A car for a HOAstile environment

In reply to Datsun1500:

Actually, our neighborhood was established in 2007, so people just started to paint their houses (kind of soon in my opinion, except for trim). Since it's such a fresh issue we're still trying to sort out how to deal with it, but from what I hear, we need to establish another committee that is in charge of being the "color experts." I think that they need to consult a specialist as to what colors are complimentary with the selected colors for our development. Weird I know, but I think that's how many other HOA's do it. Honestly, I was just chatting about this with my wife and we agreed that although the color of blue that they painted the house isn't awful, it's just very different compared to all of the other homes within the neighborhood, and the covenants within our community specifically state that all houses must be painted in "earth tones." Well, interpretation is a personal thing, and many people could assume that the sky is an earth tone. We've also noticed that since their house was painted 3 months ago, another house was painted peach, and now there's a dark blue one down the street as of 2 weeks ago. Now the ball is rolling so we need to develop an approval system before a house is painted. I make this sound like it's such a big deal to me but it's not; I just have an eye for it since I'm more involved than other residents. We're also surrounded by some nastier neighborhoods, so it'd be nice to keep the look IMHO. I think that whoever has painted their houses already will just be grandfathered in as it would be pretty crappy to make them paint their houses all over again, and for the smaller houses in our community, it costs about $2500 for a repaint.

Sorry for the highjack and making things less interesting. At least the shorter rear axle on the right side of my Spitfire is being swapped for the longer correct length that has been on the driver's side for the life of the car... damned PO. Been driving a crooked-assed car since I bought it 4 years ago!

-Hamid

I know, this isn't ideal. I assure you all, I'll try to find something better to live in 12 months from now. A nice 2 bed/2 bath/4 car garage place in a nice part of town. I just don't want to sit on my hands until then, so I want to find a way to make this work!

I just don't understand the concept of the HOA. To protect your property values from a neighbor because you may not like the color of their window blinds? If you don't like the rules, then move they say. I'm sorry...if you don't like the color I paint my house or the car parked in my driveway, then you move. I'm paying the mortgage on my property. Until the HOA starts paying my mortgage, then they have no say in my life.

I feel so odd saying that stuff, since I'm usually the one fighting the paranoia against insurance companies. But HOAs are one thing I just don't understand.

smog7 wrote:

pinchvalve wrote: For sale in the Bay Area.

Link for ad?

Subie on CL

I moved to this neighborhood for a reason, and I don't want that where I live.

There is nothing wrong with that right there.

Once you decide you're entitled to enforce something on someone else, though, things change. This is the basic reason i think, for example, that most law-enforcement or penal system employees become morally compromised in minor to major ways once they decide they are willing to do that work.

To be sure, it's a tough conundrum. Certain things can only be done practically by legally empowering a small group of people to arbitrate the interests of a larger group onto a bunch of people they dont know.

Basically, shiny happy people are created by putting normal people close enough to each other that their competing interests come into contact. This is why neighborhoods will always be fatally flawed places to live if you expect not to have to deal with shiny happy people. They are the picture perfect breeding grounds of shiny happy person behavior, such as the formation of HOAs.

I hope you didn't pay too much for that POS place. I live in SE Portland in a newly constructed 4 bed/3bath house with an attached 2-car garage. Private Cul-de-sac. All of my neighbors don't care about my cars, but I try to keep the noise down and make sure they can get in/out. Best of all? NO HOA! All for about 300k

Jeeze you guys. HOA's are not all bad, and the annual dues in our community cover landscaping done every week, and repairs to the culverts every year so the nearby wetlands are protected. Safety is another top priority, and our annual block party is a hit. Just remember that the next time you drive through a pleasant neighborhood that feels clean and well kept, there may be an HOA involved, like it or not. The street behind us disbanded their board a few years ago, and it went trashy really quick. We're trying to prevent that is all. EVERYONE has different standards, and the overall goal is to make sure we all get along HOA or not. I hate paying my dues, despite being pretty cheap, but from the overall response within our community, most residents are quite happy with where we're at. If there are "standards" put in writing that a new home buyer must read and sign before purchasing the home, but they decide to be a jerk and keep their couch on their front lawn for the neighborhood animals to piss on, you're saying I should move? Really? Wow. little rules be damned. Dang I'm a horrible person for thinking that couch idea isn't ok.
I like these pointless circle-conversations; they just keep going.

I like food. Do you guys like food? I like it sometimes when I'm hungry, but it's hard to eat when I'm thirsty. Water is wet. Wait... is water wet? Well, it feels wet when it drips on my shirt... when I wear a shirt. I like shirts sometimes....

