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Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

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Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#331

Post by cptskippy »

kingnothing wrote: post #321
tomcooks wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it has to do with the US house price laws that mandate one takes care of the lawn, or risk incurring in fines or losing the house (quoting an US friend not sure about the details)

There are no such laws. What some neighborhoods do have are homeowners associations which, in practice, function as micro governments, and can mandate such things. About 25% of all homes in the US have an HOA, and those will all vary in what maintenance they require. Some are expensive and strict, some are optional and just there to take care of a sign and lighting at the front entrances.

In addition to HOAs, some municipalities have ordinances for keeping yards tidy (e.g. cutting the lawn) but usually much less restrictive. In historical districts and houses deemed landmarks they have ordinances closer to and sometimes stricter than HOAs.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#332

Post by teawrecks »

GordonS wrote: post #135
zackmorris wrote: post #109

The best thing we can do on a personal level is to stop using broadleaf weedkillers like Scott's Weed and Feed and other herbicides like glyphosate (Roundup). I've been doing handyman work at my boss's house during COVID-19 and he has clover growing in his yard. He has a fair number of bees, certainly more than on my end of town which is all chemlawns. It's arguably ok to use a little weed killer by hand on dandelion…

I never going the obsession with pristine lawns without clover, daisies, moss and such. I actually think it looks quite nice with some variation. My wife is militant about this, insisting that our lawn is sprayed with horrible chemicals at least once a year to kill off the clover, daisies and moss. Seems such a pointless thing to do, and very obviously not good for wildlife.

I'm renting a place where the lawn was moderately overrun with dandelions. They kill of the grass, and the ground becomes uneven. You can't run through your yard without the fear of twisting your ankle. Not to mention they continue to spread like wildfire into your neighbors' lawns.

And wild blackberry vines come up straight from hell.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#333

Post by yks »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #301
yks wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder the same about zoning, can’t still wrap my head around it actually. Your neighbor dictating what you can or can’t do with your property is communism.

I don’t understand. You are ok with a coal plant or wind farm or slaughterhouse being built in a residential neighborhood? That doesn’t happen right now because of zoning.

This sounds bad in theory but in practice I am not sure why developers would purchase an expensive city land to build a coal plant there. But okay, let's have residential/industrial zoning. I am not okay with any restrictions inside the residential zone though. If someone wants to build an apartment tower on their single-family house lot, that should be allowed.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#334

Post by cptskippy »

faitswulff wrote: post #162
GordonS wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never going the obsession with pristine lawns without clover, daisies, moss and such. I actually think it looks quite nice with some variation. My wife is militant about this, insisting that our lawn is sprayed with horrible chemicals at least once a year to kill off the clover, daisies and moss. Seems such a pointless thing to do, and very obviously not good for wildlife.

Clover also doesn’t get as tall as grass, which obviates the need for mowing the lawn. And the rabbits quite like it.

Clover lawns use to be common but went out of fashion. I saw an episode of This Old House where they visited a grass farm and we're shown a new clover breed they were developing for lawns.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#335

Post by davidgh »

derefr wrote: post #271
teruakohatu wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-American I have never understood why a people that values personal liberties are sometimes happy to be dictated to by housing authorities. I get it with apartment buildings with shared walls and communal property, but I just don't get why you would with suburban homes.

The roads in a gated community are "communal property" in about the same sense as hallways are in an apartment building. I suppose you could care if someone is driving an oversized load through the community and so wearing down the roads; or if they're parking a car on the road that's leaking oil. There's also noise and odor/smoke pollution. An HOA is pretty much the only mechanism to ensure that a group of people wh…

> IMHO, the HOA's right to dictate what I'm doing ends where my property begins.

Actually, the HOA’s right to dictate ends with whatever you agreed to by contract when you bought the property. And the HOA can enforce that contract in court, to the point of foreclosing on your home if necessary.

So, yeah, when you buy a house in an HOA, read those covenants before you sign. They are usually at the bottom of the 90 page stack of papers when you close.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#336

Post by thatcat »

kingnothing wrote: post #321
tomcooks wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it has to do with the US house price laws that mandate one takes care of the lawn, or risk incurring in fines or losing the house (quoting an US friend not sure about the details)

There are no such laws. What some neighborhoods do have are homeowners associations which, in practice, function as micro governments, and can mandate such things. About 25% of all homes in the US have an HOA, and those will all vary in what maintenance they require. Some are expensive and strict, some are optional and just there to take care of a sign and lighting at the front entrances.

