Seeing as how it’s officially spooky week, I’m going to talk about what may be the most horrifying thing in the world. In fact, some of you probably should not keep reading. Today’s topic is not for the faint of heart.
Today, I want to talk about the most dreaded of all dreadful things—the neighborhood HOA. We knew better than to buy a house in a neighborhood with an HOA. But we foolishly thought that the neighborhood amenities were nice and the HOA would keep our property values up and that the things we liked about the house would outweigh the hassle of the HOA.
We were wrong.
Although I’m not sure there was much else we could have done. In our area, if you want a neighborhood without an HOA, either you’re looking at someplace a bit sketchy where you probably don’t want to live or you’re looking at someplace a bit swanky where you probably can’t afford to live.
We’ve been getting letters from our HOA regarding our lawn ever since we moved in here. This is frustrating, because we’ve hired multiple companies to try to get our lawn looking good. But it seems like no matter what we do or pay others to do, our lawn always looks scraggly and weedy and brown.
Honestly, I would just let the grass die altogether. Maybe plant some moss. Or maybe get some AstroTurf, Brady Bunch style. The Brady’s lawn always looked amazing.
This whole struggle of having a yard that requires constant work is insane to me. Why are we doing this? Interestingly, cultivating grass lawns originated back in the 16th century, with European aristocracy wanting beautiful open areas surrounding their castles, which made it easier to defend, gave everyone a nice place to fight, and allowed them to show off to everyone, because most people wouldn’t have had time or resources to have a lawn like that.
Which, if I was the Queen of England, then, sure, let’s put in the effort to make the lawn look good. Wouldn’t want to lose face to the Queen of France, after all.
But as normal Americans, this lawn thing makes no sense. What a supreme waste of time and energy and money. Surely we all have better things to do than mow, fertilize, water, aerate, etc., only to still have the HOA sending us angry letters telling us the lawn still isn’t good enough.
Of course, my more recent complaint with the HOA is not even the lawn. They sent us an letter complaining that we are not putting away our basketball hoop when it’s not in use.
Is this really a thing? Does anybody drag out a big full-sized hoop, play a bit and then drag it back somewhere where the sight of it cannot offend the neighbors?
The truly infuriating thing is that is says right in the neighborhood rules and regulations that basketball hoops are allowed. It doesn’t say you have to put them away when not in use. It doesn’t say you have to get them approved by the Architecture Review Committee.
Sometimes the HOA almost feels like Ultron, just a soulless robot completing its objective without being able to see what it is they actually exist to do. Shouldn’t they spend more time making sure the common areas are well kept and maybe intervene if someone is doing something really crazy with their house, but otherwise, just leave everyone alone. Live and let live.
And for the record, my basketball hoop is very tasteful.
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