Women Sued by city for her car tires on her lawn

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

HOA is home owner autocratics where everyone looks and acts the same, dull with no imagination and you get to pay for the disposition. Other than condos there was no such thing as HOA in my area. But then Californians took the place over and almost all new developments are HOA.

It's just another form of control never mind a money grab, displacing responsibility from the individual to the institution, and pretentious people with their nose in your business. Personally I'll never pay a cent into HOA.

[1976gmc20]

Twenty years ago when I had to be on-site for a job in Tempe, one Sunday morning I drove my rental car out to my old neighborhood on the west side of Phoenix.

What a shock!

It had become I guess what you could call an "ethnic neighborhood" and there were no trees and grass left and every yard (except one or two) had cars parked on the street and every square inch of yard and driveway and even front patios. Our former house was one of the worst ones. They had knocked down a little masonry wall and parked a car in what had been a cactus flower bed by our front door.

So I guess it can become really bad but still I'd rather live with no rules, around people who have some measure of respect for themselves and their neighbors.

[72c20customcamper]

Problem is that we as a collective take pride in our trucks homes and so on so we tend keep them all nice. Other people not so much

[lil hoodlum]

Originally Posted by 1976gmc20

Twenty years ago when I had to be on-site for a job in Tempe, one Sunday morning I drove my rental car out to my old neighborhood on the west side of Phoenix.

What a shock!

It had become I guess what you could call an "ethnic neighborhood" and there were no trees and grass left and every yard (except one or two) had cars parked on the street and every square inch of yard and driveway and even front patios. Our former house was one of the worst ones. They had knocked down a little masonry wall and parked a car in what had been a cactus flower bed by our front door.

So I guess it can become really bad but still I'd rather live with no rules, around people who have some measure of respect for themselves and their neighbors.

I grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas. There are some areas of Corpus that aren't very nice. Anyways, I had a friend who lived in one of those not so nice areas, and noticed one day that everyone in there neighborhood parked in the yards as well as the driveways. I asked him about why do the people park their cars on their front lawns and not in the street. He replied because the drunks driving down the streets were like bowling balls bouncing off the cars parked in the street. To be honest, he lived in a rough area that sometimes the police wouldn't show up at night if called on about an incident.

[1976gmc20]

Originally Posted by lil hoodlum

I grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas. There are some areas of Corpus that aren't very nice. Anyways, I had a friend who lived in one of those not so nice areas, and noticed one day that everyone in there neighborhood parked in the yards as well as the driveways. I asked him about why do the people park their cars on their front lawns and not in the street. He replied because the drunks driving down the streets were like bowling balls bouncing off the cars parked in the street. To be honest, he lived in a rough area that sometimes the police wouldn't show up at night if called on about an incident.

Cars were also parked bumper to bumper on both sides of the streets.

My old elementary school had razor wire on top of the fences and locked gates including those big roll out gates to close the parking lot on weekends. Back then you could go down to the schoolyard and use the ball fields and swings on weekends or evenings if you wanted.

I doubt the police would show up day or night except in large numbers.

No need to visit Tijuana just go to West Phoenix

[kingsolver72]

Originally Posted by 1976gmc20

My old elementary school had razor wire on top of the fences and locked gates including those big roll out gates to close the parking lot on weekends. (

That sounds like a maximum security prison.

To me school always felt like being incarcerated.

[1976gmc20]

Originally Posted by kingsolver72

That sounds like a maximum security prison.

To me school always felt like being incarcerated.

After I escaped HS I didn't go to college until I was 37

[Stocker]

Originally Posted by kingsolver72

To me school always felt like being incarcerated.

Nice to know I wasn't the only one! My senior year I could not wait to get out of there.
Military didn't want me (in 1967 no less) so 5 days after turning 18, I started my near-42 year telecom career.

[GOPAPA]

Kingsolver and Stocker

I am another that could not wait to get out of high school .. I wanted to get a job and buy an nice car.. I had nice cars first on my mind (really) and girls second ..
I had no desire to go to any more school.. and I too did not pass the Military Testing when called to join . I got into heavy construction and never looked back ,,enjoyed all the years at that kind of work,,,,bought me a place with acreage and drove all over the grass I wanted and no neighbors complained

[1976gmc20]

Originally Posted by GOPAPA

Kingsolver and Stocker

I am another that could not wait to get out of high school .. I wanted to get a job and buy an nice car.. I had nice cars first on my mind (really) and girls second ..
I had no desire to go to any more school.. and I too did not pass the Military Testing when called to join . I got into heavy construction and never looked back ,,enjoyed all the years at that kind of work,,,,bought me a place with acreage and drove all over the grass I wanted and no neighbors complained

Yeah, I had a part time job most of my senior year of HS. They wanted me to go full time about a month before graduation and I wanted to drop out that close but didn't and they got somebody else instead. I took the summer off because my mom had surgery but what I wanted to do was go travel and camp for a while, but I had a car instead of the pickup/topper that I wanted/needed for that.

