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Wow. We live in an HOA and I don't think they ever give out notices!!! We're all pretty friendly with each other! And our house has a HUGE garden because the previous owner was huge into landscaping and we really let it go for four years before we finally took care of it and no one said anything to us! I'd hate to live in an HOA where they were so strict!!
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@Reese: yeah, people eventually get fined. It takes 3 letters in our neighborhood plus a meeting with the HOA. So, it's not like you're getting fined if you let your yard go for a couple of weeks. You just get a couple of warnings. If you are laid up and can't mow or take care of it, they will suggest you hire someone to take care of it for you. Our neighbors on other sides would definitely mow for us if we had issues like @pinkcupcake and @mamabehr mentioned. When we brought our lo home, it was summer and for our "welcome home baby" gift, two of our neighbors mowed our lawn for a couple of weeks. It was awesome!
We also have a community board we can post to to ask for help, if it's needed. Some people just let their yards go, though and don't care and don't ask for help. Those are the people I report.
@Mrs. Polish: I get that. I also see some neighborhoods in the city near us that don't have HOA's and they, in their little lots, have rusted out boats, tractor trailers and mobile homes in/on their yards. We didn't want to have a neighbor like that.
@sunny: Salmon and blue, huh? Oy. I'm sorry!!!
@pepper: yeah, we had someone "tag" our mailbox and now we either need to replace it or find the exact numbers and paint shade to fix it. I agree, these little things like that are annoying.
@freckles: he left his house empty. No one is in it. But it's not on the market. So, he's letting it go to pot and bringing our whole neighborhood down in the meantime.
@looch: Exactly! Like what I said above, if your yard looks like sh*t, it brings down the value of everyone's homes around you. We had a chat on here a few days (week or so?) ago about buying a house next to an unkept house. Never would I buy a house next to one like our neighbor right now just because it means they just don't care and I want people to care about their property as much as we do.
Someday we'll move to a house with a bunch of acres where we can't see any other houses. Someday.
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We have an HOA, but all it's good for is getting us a reduced trash and recycling rate (which is actually pretty awesome). I WISH they gave out warnings/fines, because there are some seriously awful yards in our neighborhood. DH and I work really hard at keeping a nice yard, and it is so frustrating when half the yards are dandelion fields (not even an exaggeration - close to 100% dandelions!!!) because that DOES affect us, the dandelion seeds blow into our yard and give us a constant weedy nightmare. Also, the house next to us is rented, and no one cares for the lawn (it's my opinion that the owner should be caring for the lawn, or have it written into the contract that the tenants do, but neither is the case in this scenario). So now moles have taken over their yard, and have started tunnels all over our yard. Has anyone tried to get rid of a mole problem before?! Freaking nightmare...
So yes, I am very pro-HOA (except when I have to pay the high fees... haha) and would not worry about reporting a neighbor who had serious issues (I would let a week lapse on mowing slide, or a trash can left out for a couple day - those are generally situational and not habits bringing down everyone's home value)
(I have some issues with this, can you tell?!
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We don't have an HOA but our township will enforce when our hoarder neighbors let their grass grow longer than 6 inches. I need to call the township to see what, if anything, we can do about the TV that's been in their front yard for 6 weeks...
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We don't have an HOA, our township monitors situations like the one you posted about.
I probably wouldn't call, but DH would
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I am really glad I am not part of a homeowner's association. I'd probably have to deal with even more busybody neighbours who can't mind their own business.
It's one thing if someone is letting their house go in to the pits, but letters for leaving a garbage can out? Really? I wouldn't want to deal with that crap.
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@swurlygurl: We do write in to our contracts with tenants than they are responsible for their lawns and more often than not they just let them overgrow. We don't have time to be mowing everyone else's yard so if they won't hold to their end of the agreement there isn't much that can be done. That could be what's going on here... In Ontario you'd be laughed at if you tried to evict someone for that.
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@pui: Yeah, I do see the problems with enforcing that. Most of the rental properties in our neighborhood hire yard services to mow the lawns which is great (as a neighbor!), but I can imagine that would get really expensive! Especially with multiple properties.
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No HOA here, we'll never be part of one again. Maintaining our property is going to be a very either expensive or laborious task, but for us it's worth it. So far, all our neighbors seem to hire landscapers so we're probably the worst yard for miles!
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In our neighborhood, as long as it can't be seen from the street, the backyard can be as crazy as you want. Our next door neighbors have horrible backyards, but their front yards are within HOA guidelines. I don't really care since I can't see it.
I really dislike our HOA. We've gotten letters a couple times for letting our grass get too long (it wasn't) and having a couple weeds in our flower beds. They also take pictures and email it to you. I know our neighbors have gotten dinged for the trash barrel being left out. I'm not a fan, and our next move will be to a non-HOA neighborhood. It's too much for me!
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Most of these HOAs sound waaaaaaaayyy stricter than ours! Ours basically consists of asking you to not park vehicles in your yard, keeping your yard a decent/reasonable height (not meadow status), and no livestock beyond chickens. That's pretty much it. Maybe that's why I don't think a HOA is so bad?
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I totally understand the need for HOA neighborhoods, but it's definitely not a place we want to live because of all the restrictions. So we chose to buy in a non-HOA neighborhood.
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@grizz: both of our HOAs are chill too! It's nice to know it's there though in case someone just decided to let their house go to hell.
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We live in an HOA community and I
LOVE it - but for exactly the opposite reasons others have said... our HOA dues cover all landscaping, trash removal, rodent control, etc... so our neighborhood looks great and I don't have to lift a finger. That's my type of HOA.
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We specifically chose a home in a neighborhood without an HOA. I didn't want to pay a ton of fees on top of my mortgage and I didn't want anyone policing me if I decided to paint my door or skipped a week on the mowing.
