind of nonsense.
I mean, it’s the end of October in Colorado. We’ve been slipping into the thirties at night. How much longer would those weeds have lasted?
Last year during our heavy snowfalls (feet, not inches), I helped all of my neighbors shovel out. Not only that, but when two of them were away for the holidays, I shoveled their walks and driveways so that the could get into the house once they returned.
We all get along great.
The woman in question lives on a different street, one behind me and perpendicular to the dead end street that features some oil derricks and open field.
There’s no reason I can think of why she’d be interested in looking in my backyard — just as when I didn’t wish to see here eyesore of a car parked on the rocks like it was awaiting neon license plate trim and some flame detailing, I simply looked away.
So don’t get the wrong idea. I love this neighborhood. And I was told by the saleswoman when we were looking for places that the HOA here was very lax. Even then, I was wary about covenants.
And in fact the HOA hasn’t been a problem — at least, not until recently.
I don’t know if this is owing to our new board member’s influence and the desires of the new HOA management agency (in the email where she turned me in for my post, she told the woman at the management agency to call her — perhaps they have a relationship I should know about) — but I do know that it’s gotten more tense.
Needlessly.
I responded to the email and invited both women to call me to discuss the situation — why should I be left out of the loop, right? — but so far, nada.
Time will tell.
Give’em hell Jeff! I wish you luck.
Jeff, how in sam hill did she find your blog? That’s creepy.
Unless you forgot to take down that big “ProteinWisdom.com rulez, Gleenwald droolz” banner from your house after the last blowout with the ‘dillo.
“Since covenants and HOAs are essentially Jim Crow era institutions which have outlasted their usefulness, they tend to not be popular in African American neighborhoods. The real estate is surprisingly reasonably priced as well. My neighbors are neighborly, and I cut my grass when I damn well feel like it.”
*blows whistle* ERRONEOUS SUPPOSITION! FIFTEEN-YARD PENALTY!
As the treasurer of an HOA, I will quite call this statement based more on personal bias than on actual fact. I live in a town-house community and an HOA is a must for communities like mine. Townhouse and condo communities have much in the way of public facilities and having an HOA is the only way to keep the CITY (well know for fairness and public outreach) from running the public areas. Which, if you’re familiar with the fears cities have about liability suits, leads to fun things like the closing of community pools, locking shut anything with a gate, and a general desire to do as little for the people living there as possible. I’m part of the HOA precisely because I want the city as far away from my little chunk of blue sky as possible.
That’s why I joined, actually. I was quite certain about how much HOA’s sucked because all I ever heard were the horror stories. I decided to actually see what went into being part of an HOA board, just so I would know for sure. My eyes were opened.
Look, let’s be honest here. The problem isn’t the HOA, it’s the people running it. Let’s not let our hatred of organizations that, to be honest, you only hear about when someone’s complaining about them, get the better of us. When is the last time ANYONE has said “Dude, my HOA is doin’ a bitchin’ job keeping the lawns cut and the areas swept!” The best HOA is one you don’t notice, and thus you get to run through your little happy lives without worrying about who takes the garbage away, who keeps the numbers in front of your houses painted, and who does their best to make sure you neighbors don’t keep cars up on block where you can see them.
As the member of the HOA council, I’m very proud of what we’ve done with my community. I KNOW we’ve improved the lives of those who live here, myself included, and we try to do it in the manner that least intrudes on their lives, if possible. I’m personally proud of the way we do business, of the pride in our community that the other board members have, and of the fact that the members of our community complain about everything BUT the handling of the community by the HOA. People complain by nature, but it’s what they’re complaining about that makes all the difference. They may not like their neighbors, but they approve of what we’re doing, and how we’re doing it.
That being said, Jeff’s little HOA member is being a power-hungry jerk. The members of an HOA have to be above reproach with respect to their living styles, otherwise they’re called (and rightfully so)hypocrites. If one seeks power, even something so small as an HOA, then one must accept that they will be called to account on their use of said power. Even the appearance of impropriety can poison the relationship between an HOA and the owners. I guess the member forgot that she’s there to serve the homeowners and not lord over them.
My neighbors & I view our HOA as a necessary evil. Nobody wants someone to knock down his house & put in a Taco Bell or a pawn shop, which, given the lack of zoning laws in my area, is legally possible without deed restrictions.
Still, I don’t know of anybody reporting neighbors for violations in my small subdivision. Even better, the HOA employs only one person whose job is to enforce the covenant. She’s responsible for a 4,600-home development, so she mostly pays attention to the big stuff. About twice every year she’ll get a whole neighborhood for a single type of violation, and the next weekend we’ll all be out powerwashing our driveways or trimming our trees. Not a big deal, and it actually makes for a nice time to get to know the neighbors.
Of course, all it takes is one busy body to screw it all up.
I think she found my site when the HOA management company told her who was making the complaint, and supplied my email address (which has the protein wisdom suffix).