I had asthma so the Army didn't even want me, though at one time I had this dream of going to Annapolis

Did a bunch of different jobs after that and finally moved up in the mountains and worked at a sawmill about three miles west of the continental divide. Then I went into logging and did some construction and ended up getting so sick working in a woodshop lacquer booth that I grudgingly went to college at age 37. I worked my butt off in college and I guess I finally did all right even though I ended up doing something mostly different than what I went to school for.

And yeah now we have 60 acres where I can park or drive anywhere I want. I've sort of got my own little off road trail system for cutting firewood and fixing fences

[GOPAPA]

Originally Posted by 1976gmc20

Yeah, I had a part time job most of my senior year of HS. They wanted me to go full time about a month before graduation and I wanted to drop out that close but didn't and they got somebody else instead. I took the summer off because my mom had surgery but what I wanted to do was go travel and camp for a while, but I had a car instead of the pickup/topper that I wanted/needed for that.

I had asthma so the Army didn't even want me, though at one time I had this dream of going to Annapolis

Did a bunch of different jobs after that and finally moved up in the mountains and worked at a sawmill about three miles west of the continental divide. Then I went into logging and did some construction and ended up getting so sick working in a woodshop lacquer booth that I grudgingly went to college at age 37. I worked my butt off in college and I guess I finally did all right even though I ended up doing something mostly different than what I went to school for.

And yeah now we have 60 acres where I can park or drive anywhere I want. I've sort of got my own little off road trail system for cutting firewood and fixing fences

Great Read ,, I worked in a small sawmill ,,even worked up to head rig sawyer,, and did some logging too .. Would you have been around Georgetown Montana a sawmilling ? I bet we could swap lots of stories

[1976gmc20]

Originally Posted by GOPAPA

Great Read ,, I worked in a small sawmill ,,even worked up to head rig sawyer,, and did some logging too .. Would you have been around Georgetown Montana a sawmilling ? I bet we could swap lots of stories

No, sadly I didn't move to Montana until 1997 which was after my health issues and college. I did do some logging in central MT for a little while as I had gotten pissed trying to work in my degree.

My first sawmill job was in a little tourist/ghost town called Tincup, Colorado in 1976. The guy with the mill was plowing the road out all winter for a few seasons. In the winter the owner and his son and their families and a couple of us crew and a team of loggers were the only ones living up there. There was power by then but the nearest phone was about eight miles away!

I bounced around a bit - clear to Alaska and New Mexico - but ended up back around there logging for quite a while. Our first daughter is buried in the historic Tincup Cemetery.

If I could have done anything different I would have moved to MT decades sooner. When we came through here in 1977 on the way to Alaska, I was ready to stop right then - but I had my friends' stuff on my pickup and had promised to go up the Alcan with them.

[FleetsidePaul]

This is why I have never and never will in in a HOA situation.

When I met my second wife she lived in a condo with a HOA. She was cited for having her garage door open too much. The rules were that you had to close the door each time that you parked.

Who are these people? They don't have the guts to just walk up to you and make their case...No they send an anonymous letter.

I told her to just keep the door closed. Then me being the A hole that am. I started parking my car on the lawn. And nobody said a word.

And they complained about her cat. He was a tough cat. And he would kick the cr@p out of the other cats. What are you suppose to do? They're cats...They fight. I'm not putting my cat in a cage because he can kick your cats azz. Put your cat in a cage if you've got your panties in a bunch about it.
I Won't do it.

But I also see the other side of the fence. I looked at a house once when I was getting divorced (again) It was a nice house. I liked it. But the guy next door had a bunch of junky cars parked in front of it. And I'm talking about total garbage. No way was I going to look out my front window everyday and see a bunch of beat up K cars that never moved.