Those are some pretty subjective rules. Plan on renting a garage somewhere else if you want to play with cars and live in that neighborhood.

The central problem with HOAs - besides the general problem that large numbers of shiny happy people exist, which you can't blame HOAs for - is that they try to take good taste and translate it into a legal document. This can lead to several different sorts of problems:

1. Some definitions can be quite fuzzy - for example, are some of the muted orange colors you get with Georgia red clay an "earth tone"?

2. This can give would-be Mussolinis a chance to pick on people for bizarre tiny infractions, like a flagpole a couple feet too tall. And frequently when a rule is vague, it ends up getting enforced inconsistently.

3. It's just about impossible to anticipate every sort of bad taste. So, somebody who feels unfairly persecuted can often look through the regulations and find something so bizarre the rules never anticipated anyone would try it, such as coming up with a pair of shrubbery plantings that "just happen" to look like two hands flipping the bird, or a rule that specifically lists what colors you can paint the house, but failed to mention that you can't put all of those colors on the house at once in a tie-dye pattern.

MadScientistMatt wrote: 1. Some definitions can be quite fuzzy - for example, are some of the muted orange colors you get with Georgia red clay an "earth tone"?

Like the "sky" is blue comments above, I actually painted a home in an HOA based on "Oklahoma clay is an earth tone"... It was awesome.. Terrifically ugly in the right kinda ways...

It started something as all the neighbors were pulling up all kinds of pictures of rocks and other geological formations...

The earth ain't "beige"

AverageH wrote: HOA's are not all bad, and the annual dues in our community cover landscaping done every week, and repairs to the culverts every year so the nearby wetlands are protected. Safety is another top priority, and our annual block party is a hit. Just remember that the next time you drive through a pleasant neighborhood that feels clean and well kept, there may be an HOA involved, like it or not. The street behind us disbanded their board a few years ago, and it went trashy really quick. We're trying to prevent that is all. EVERYONE has different standards, and the overall goal is to make sure we all get along HOA or not. I hate paying my dues, despite being pretty cheap, but from the overall response within our community, most residents are quite happy with where we're at. If there are "standards" put in writing that a new home buyer must read and sign before purchasing the home, but they decide to be a jerk and keep their couch on their front lawn for the neighborhood animals to piss on, you're saying I should move? Really? Wow. little rules be damned. Dang I'm a horrible person for thinking that couch idea isn't ok. I like these pointless circle-conversations; they just keep going. I like food. Do you guys like food? I like it sometimes when I'm hungry, but it's hard to eat when I'm thirsty. Water is wet. Wait... is water wet? Well, it feels wet when it drips on my shirt... when I wear a shirt. I like shirts sometimes....

You're right, it can be a circular argument. The hard part is that yes, we have a choice to live in an HOA community or not. However, sometimes the choice you want for your family has an HOA you don't want. The community I'm building in has an HOA, which I am dreading to have to deal with. However, it's going to have 1600 houses when it's done, it already has 900+. There are thousands of kids there. It's perfect for my kids. So do I "have to" live there? No, but if I want to be there for my family I "have to" join the HOA. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I don't need an HOA to do landscaping, nor throw a block party (I've done it in communities where I've lived before...without an HOA).

Klayfish wrote: You're right, it can be a circular argument. The hard part is that yes, we have a choice to live in an HOA community or not. However, sometimes the choice you want for your family has an HOA you don't want. The community I'm building in has an HOA, which I am dreading to have to deal with. However, it's going to have 1600 houses when it's done, it already has 900+. There are thousands of kids there. It's perfect for my kids. So do I "have to" live there? No, but if I want to be there for my family I "have to" join the HOA. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I don't need an HOA to do landscaping, nor throw a block party (I've done it in communities where I've lived before...without an HOA).

Not enough people have that attitude. You're choosing to build and the OP is choosing to buy in an HOA regime and you're accepting that it's something you're going to have to deal with in order to get whatever benefit it will provide you. Personally, I told my Realtor that if she tried to show me one single property that had an HOA, she'd be fired before we walked in the front door. I abhor the concept of the HOA and absolutely do not see a single ounce of benefit to one. But these people that move into an HOA-controlled area and then get all indignant when the busybody crew start whipping out their rulers and measuring the height of their grass or complaining that this shade of brown is the wrong tint have no room to complain.

I'm with ya, trust me. A no HOA community was very high on my list when we started this process. However, this is just too good for me to be selfish and pass on it for my children. For them, this is as good as it can possibly get. I'm not going to complain the HOA exists, as I'm already aware of it. But I won't be goose stepping with them down the street.