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My father bought a house in a community and the first week he was there he got a violation because the grass wasnt cut that week.
He also got a violation because he put his garbage cans in the wrong place.
I wished his neighbors just told him instead of reporting him right away.
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So i like an HOA. We pay $90/year. They spray for bugs, which I like.
The subdivisions near us that don't have HOAs look trashy. Hello, it's the midwest. People leave their kids' toys on the lawn all summer to bleach out, park old beater cars and boats in their driveway all the time, let their grass grow out of control, leave their trashcans out, have ugly fences up. It just all looks so junky and I dislike it. Our HOA isn't really strict, though, but it does require you bring in your trashcans, not pile up wood in your backyard, keep your grass looking decent, that kind of stuff.
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@septca: oh man, that's my dream hood. Haha. I hate yard work.
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I have never reported someone, but I've come close. For a reason the same as @mediagirl:
Our neighbors used to rent their house out and were super lax on mowing the lawn. We're in townhouses so the high grass was pretty much right next to our house. We started having a mouse problem (that we never had when the grass wasn't so high, and that went away when they eventually mowed)
Thankfully, DH is a super people person so he got around to getting to know the owner better and talked to him more about the mowing. The tenants weren't letting the owner in the house because they had a dog they didn't want him to know about.
Now that the owner has moved back in, I'm REALLY hoping to won't become an issue ever again.
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@septca: YES. That's why I love ours! We also have businesses come out to our meetings and give bids for group rates on services - mulch, gutter cleaning, HVAC servicing, pest control, etc. We just got a killer deal on mulch for our flower beds because a ton of neighbors went in on the group deal.
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@septca: My friend lives in one of those!!! And they plow their driveways when it snows! I'm so jealous!
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@Adira: YES! I forgot snow removal... it also includes that. I think we pay $80/month and we get a trash rebate from the city because we have private trash removal, so it ends up only being about $50/month.
@grizz: Exactly.
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@septca: That's amazing! We pay 300$ a year and it doesn't cover any of that. They use it to pay for common area maintenance and a couple pathetic festivals.
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The neighborhood I grew up in didn't have an HOA exactly, but something similar. It's a historic neighborhood so if you want to build an addition or a shed or whatever, the design has to be approved by the county. It has to fit in with the look of the neighborhood, so there will never be any super modern-looking houses or structures because they wouldn't go. I don't really mind that, you're made aware of it when you move in. But somehow this one family was able to paint their house neon orange, blue, and purple. Yes, all of those colors. Yikes!
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@septca: Um, that is AMAZING! I think my friend pays at LEAST $150! Maybe even $200/month!
ETA: We pay $75/month and we only get trash removal!
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@mediagirl: I dont' blame you at all! We have a lax HOA for things like garbage and weekly lawn care. If a house is foreclosed on they maintain the yard until it is sold.
I love our HOA. I don't want to see junk in my neighbors yards or pink and purple houses.
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@septca: That is amazing!
We pay $270 a year and we get nothing. I think the dues go towards maintaining the small playground and the neighborhood sign!
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Our old house was in a non-HOA community and it was AMAZING!! We did all sorts of home improvement and it was nice not having to requiste for it then wait for approval, etc. All the my neighbors were super friendly and cared well for their homes.
Our current house is in a HOA community (pretty much all homes older than 1990's have HOA's), and so far it's okay. We pay a lot for "nothing". No community pool or center, they don't maintain our yards, etc. It goes towards maintaining the neighborhood sign and street lamps in the community. Our community comprises of like 20 homes only so I'm like it can't be THAT expensive to maintain those things....
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We live in a new HOA, and it's really strict when building - your plans have to go through an architectural advisory committee. We had to add a few windows and change materials here and there.
The rest of the rules are fairly basic. I haven't seen any issues around the neighborhood. I've seen a few minor infractions, we've had some ourselves, but they are always corrected and I've never been contact about anything. I would report the lawn in the photo you posted, especially because he moved out.
The only thing I don't like is that Rottweilers and "Pit Bulls" are banned. I think this is absolutely ridiculous and naive. I also don't like that they don't allow fences, but I understand why they have that rule.
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Our HOA is the devil. I can't count how many times I've said these words. We pay $155 a month and our HOA is crap. We do get snow removal (not the best, though) lawn care, but the warning letters people get here are similar to some mentioned above and I find it absolutely ridiculous. My neighbor got one a few years ago because her house number out front wasn't shiny enough. What?! We got one that we had a few weeds out back a few years ago and I went out and looked and there were like two tiny weeds. But then god forbid you see something in the neighborhood that needs to be taken care of, they take their time or don't fix/change it at all. THAT is why I hate HOA"s. That you are expected to fix something ASAP, but they can do whatever the heck they want with our money.
Sorry, rant over. I just hate HOA's.
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I would never report someone. Our HOA is pretty strict. They actually forced a homeowner into foreclosure due to violating the rules. I think the homeowner kept parking a pickup truck with an attached ladder in their driveway and our HOA considered it a commercial vehicle which needed to be
Parked in the garage at all times. Seems crazy to me. -
We were reported on move in day! It wasn't our fault either, the movers left the front door propped open and I had no way of knowing since I had to stay inside.
I reported our downstairs neighbors for banging on their ceiling at us every.single.day. It was awful and we felt so harassed, meanwhile we weren't breaking any rules! The wife wrote me a nasty email but I just ignored it, thank goodness the banging finally stopped! She is completely nuts and stays home all day. Every little sound drives her bonkers and I was so tired of walking on eggshells all the time! I'm sorry, but we are more than80% carpeted and are never loud after hours so she needs to chill.
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