This woman is getting the shaft. Maybe those pictures were a bit staged for the camera. But really It's doesn't look like a big deal. I've done worse. I am doing worse. I've got cars all over my place. Leave her alone and let her park where she wants. Get a life.

100 grand is pure stupidity. Even my ev wives didn't take me for that....Oh wait...Yes they did.

[67C10Step]

My wife and I looked at a house once that was in a gated neighborhood with lakes. Man, it was nice and we really liked the home. I asked the relator to fax over (that's how long ago) the covenants for me to review. At about page 10 I had made up my mind not not buy the house before I had even read the first line. It was stupid, you had to get everything "approved" before you could do it. Landscaping, exterior lighting, etc.

No way am I paying for my property and then paying some bunch of pretentious idiots to tell me what I can do with it. I knew a guy from Virginia and he couldn't even pull his bass boat into the neighborhood if he forgot something on his way to the lake. Crazy.

Now, even though I am a pretty much staunch supporter of property rights to the owner I do understand it to a certain degree. Otherwise you get junk yards in front yards and farm animals in back yards. It's a tough call. I did turn a guy in once during a construction project for not properly controlling site run off and clearing too close to the creek. Runoff from his construction project was going to totally silt in the rock bottom creek that flowed through my father in law's place. Turns out, the guy had WAY more violations than just the few I could see. He was putting in chicken houses which he has every right to do and make a living on his ground. Trouble was, what he was doing was impacting other people's property.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I'm not sure how I feel about this... yes the fees are ABSOLUTELY ABSURD, I mean, come on. But at the same time she knew the rules and ignored them for many many years.

I moved into a non-HOA community on purpose as well. Most of the homes are on 0.75+1+ acre plots and are a little higher end and scoping the neighborhood before we bought showed most people keep yards mowed, etc.

12 years later, still the same, except with the full exterior remodel, I have one of the nicest houses now. My poor FIL has to keep his boat in his garage and had to buy and $ trailer that had a swivel hitch so he could close the door.


I've gotten to know a lot of people over the years locally and there's a lot of good and bad HOA's out there. Some are simply a group that meets once a year to award the yearly maintenance contract and talk about any maintenance issues, and some have neat ammenities like a pool and gym and are fairly "cheap". Other's charge ridiculous fees and send you warnings and fines if your grass gets over 3 inches tall or you don't trim the tree in your front yard fast enough. In those places you can just about forget about storing anything outside or building anything new on your plot, but I have a feeling most of the people that live there like it that way.

I'd say it's pretty safe to say that due to what we all love to do (work on and own lots of cars) that most of us wouldn't do well in an HOA.

[special-K]

I still call an HOA absurd even if it's free. No thank you, never no way, uh uh. It just ain't me. I can take care of my own property, keep the condition up as well or better than those around me just fine all by myself without an association's help(<??).

I should have taken a picture. Today, right in the town I live near in front of a big expensive well kept house I noticed the owners must park a vehicle on the street between the curb and sidewalk daily. There are tire tracks worn through the grass to bare dirt from doing it an a regular basis. We have a newer town police force who are very overzealous and our town council has been overtaken by transplanted suburbanites. It doesn't seem anyone has complained or taken any action about this travesty.

[FleetsidePaul]

I believe in live and let live. But...(there's always a but isn't there)

But. I have had neighbors that wouldn't know a lawnmower if they got run over by one. And they always seem to have the first house that you see when you pull in.
In my flea bitten opinion. It trashes my house that I just spent a lot of money fixing up. A trashy house that has junk furniture all over because the garage is already full of cr@p.

But I did meet the woman with the trashy house. She was a large woman. Heavy set. But she was walking. She walked every day. She was a sweet lady. And I figured that she was working on herself over the house. I never complained. She was trying to improve one step at a time. I'm not going to piss on that fire.

Look at the whole situation. I had a situation where I had an order to cut the power at a house for non payment. There was an elderly lady there. She had lived there for decades and always paid her bill on time. This was a huge red flag to me. I called in for an agency that helped older folks. Obviously something was wrong. Needless to say the power stayed on and I never went back.

That's what these authoritarian HOA's don't get. Circumstances dictate. Not the rule book.

If you want to point a finger. Look for a mirror.