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my brain around the concept of paying people money to tell me what I can do with my own property.

ronholm wrote:

MadScientistMatt wrote: 1. Some definitions can be quite fuzzy - for example, are some of the muted orange colors you get with Georgia red clay an "earth tone"?

Like the "sky" is blue comments above, I actually painted a home in an HOA based on "Oklahoma clay is an earth tone"... It was awesome.. Terrifically ugly in the right kinda ways... It started something as all the neighbors were pulling up all kinds of pictures of rocks and other geological formations... The earth ain't "beige"

if anyone needs earth tones, my buddy just got back from Yellowstone.

Is that where Skittles come from?

I'm still kind of upset that AverageH thinks having a couch on your front porch and pissing on it is a bad thing.

All of these things that folks are complaining about--couches on the front porch, cars on blocks, etc.--they are fine in a rural setting. But it gets annoying looking out your window at it. Where does it stop? What if the neighbor across the street never mowed--that would look pretty bad, and I wouldn't want to live there. Rural setting? I don't care. Neighborhood? I do, and the fact is that it does lower my property value if the next door neighbor has a crappy looking house.

The problem is when they become too involved, such as the demand that windows have to be individual panes rather than one big window, or you can't have a pickup truck in the driveway.

Many of the more egregious sorts of problems - blatant lack of maintenance, derelict vehicles in the front yard - are things county level code enforcement can take care of without needing to put together a HOA.

I 2nd the Suzuki SX4 idea. These things are the epitome of the "slow car fast" mentality. AWD manual hatchback with a slight lift and all-terrain tires. Definitely unusual, you will stand out in the sea of Portland Subarus (I would assume). Plus I want to see you turbo it.

Not all HOAs are created equal. My parent's neighborhood has an HOA that doesn't do anything but repair the main sign when someone crashes through it. They used to provide luminaries around Christmas but someone complained about religion so they stopped. My dad and his neighbor have had project cars parked next to their respective garages for over 20 years with no problems. They did have a hard-nose rule person several years ago but she quit when no one would listen to her.

Klayfish wrote: There are thousands of kids there. It's perfect for my kids.

Assuming all the kids aren't shiny happy people. Or don't grow up to be suburban gang members. Doing something like this "for the kids" is a cop out. Did the kids beg you to move there, or were they all about the lonely place in the country with the barn and the land?

I grew up at the end of a 3 mile dead end street with a nature preserve out back and farmland out front. There were exactly 7 kids on my end of the street. Sure our wiffle ball games were a bit weak, but there was always something to do. And if it was crappy outside I'd read a book. Just saying that a neighborhood with tons of kids isn't the best thing for everybody.

Derick Freese wrote: Is that where Skittles come from?

Yeah, but its been acting up for the last year and spitting out green apple flavored ones instead of lime.

MadScientistMatt wrote: Many of the more egregious sorts of problems - blatant lack of maintenance, derelict vehicles in the front yard - are things county level code enforcement can take care of without needing to put together a HOA.

Yep, around here it is city and they have more clout than any HOA.

Smart-ass neighbor across the street went on vacation for 2 months and didn't make any arrangements to have the yard mowed. When he got back he found a nicely mowed yard and a bill from the city.

He told the city he wouldn't pay. They said it will be added to your property tax bill. When he said he still wouldn't pay they replied that when the tax bill was overdue (1 year) the property would be put on the tax sale list. He decided that it wasn't worth losing his house over $150.

The fact that the city had just condemned and seized 3 buildings downtown when the owner refused to make repairs may have influenced his decision.

Junkyard_Dog wrote:

Klayfish wrote: There are thousands of kids there. It's perfect for my kids.

Assuming all the kids aren't shiny happy people. Or don't grow up to be suburban gang members. Doing something like this "for the kids" is a cop out. Did the kids beg you to move there, or were they all about the lonely place in the country with the barn and the land? I grew up at the end of a 3 mile dead end street with a nature preserve out back and farmland out front. There were exactly 7 kids on my end of the street. Sure our wiffle ball games were a bit weak, but there was always something to do. And if it was crappy outside I'd read a book. Just saying that a neighborhood with tons of kids isn't the best thing for everybody.

Hmmm...interesting...if not totally clueless...post. So what exactly is it a "cop out" of? But hey, it's cool. You obviously know a lot about my family situation and my kids situation and their desires. So maybe I'll go cancel the contract on my new house because you know better than I. There are shiny happy people everywhere...