I’m still wondering why my complaint was forwarded with my information to a member of the board against whom the complaint was being lodged.
But then, from my understanding, the new management company is working closely with the board and trying to enforce violations that aren’t violations according to the covenant.
Something incestuous this way comes.
Still, big meeting coming up second or third week of November. I plan on making it one of the more memorable meetings, if anyone starts giving me guff.
Then came the churches
Then came the schools
Then came the lawyers
Then came the rules
On numerous occasions I’ve had friends/relatives visiting get ticketed for parking overnight (supposed to be more than 24 hrs) on the street (overnight apparently considered anything after 10:00 pm). Eventually a certain number of tickets can result in me being fined. The mirror-hangers ostensibly granting them permission to park on the street are not enough to ward off the parking Stasi.
The management company lost my reply to one of their notices and attempted to force me to attend a hearing because of it. They invited an attorney from a construction-defect plaintiff firm to one of the HOA meetings to “consult” with residents. Being in the construction industry myself I was entirely uncomfortable with the coziness of the relationship between the two firms.
This is what happens when you let women have power. Nosy, power hungry broads flock to HOA boards, and how they behave there is typical of how they behave when they become Senator from NY.
But not surprised, were you Mike?
Hillary Rodham Clinton, America’s ultimate HOA board member…
“There’s no reason I can think of why she’d be interested in looking in my backyard”
Are you kidding? Considering the parties that the ‘dillo has thrown there, how could she tear her eyes away. Obviously the complaint against the weeds comes from a fear that they may interfere with her view of coming events.
T&T
Uncomfortable, disappointed, angered, but not surprised.
I can’t stand orange hunchbacks.
Oompa, Loompa, doopity doo…
“I display a suit of general cut and you claim it’s custom-tailored for you? Fascinating.”
Still, big meeting coming up second or third week of November. I plan on making it one of the more memorable meetings, if anyone starts giving me guff.
No, no! Put DOWN that pickle!
McGehee – What is it with you and those satanic Oompa Loompa’s?
Jeff G – I suggest that you allow the ‘dillo to come out and play prior to the meeting. A 72-hour tequila and Klonopin bender leading up to the meeting. Also, you need to “speak truth to power” during your presentation, and conclude with “Viva la revolucion!”
I would also suggest, if I may, that you wear either mult-colored Zubaz, coaches shorts, or spandex, complimented by either a tie-dye or Vote for Pedro shirt, and topped off with either dredlocks, a ginormous sombrero, or one of those construction hates with beer holders and straws attached. And, an entourage.
And Kyoto. you must reference Kyoto. And, invoke saving the children.
And Kyoto. you must reference Kyoto. And, invoke saving the children.
Yeah! Tell her those weeds and broadleaf were carbon credit offsets for Al Gore’s trip to Oslo.
Sounds like you might live in my HOA, JG. You aren’t, perchance, able to walk a few yards and gaze upon the wonder that is DIA sitting 20 miles away, are you?
Then she’ll probably try to get you for running a business out of your house.
JD, take it up with Thor — he’s the one who brought up the orange hunchbacks.
(sigh) We don’t have an HOA here, but….
Shortly after we moved into the New House, one of the Neighbors (a College Perfessor, natch — honest to God, he smokes a pipe, wears tweed jackets with leather elbow patches, the whole image; I’d have thought he was a phony, but one of my other neighbors was the one who told me that he’s a really-no-shit Professor), who was illegally letting his Precious Little Pooches run all over the development, and which mutts had discovered our German Shepherd’s presence (and let me note that we had complied with all “good neighbor” ideas, including having a radio-fence installed on our property to keep our dog where he belonged), and decided to inform our Shepherd that they (the mutts) owned The Territory, which of course they did by crapping all over our front yard (and we knew it was The Perfesser’s dogs, because we had observed them In The Act). I tried — politely — to inform our Neighbor (we still didn’t know who he was, but we knew where the mutts were coming from) that it Wasn’t Nice to let his dogs poop in other people’s yards, but got nowhere with that (after all: We were mere Rabble From Chicago); and eventually (with more than a few ounces of Maker’s Mark in me) I wrote a note declaring that if I caught his dogs in my front yard again, I was going to let my Shepherd out without his leash to “deal with the problem himself”, and I stapled the note to his front door.
Naturally, this brought the Wrath Of God down upon my humble household (the Perfesser made copies of my little note, and apparently had a Big Meeting with all of the other Neighbors about what a no good SOB I was; I found this out only after my immediately-next-door Neighbor — who I had been getting along pretty well with — basically accused me of being the Scum Of The Earth, and informed me that the Neighbor whom I had Affronted so terribly was this Greatest Human Being Alive College Professor, the Saviour of All Humanity, all that sort of shit), and he called the Lake County Sheriff to sort my ass out.