[Killer Bee]

hey Florida, hold my beer

[bennylava]

Originally Posted by old Rusty C10

maybe its me but if youre paying taxes on a piece of land, as long as you arent doing something hazzardous to the neighborhood, and its contained to your property, the government needs to leave you the heck alone

I'd agree, unless you signed something saying you'd keep the place in a certain condition when you bought the house. And not looking like an alternate location for the city dump. You know the kind of people I'm talking about, and nobody wants to live next to that. You do need to consider others and not just yourself. (not you specifically)

I bet the people complaining about code enforcement would be the same people complaining if it stopped. And the town was allowed to look like someplace you'd see in India.

[burnin oil]

Originally Posted by bennylava

I'd agree, unless
I bet the people complaining about code enforcement would be the same people complaining if it stopped. And the town was allowed to look like someplace you'd see in India.

I will not live in a HOA and do not care about any of the rules. Life is to short for the stupidity for me to agree to live there. My best friend lives in a HOA and asked me to bring his trash cans up to the house for him since he was out of town. I brought them up to the house and set them at the corner of the garage. He got fined $75 because they wernt beside the garage. Sorry no sale to me. Personally I think his neighborhood is a dump. Basically every house parks on the street since the driveways are super short and most garages are converted to living rooms since the house are small also.

Where I live we have a dump that you take the trash to. On the road to it there is a truck that always has a mound of trash bags over flowing onto the ground. I just shake my head and say some people since the dump is a 3 mile round trip for them and only opened 6 days a week. My thought is just own enough property where you don't have to look at it. Easy enough.

[1976gmc20]

There is a guy around here who was complaining about horse poop in the road.

Now a whole bunch of Amish have moved in.

You have to pity his poor panties

[FleetsidePaul]

There are some people that will complain about anything.

I went to turn the power on at a vacant house and the neighbor came out and went on a rant about the overgrown lawn.

Now keep in mind that this lawn was about as big as a postage stamp. Maybe 6X6 Ft. It would take about 5 minutes to cut the grass. And he had already held me up longer than that griping about it. So I said if it bugged him that much that maybe he could just run a mower over it himself.

He just turned and walked away and slammed his door.

I guess he didn't like my response.


Killer Bee...How many times a day do people stop and try to buy your trucks? My truck is fairly well hidden and I still get people asking me how much.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Nobody ever bothers me, but I live on a circle road where the only people that ever pass by are neighbors and a few visitors. My neighbors all know my stuff isn't for sale.

On a plus note, one of my neighbors picked up what looks to be a super nice 57 Tbird convertible! Going to have to go chat with him soon....

[67C10Step]

My neighborhood has a few covenants to follow. House has to be a certain size, etc. I did slightly break one rule in that unattached buildings are supposed to be under 900 square feet and "of like materials' as the house. Since many of my neighbors had already set a precedent this was a rather loose rule I built a 1200 square foot shop and matched the colors of my house.

Fleetside Paul reminded me that myself and three neighbors take care of the empty lot next door to me. It is a corner lot that adjoins my property and the neighbor to the west of me. It's about 1.25 acres and the lady that owns it only had it mowed about 1-2 times per summer and one summer not at all. So, us two and the neighbor across the street all take turns mowing it in the summer to keep this part of the neighborhood looking good. Probably the best empty lot in the neighborhood and she will not sell it.
I've lived here over nine years and have not seen her in over five. There are only four houses on my short street and we all take care of our yards. My 2.5 acres is sprayed, fertilized, and looks like a golf course for the most part.

Down the highway is a nice piece of property some folks moved in on about two years ago. Now there are two junk cars at the edge of the woods near the road. That's not too bad, it's the trash they have scattered all in their front yard and down into the woods. This isn't a small place either, I'd say 5-7 acres. Why can't people keep one junk pile and not scatter it?

[Boog]

We've all heard the stories of over zealous home owner ass. heads getting all in other's business. Heck, there are a couple of tv commercials running this year with that being the story plot. You know the one with the woman taking a chain saw to someone's mail box posts saying it was 2" over regulation and cutting down their plants? HOA my ash! I understand the original intent of the HOA but some times that can get out of hand due to the ones in charge. Power trip. The Karen syndrome. We have some real nice neighborhoods here that do not allow campers or boats to be parked in the yards or driveways or more than one vehicle parked in front of the house. I imagine unregistered cars aren't allowed there either. That is no place for me.
I have seen a couple of videos a guy posted about one of his female neighbors calling the police on him for the color of his pickup. I kid you not. He showed camera footage of her standing in front of his home taking pics of his bright yellow pickup and calling it in. And get this, she lives a couple of blocks away from him. There are head cases everywhere.