Saturday, January 21, 2006

home owners' gestapo

When we purchased our house, I didn't view our home owner's association as a big deal. There were several houses in the neighborhood in poor repair, so I believed that the association had little power. I was also impressed that for less than $200 a year we got spectacular garbage service.

Today I still believe everything above. I also think, though, that home owner's associations can breed stupid rules. We got a letter a couple of days ago commenting that people should not park on the street in our neighborhood. This is supposed to assist fire trucks, ambulances, and snow plows. I understand this to some extent for the emergency vehicles, but our street doesn't get plowed until a day after any major snow storm on average, anyway, so the plows are more or less meaningless to me.

The main complication with not parking on the street is that the majority of the houses in my neighborhood don't have large garages or driveways. Even after the letter went out most everyone on my street still parks on the road, including myself. I'll be careful to leave enough room for emergency vehicles, but it is too inconvenient to always park in the driveway. It blocks Golden's car in the garage.

Here are some other rules that I have seen my neighbors flagrantly violate.
  • Peeling paint
  • High grass/weeds
  • Animal waste left in yard
  • Trash bags/cans left outside house on a day other than trash day
  • Fence in poor repair (most of the fences in my neighborhood are rather old, including my own)
  • Inoperable car left on property

Also, something that I haven't looked for, but my neighbor across the street probably violates is that we are not supposed to have vehicles with expired tags on our property. He lives alone and has four cars in front of his house at all times. He is in his seventies and I think that he simply accumulated the cars over the past twenty years or so and didn't want to get rid of them.

Interestingly, there are no rules that I have seen about ugly yard ornaments. I think it is time to purchase some plastic flamingos.

2 comments:

T said...

Flamingos, now that's classic! At night I can't drive down Horton from 75 street. Everyone parks on the road there and you have to weave around them all.

f o r r e s t said...

I feel your pain.