[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'I')'m stuck in HOA for a few more years. The Associations job seems to worry about ticketing residents for garbage containers left outside overnight, parking infractions and dog poop.

[Chaparral]

HOA boards seem to attract power-hungry little psychopaths. You know the type: bullying tendencies, probably low on the totem pole where they work, nosy, like to get folks in trouble etc. In a normal neighborhood without an association, such people will still call the animal control/weed abatement/building inspector etc on you. I grew up next to one such individual and I live adjacent to one now. It's much easier to smack them down in a non HOA env't though. It's really enjoyable to make them fear you so much that they avoid eye contact and even looking over towards your property. I got into it over some fruit trees (the most delicious mission black fig on the planet, to be precise ) that impinged on a portion of the neighbor's hedge that was on my side of the property line to begin with. The idiot has nothing but a sickly chemical laced lawn, concrete patios and privet hedge trimmed to rectangular perfection. He apparently doesn't like my 2000+ sq ft somewhat chaotic permaculture garden with the 4 cu yd compost heap.

Can't wait to see his reaction when those 5 homestead chickens show up

[Jotapay]

Dog poop? I *love* dog poop. It fertilizes my yard. Bring your dog to my yard, I welcome it. Dog poop degrades to nothing in less than 2 weeks here.

I don't remove my leaves either. They sit in the yard and rot. Mmm, yummy leaf rot. Removing leaves from the micro-ecosystem in your yard depletes the system of nutrients at a constant rate every year. If you expect to replentish them, you have to use chemicals, which I disdain.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jotapay', 'D')og poop? I *love* dog poop. It fertilizes my yard. Bring your dog to my yard, I welcome it. Dog poop degrades to nothing in less than 2 weeks here.

I don't remove my leaves either. They sit in the yard and rot. Mmm, yummy leaf rot. Removing leaves from the micro-ecosystem in your yard depletes the system of nutrients at a constant rate every year. If you expect to replentish them, you have to use chemicals, which I disdain.

[Jotapay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', 'W')hat kind of climate are you in ? Arid ? I put my yard stuff in the composter or just let it sit.

[Roy]

The dog poop seems to be pretty beneficial in what's left of my yard as well. The dogs' favored areas are especially lush right now.

re: HOAs... Blech!

Lived under one for several years. They would look for stuff to hassle you about I thought.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')OA boards seem to attract power-hungry little psychopaths.

[Jotapay]

I saw a sign today at a park or something and it said Austin has an ordnance where you must pick up your dog's poop or there is a $250 fine. The sign said that dog poop spreads disease.

[Chaparral]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Roy', 'T')he dog poop seems to be pretty beneficial in what's left of my yard as well. The dogs' favored areas are especially lush right now.

re: HOAs... Blech!

Lived under one for several years. They would look for stuff to hassle you about I thought.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')OA boards seem to attract power-hungry little psychopaths.

[gnm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Chaparral', 'M')y ideal neighborhood would be on the upwind side of some dusty farm road where all the neighbors have aging farm equipment lined up along their front yards and I'd hear their kids practicing with their .22s now and then and roosters would be going off in all directions each morning.

WRT dog poop, that stuff gets saved now but it goes in a pit separate from kitchen waste or green-waste. No way am I going to turn away nitrogen that I paid a pretty penny for at the pet food store

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

I find that for most gated communities, the gates are open almost all the time. Of course, if they aren't, you just have to wait for a car to go through and draft behind them. (my husband used to deliver pizzas, so he was a pro at that.) My ex-boyfriend's mom lived in a gated community in south Florida that had a manned gatehouse with key card system. They kept the gates closed all the time. Guess what? They had a rash of break ins anyway.

I agree that HOA boards often attract the most petty and power hungry weirdos. It's strange indeed what "power" can do to people.

We used to live in an HOA community in Florida. The dues were only $300 a year and it was pretty low key. But right before we left, some houses were really going down the tubes. We had to report one place to the board for having a front yard that looked like a junk yard. They also put a basketball hoop on the street and spray painted markings on the road. We lost a few potential buyers for our house after they drove down to the end of the street and saw that mess. Others didn't even get out of the car.

[mos6507]

IMHO, HOAs should be illegal and post-peak will be a big impediment to preppers. What the neighbor does with his house should be his business.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'I')MHO, HOAs should be illegal and post-peak will be a big impediment to preppers. What the neighbor does with his house should be his business.

[JJ]

[quote="Jotapay"][

In the 'Arboretum' area. Where Duval Road intersects MOPAC freeway. I own one of the very first homes built in this area, way before the neighborhoods were put in. The section of my neighborhood was named after the family that originally owned and built my house in the 1950s.


grew up in Austin before Mopac while there was an Armadillo world Headquarters, etc. It doesn't seem much the same anymore. We only go to Austin now to go to the asian superstore. Everything there is much cheaper than here (.60 vs. 2.18 for a can of coconut milk, for example). It's worth our while to go to Austin about once a month to *stock up*. But my wife still laughs at me when I buy an extra couple of sacks of rice each time...