Some cities will come mow your lawn then send a bill to the land owner.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#337

Post by giancarlostoro »

vorpalhex wrote: post #262
hinkley wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If memory serves, Adam Ruins Everything thinks suburbia is about racism with a dash of classism. HOAs just seem to ratchet that up another notch.

Adam Ruins Everything also had an entire episode smearing the charity Toms Shoes. He goes an entire rant about how Tom's doesn't need to donate shoes because people in Africa can buy them if they need them - but he entirely leaves out that Toms donates custom made shoes for a specific medical condition (podoconiosis) that makes most shoes uncomfortable to wear. There's nothing wrong with being skeptical or critical.…

Also nobody is holding a gun to your head telling you to buy Toms Shoes...

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#338

Post by antihero »

derefr wrote: post #271
teruakohatu wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-American I have never understood why a people that values personal liberties are sometimes happy to be dictated to by housing authorities. I get it with apartment buildings with shared walls and communal property, but I just don't get why you would with suburban homes.

The roads in a gated community are "communal property" in about the same sense as hallways are in an apartment building. I suppose you could care if someone is driving an oversized load through the community and so wearing down the roads; or if they're parking a car on the road that's leaking oil. There's also noise and odor/smoke pollution. An HOA is pretty much the only mechanism to ensure that a group of people wh…

So in an HOA is it more like a leasehold or a freehold? From my understanding if it is legitimately a freehold I don't see why they'd have any legal right to do shit to you if you told them to do one. It is very confusing. Why does some external force other than law enforcement have any legal right to tell you what to do on your own property?

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#339

Post by giancarlostoro »

Greed wrote: post #305
calvinmorrison wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that can encourage racial segregation. Unnamed critics state things "can" do things, while the following sentence shows there is no evidence. Then there is a follow up statement that the racial demographics show that HOAs tend to be richer (A major point of HOAs is to improve and maintain neighborhood values), and less diverse. The second part on its face might seem upsetting but, you'll find largely suburban commu…

Without commenting on the quality of the Bloomberg piece, exclusion is quite literally the reason that HOAs were created. The original, explicit, and completely legal purpose of an HOA was to exclude specific races and creeds and we cannot dispute that. Argue devil's advocate all you like, but there are many HOAs with "No Jews, Asiatics, Blacks, or Mulattos allowed" still on the charter and "Whites only" written dire…

> Having established the HOA, the developers have expanded their scope, giving them authority to regulate changes to residences, landscaping and maintenance requirements, color of houses, etc., a variety of other requirements and amenities that the developers believe will make their project more desirable to the market.

The last paragraph in that history section made me laugh, because now HOA's are mainly for developers to ensure they can sell their homes and then after the fact when they're no longer relevant you're left trying to satisfy an HOA and they always say its to keep property values up and what have you.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#340

Post by derefr »

davidgh wrote: post #335
derefr wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The roads in a gated community are "communal property" in about the same sense as hallways are in an apartment building. I suppose you could care if someone is driving an oversized load through the community and so wearing down the roads; or if they're parking a car on the road that's leaking oil. There's also noise and odor/smoke pollution. An HOA is pretty much the only mechanism to ensure that a group of people wh…

> IMHO, the HOA's right to dictate what I'm doing ends where my property begins. Actually, the HOA’s right to dictate ends with whatever you agreed to by contract when you bought the property. And the HOA can enforce that contract in court, to the point of foreclosing on your home if necessary. So, yeah, when you buy a house in an HOA, read those covenants before you sign. They are usually at the bottom of the 90 pag…

There are two types of HOAs, right? There's the type where the property is itself "part of" the HOA from the start (because the HOA is built into the legal structure of the development); and then there's the kind where the HOA is just a contract you enter into independently from buying the property–and which, at least in theory, you don't need to enter into.

HOAs created out of regular separately-developed SFH dwellings are the latter kind, and what I was referring to in my previous comment. (I kind of forgot that the baked-into-the-property kind existed for a moment. Oops!) In the voluntarist kind of HOA, it really is up for debate where the HOA's right to tell you what to do ends, because ultimately the HOA's power in such a voluntarist contract derives from the other members' willingness to shun you, annoy you, or at most refuse to give you access to communal resources like tennis courts, for failure to comply.

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