Bink

This is the same for me. I keep it watered and mowed so I don't get letters!
However, some people here spend hours a night tendering to their front yard to try and win a lawn of the month sign. I have better things to do...

scrubbedexpat091

Just curious as I could never deal with an HOA, but why would anyone buy a house in a HOA community?

I am just curious as it seems like a royal pain in the rear.

Pulaski

Because many, even most, of the houses built in many cities across America over the past 40 years have been built in neighborhoods with HOAs. The builder/developer sets up the embryonic HOA to keep the early buyer-owners in the neighborhood "in line" with well maintained yards and their houses in good repair, and in extreme cases without cars parked on the driveway overnight. Then the builder/developer turns over the organisation and rule book to a HOA, which develops a cantankerous life of its own, but it generally does keep the neighborhood looking nice and, therefore, the property values up.

Bink

Honestly, they're kind of hard to avoid, at least here in Houston.
To be honest for the most part they keep the neighborhood looking nice and aren't too much of a PITA most of the time.

scrubbedexpat097

We have a large amount of grass on our big lot and it gets mowed when it needs it, it doesn't get any special treatment. More often by August it looks more brown than green but always comes back to a grassylook when the rain falls. We have lots of trees, shrubs and bushes plus flower gardens and cactus gardens. It is always tidy but looks natural, you know, the way nature is meant to be.

Neither M or I feel the need to obsess over our lawn, we are not fat or lazy either wasting water and spreading chemicals about just to have smooth green grass is not something we would give priotity to.

Obviously we are doing something right though because the Fire Ants just love it...

WEBlue

It was your lawn rants that seemed just a tad "dark"...yes. Many of us have lawns, but don't start foaming at the mouth over them.

Why, this is by far the nicest insult you've flung at me so far on this thread, sir! Much nicer than some of the others...

BTW, I'm still looking forward to the thread you're going to start.

AdobePinon

While I find a vast expanse of green blandness to be rather depressing, I should turn my efforts to profiteering. Time to invent a lawn-roomba that'll go and mow a bunch of stars and thirteen stripes into that fine-combed emerald blanket. I can almost taste that big pile of retirement Franklins.

(Oh, and I don't mean the lawsuit.)

Michael

In California, they aren't the norm but it is usually like day and night between the two. Usually there is a private road that dead ends or a gated community so the traffic is very light and usually very quite. There aren't RV's and boats parked in people driveways, parking on the street is restricted, and you never see a junk car parked on the street. If you have views along the road, those areas have very strict parking regulations. That was my last HOA except for the HOA in my current condo which is a pain but unfortunately necessary.

In the 1970s I lived in a non HOA area and it was very nice but recently I went back to the area and it was noisy, RV's and boats everywhere, cars parked in just about every spot on the street including junk cars, some homes and yards were not maintained, and the streets, sidewalks, and city trees and vegetation were not well maintained. Even though it was a more expensive area than the HOA, it looked very third world.

Although when you initially move into a non HOA area, everything may look perfect but as time passes, an area can deteriorate badly over the years if the homeowners don't maintain their property. City ordinances may require you to remove excessive junk from you yard or cut the grass if weeds get 6' feet tall (fire danger) but little else can be required by the city to keep the property maintained in a non HOA area.

Pulaski

Ordinance enforcement by cities can be as much of a PITA an HOAs, though I suspect that generally HOAs are more aggressive and obnoxious. The city where I live sends out notices if they think the grass has reached 12", but I suspect it is largely driven by neighbor complaints, rather than inspections (inspectors driving around) as I know of one house that I don't think has had it's yard mowed this year. There is also an ordinance against parking in your yard other than on the driveway, but I see little evidence of that being enforced!

kimilseung

We have some lawn front and back, but the bit that is in constant house shade turns to moss, I ripped that area all up an sowed new seeds, and it was nice for a very short time, before returning to its mossiness, but really thats good enough for kicking a ball around and the odd bit of boule.

Michael

I suspect if the grass is only a foot tall, there probably isn't a city ordnance but the neighbors calling the police to have a chat with the homeowner.

Even when it is an abandoned empty lot that has become a dumping ground for trash and/or the weeds are very tall, it is usually the neighbors that call the police to find the owner to have it cleaned up.

kimilseung

I did get a letter about our bushes that jut in to the street, they have to be flush up until they are 8 feet, then they can out grow, I fixed it quick, to avoid the threatened fine, but now I know the rules I moan to myself about just about every house except ours.

I did hear that someone in a wheel chair used the route to the bus top and that it was probably them that grassed us up.

Pulaski

Oh, no, there is definitely an ordinance, that specifies a maximum grass height of 12", and a code enforcement unit, and I know the manager by name. They deal with minor matters but also derelict buildings, and uninhabitable houses. I also got on the wrong end of one of their enforcement actions once, and nearly got charged $175 for mowing my yard after a misunderstanding about mowing and the timing of a warning. That was three years ago, and it took until April of this year to get them to stop harassing me for payment!

Uncle_Bob

Can you please stop asking me to start a thread which I never said I would start, you will have a long wait. Tell me what the hell is wrong with taking pride in something like a nice lawn in your own miserable dark foaming at the mouth thread?

At least I've tried to offer some advice here.

SalopianFunk

Back to me being all anti-suburbia, and reveling in the joys of living in a real city, and all - who needs lawns and HOAs, and all that crap, when I live just a few blocks away from this:



Side note: Like a numpty, I thought the closest building on the left was the actual mission church of SF when I first moved here. It's actually the high school that Carlos Santana went to.