[Jotapay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JJ', 'g')rew up in Austin before Mopac while there was an Armadillo world Headquarters, etc. It doesn't seem much the same anymore. We only go to Austin now to go to the asian superstore. Everything there is much cheaper than here (.60 vs. 2.18 for a can of coconut milk, for example). It's worth our while to go to Austin about once a month to *stock up*. But my wife still laughs at me when I buy an extra couple of sacks of rice each time...

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '
')I can't even hang up a close-line outside.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '
')I can't even hang up a close-line outside.

[JJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jotapay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JJ', 'g')rew up in Austin before Mopac while there was an Armadillo world Headquarters, etc. It doesn't seem much the same anymore. We only go to Austin now to go to the asian superstore. Everything there is much cheaper than here (.60 vs. 2.18 for a can of coconut milk, for example). It's worth our while to go to Austin about once a month to *stock up*. But my wife still laughs at me when I buy an extra couple of sacks of rice each time...

[pup55]

Hey!

I live in the epicenter of suburbia, in an HOA community but there is no gate. There are enough fences so that when the time comes, and we are attacked by zombies, I can roll a school bus in front of each entrance and block the way, a la Mad Max...

Here is the thing: A lot of the people that live in these places, our place anyway, are fearful. They think they have something to lose. They are afraid some bad guys are going to bust into their house, steal their Plasma TV and run laughing wickedly into the night.

They are an artifact of TV cable news (CNN and The Fear Channel) that have agitated them into this state by reporting incidents of this nature from across the country.

I am always getting nasty letters from the HOA about some sort of slacking maintenance issue, illegal structure, or other minor issue, and I ignore 95% of it.

What I know, and they know, and what 90% of the neighbors do not know is that a lot of people have screwed off paying their homeowners dues this year, and they are going to be short on the budget. This means they will not be able to go out and hire an attorney to get me to mow my lawn more frequently. So, I will keep it tidy, and when they send me my annual letter, which they will, I will frame it and put it in the bathroom, just above the toilet paper, with a sign that says "in case of emergency break glass'.

The other reason these places exist is to erect prvate facilities, such as swimming pools, tennis courts, clubhouses, that conceptually should be "public" but the neighbors want to be "selectively public". If you went to the neighborhood and suggested that their taxes be raised by $450 per year so that a public swimming pool can be constructed nearby, they would say "forget it" because they want to keep out the riffraff, which means, little kids from poor neighborhoods and others that might benefit from such a place.

Anyway, I do not know whether these will get more or less common as times get tougher, but chances are excellent that they will get less common and/or go broke because the people running them are idiots.

Here, by the way, is why: Most of these things were erected originally by the developers so they could get an extra $10K out of each house, since the facilities add value to the property. When they turn it over to the homeowners, they stupidly make the maintenance fees low enough to cover the annual operating costs, but not the fact that the pool, buildings, and other stuff are falling down gradually, that is, capital depreciation. In 20 years, there is some massive structural issue with the pool, which they have to tear out and replace, and the HOA does not have money to do it. Probably the example with the gate, above, is already in that category. But, they cannot raise the dues by 10% or whatever to set aside a little fund, because a lot of these people are stupid and greedy and have no sense of leaving a legacy for people that come along after them, and if they see a positive balance on the books at the end of the year, they whine because they think the dues are too high.

Exactly the same thing is happening at the national level, by the way, to our highways and other infrastructure.

There is one thing, though, which is good, namely that it is actually fairly easy to get on the board of directors of these oligarchies, because 90% of the people do not care and do not vote in the annual election. If you are a bit persuasive, and can talk a few of your neighbors into voting for you, chances are excellent that you will get on the board and can make the rules. They might even elect you president. You never know.

Anyway, you just have to laugh, because of course, you can see some of the small towns out in the middle of the country being exactly like this. Think about that before you think about going rural.

[Byron100]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'I')MHO, HOAs should be illegal and post-peak will be a big impediment to preppers. What the neighbor does with his house should be his business.

[RedStateGreen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', '
')Anyway, I do not know whether these will get more or less common as times get tougher, but chances are excellent that they will get less common and/or go broke because the people running them are idiots.

Here, by the way, is why: Most of these things were erected originally by the developers so they could get an extra $10K out of each house, since the facilities add value to the property. When they turn it over to the homeowners, they stupidly make the maintenance fees low enough to cover the annual operating costs, but not the fact that the pool, buildings, and other stuff are falling down gradually, that is, capital depreciation. In 20 years, there is some massive structural issue with the pool, which they have to tear out and replace, and the HOA does not have money to do it. Probably the example with the gate, above, is already in that category. But, they cannot raise the dues by 10% or whatever to set aside a little fund, because a lot of these people are stupid and greedy and have no sense of leaving a legacy for people that come along after them, and if they see a positive balance on the books at the end of the year, they whine because they think the dues are too high.