Long story short: After explaining what had actually taken place, to the Sheriff’s Deputy, the Deputy noted to me that Lake County has a county-wide (this of course includes our little cul-de-sac community) Leash Law, and that it was the Good Perfesser who was In The Wrong; and that he (the Deputy) was going to go over to the (Perfesser) Neighbor’s house and advise him that, in accordance with The Law, “If his [Perfesser’s] dog does get caught by your dog, on your property, and your dog kills his dog, there won’t be a damned thing he can do about it….”
And then the Deputy drove the short distance to the Perfesser’s house; and I haven’t seen the Perfesser’s dogs since then…. Funny what happens to The Elite when they have it explained to them that They Could Be Wrong; now, if only a few Trolls around here would take the hint….
[…] the dulled orange hatchback might be a dingy Vega. Or a Dingy Harry, tinted orange by rage from his unexpected […]
What’s the penalty for comparing apples to oranges? I have no problem with condo associations or even neighborhoods with their own public facilities creating private associations to manage those facilities. In fact, I don’t have a problem with people creating private associations for whatever reason. What I DO have a problem with is when these private associations are allowed to create rules which for all practical purposes bear the force of law, and when these rules are allowed to traverse and supersede private property rights. Jeff’s backyard isn’t a “public facility” by any stretch.
And my statement linking homeowners’ associations and Jim Crow is hardly erroneous. Frankly I find it amazing how much of the legacy of Jim Crow remains intact, if not under different management. From the war on drugs to publicly owned transit to modern use zoning, the racism is more or less gone, only to have been replaced by a class of mainly middle-class white housewives with a pathological devotion to their own sense of visual order.
yours/
peter.
Be careful with that Roundup Mr. G. One good gullywasher and the 2-4-D gets into the runoff, the next thing you know the prairie dogs’ll grow spare heads. Then you’ll have PETA on your ass and they’ll make your HOA lady seem like a butt gnat.
A good ordnance array placed just so can really get the whole weed patch including the roots. Ask Major John for details. Go easy though, you wouldn’t want people to start feeling sorry for the weeds now, would you?
[…] nails down one of the biggest things wrong with life on this planet: Evidently, this unsightly affront has […]
This all could’ve been avoided if Jeff just grew his weed in his basement like most people do.
Well,well. Dumb and self righteous, transitioning into imaginary victimhood. Sounds like good times, Jeff. Memo to the genius weed monitor with the orange piece of shit: Never pick a fight with someone who buys
ink by the barrelbandwidth by the terabyte.alppuccino:
Be careful with that Roundup Mr. G. One good gullywasher and the 2-4-D gets into the runoff, the next thing you know the prairie dogs’ll grow spare heads.
This naturally raises the ethical question:
If you are shooting two-headed prairie dogs, do you have to call which head you’re aiming at prior to the shot?
Only in 8-dog.
This HOA member isn’t a former adjunct professor of psychology, is she? Or perhaps a relative of one? Former lover?
Cowboy – You must call the shot. It is like in basketball, a 2-pointer should not count if the shooter does not call “glass” first, and when cranking up some treys, that should be mandatory.
Jeff G – You should take a “posse” to the meeting with you.
“What’s the penalty for comparing apples to oranges? I have no problem with condo associations or even neighborhoods with their own public facilities creating private associations to manage those facilities. In fact, I don’t have a problem with people creating private associations for whatever reason. What I DO have a problem with is when these private associations are allowed to create rules which for all practical purposes bear the force of law, and when these rules are allowed to traverse and supersede private property rights. Jeff’s backyard isn’t a “public facility†by any stretch.”
Odd thing is, I had thought about that after I posted. Perhaps the penalty is the removal of my official “I-wanna-be-an-umpire” whistle. You’re quite right, Jeff’s situation IS one that would not come up as an issue in my community. Mea culpa.
My point, however, is that an HOA is supposed to be an authority that allows grievances to be corrected without the application of lawyers and their ilk. Lawyers cost money, and if neighbors tends to put their vehicles up on blocks, then there’s probably not a lot of money to be for legal fees in that area. That’s a big reason for creating and joining an HOA. Very few HOAs are bad, but it can be argued that they restrict personal freedoms with regard to self-governing property. It’s very much a “Give a few personal freedoms to gain some community security” type of arrangement, slightly similar the one society has with police. Thus it is very easy, based on their seemingly small scope, to see when one goes bad. It is also just as easy, and quite normal, to see a bad HOA in action and to condemn the rest as equally bad. It’s just human nature.
TL:DR Version: any HOA is only as “good” as the people running it. Jeff’s has an infestation of the “ick” and need chlorinating.
Hmmmmm.
I rather like the “grow corn” idea. Never enough fresh corn in the suburbs really. And corn that isn’t fresh isn’t as sweet.
mmmmmmm. corn.
Thanks for posting this. My local Property Owner’s Association is practically begging for people to volunteer for the Board and committees. This is my chance to infiltrate the system, the better to keep an eye on these people.
i am like addict on trampolines, they are very nice addition to you gaming stuffs;*-