Just received this...
For our yard that looks like this...
Honestly! How can people live like this?!? Some people are just so trashy.
(Can you hear the irritated sarcasm dripping from the words?)
It's a second notice, but the yard looked like this for the first notice I ignored.
It says we must reply within 10 days via certified letter, so I sent this snarky reply...
(Yes, I feel much better after writing it.)
Our patience is wearing thin with your
unfounded harassing notices.
We’ve received NUMEROUS car
citations. Only ONE of the vehicles
was ours (NO IDEA who the other cars belong to) and it was the DAY AFTER WE
MOVED IN! We hadn’t even gotten all of our boxes INTO the house and you were
citing us for the truck we used to move our stuff with. Really?!?! New
residents aren’t even allowed a week to move in before you sic the “inspectors”
on them? Wow, amazing community ya’ll got here. Remind me to recommend this
Gestapo to all of my friends and family. I didn’t even want to live in this
neighborhood, but we’re cheap and low quality KB homes, with guest quarters to
care for an aging parent and rooms for 5 kids, are sufficient for a cheap
budget. Come on people we’re not living in high quality housing here, it’s KB
junk and everyone knows it. This is a stepping stone neighborhood where people
live until they can get into the neighborhoods they really want.
Now we’re being cited for our
phantom weeds?!? The notice states the inspection was done on October 16. That
happened to be an insanely busy week from hell for us. Your notice berating our
“eye sore” of a yard was a lovely ending to it. Thank you so much for the
attention. You can imagine the warm
fuzzy feeling I got when I opened my mail box to find the cursed yellow card
sitting there to greet me. I grabbed it and skimmed over it’s “information”
filled contents while I loaded all my kids into the car to leave. Desert
Broom?? Oh crap! I’m deathly allergic to that devil weed. I loathe that
horrible plant with every fiber of my being. I lose days at work every stinkin’
year due to being so sick from that nasty plant. That policy is the ONLY saving grace to this community’s stupid
CC&Rs. We spray weeds every Saturday
so how this awful plant snuck through I had no idea. At the risk of being late
for the appointment we were headed to I jumped out of the car for an inspection
of our yard “to the left of the driveway”…and I found…N O T H I N G!!
(Picture of
Yard)
So, I checked to the right of
the driveway…NOTHING. There wasn’t a weed of any sort, at all, much less a
Desert Broom. I figured it’d been such a busy week that we must have just
overlooked something growing. Uhhhh, no, you guys are just seeing things. Due
to the fact that I, along with all my kids, are so allergic to this plant we
can identify it at all stages of growth. And get this; we always removed it immediately upon noticing it at our
old house…wait for it… wait for it…without
someone ordering us to do so. I know it’s a novel idea that the minions are
capable of independent thought and action. With such a difficult concept for
you to wrap your minds around, I’ll let you ruminate on it for a moment…
My husband and I are just
naturally organized, clean kind of people; although, the 5 kids born in under 7
years make cleaning anything a challenge, we still do it. I’m not sure if this
is just the standard “welcome to the neighborhood, now get in line” kind of
harassment you bestow on all the newcomers or not, but it’s ridiculous. For
heaven’s sake! Are you nothing but a bunch of robots? Did it never cross your
mind to think, “Hmmm, that family moved in 1 day ago let’s give them a couple
weeks and see what happens to that truck.” Or, “Oh, I notice a weed let’s give
it till the next inspection and see if they are capable of self governing and
get rid of the weeds on their own.” *Or*
I don’t know, maybe just maybe, in the true spirit of community why don’t you
ask, “Hey, are you doing alright? Is there something so consuming going on in
life that you’ve not been able to get to the weeds, bring in the garbage can,
move the errant car, sweep the front walk, trim the bushes and trees, etc, etc,
etc?” And here’s the best part…are you ready…this will blow your mind…ask them,
“HOW. CAN. WE. HELP?”
Now that’s an earth
shattering concept right there.
We’d be deeply grateful if
you’d calm down, take a breath, and behave like humans. If our yard ever truly
becomes an eye sore I can assure you my anal retentive self will be acutely
aware of it. The fact that the dead tree and scraggly ugly bush were removed
within a week of moving in illustrates the fact that we, too, like “aesthetically
pleasing” yards. If my yard isn’t “aesthetically pleasing” to you, it’s because
life has hit a new low and we’re barely hanging on to body and soul…we’ve been
there, it sucks. When our fourth baby
was born with a 50/50 chance of survival and my husband was barely back into
work and I was living at the NICU; we got a few weeds in our yard. Guess what?
As soon as we were all back home alive we took care of them, again, without anyone telling us to. During
that time a letter from someone like you guys would’ve sent us over the edge.
Our baby had barely survived, my husband had barely gotten back to work, our
world was turned upside-down, and I’ll be forever grateful there was NO HOA
breathing down our necks about something so incredibly insignificant.
I’ve included a large picture
showing the state of our yard the day of inspection and the day I received the
notice. I would love it if you could circle the Desert Broom I’m supposed to
remove and send it back to me…ON YOUR DIME NOT MINE.
Since only one of the errant
cars was ours I’d like the $1.30 you wasted sending me a certified letter
(which by the way stunk picking up with 5 kids in tow) removed from my account.
Rude! Not cool charging me for other people parking in front of my house!
There IS a Desert Broom just outside my back fence in the desert owned by the HOA; I’d like YOU to remove it “no later than October
28, 2012 to protect the aesthetics of the community” desert area.
Instead of wasting so much
money on postage hounding people about things they’ll probably take care of on
their own anyway; may I suggest taking that money and purchasing some
additional descent playground equipment. THAT
would be a benefit to the community. Have you checked out the
“playgrounds”? They are L A M E! If every minute of my residency here is going
to be managed then I’d like the HOA to manage to give something back. All of
the quality neighborhoods (think Dove Mountain and Tangerine Crossing, shoot
even North Ranch) have good playgrounds. Their HOAs provide something for the
residents and in turn the residents keep their yards looking nice.
Disgusted with having to live
here,
P.S. We’re not quite as smart
as the HOA president and board, but don’t think we don’t notice the red neck
inflatable pool on the front porch AND PLASTIC CHAIRS. What’s good for the goose is good for the
gander…dear leader, uh…el presidente, uh…great one, uh…whatever it is you crown
yourself. I certainly hope you’re heading all the notices about those chairs.
Or do you get to be an exception?
