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Grandpa’s Basement House

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Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#151

Post by fargle »

sokoloff wrote: post #69
nsxwolf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I specifically chose my neighborhood based on the HOA. I like that every yard has a lawn and that I don’t have to listen to neighbors chickens. I like knowing no one is allowed to paint giant murals on the siding or drill for oil on their front lawn. The only way to guarantee things like this don’t happen is with some sort of rules in place. If that means I hate freedom, oh well.

I think HOAs are an elegant way to segregate the population into "people who want to live under HOAs" and "people who would hate to live under HOAs". Nobody is likely to be happy when these two groups have to live next to each other, so it's an elegant solution to sort the population into more compatible subsets. Everybody wins.

As do private dirt roads. Very handy.

I'd rather live in a real suburb - e.g. large plots, wells, septic. I'm not ideally fond of dirt roads in general, but nobody is going to be road racing a 1AM. It's at worst a minor inconvenience.

But for 80% of people its a deal breaker. Good! Now I found something I don't mind too much that saved me loads of money. And dirt roads come with no HOAs as a bonus.

Find something where your preferences run counter to the masses and profit!

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#152

Post by nickjj »

WalterBright wrote: post #110
com2kid wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't get people who genuinely care for its own sake about their neighbors lawn having weeds. Certain types of invasive plans are noxious, outright poisonous, encourage hay fever, or just spread so fast that they can end up destroying neighbor's yards as well. Plants don't obey property lines. Edit: Unkempt yards can also be breeding ground for pests. From mosquitoes in still water to hoards of rats. Most people…

Hay fever comes from grass. Less grass makes me more comfortable at home. Rats come from having edible garbage available and fruit trees dropping fruit. The most annoying things about neighbors are dogs that bark all day, and the leafblowers and lawnmowers.

> The most annoying things about neighbors are dogs that bark all day, and the leafblowers and lawnmowers.

Do you not encounter leaf blowers and lawn mowers in a HOA community? I would have expected it to be much worse because there would be maintenance crews doing it for every house in the area vs maybe a few houses on a ~20 house block.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#153

Post by jimmygrapes »

rdtwo wrote: post #131
yardie wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know in Florida because of orange canker if one orange tree has it basically all orange trees within a 1-mile radius have to be destroyed. This is state law because of the orange produce farms lobbying. It’s almost unheard of to see suburban or wild orange trees in south Florida anymore.

Idk we visited some folks that had oranges growing in their yard in a major urban area. Enforcement is probably not great

They likely don't have orange canker issues then. It isn't a blanket ban, it's just "if bad thing happens then there's swift and large response"

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#154

Post by jltsiren »

gorgoiler wrote: post #3

The idea of HOAs having any kind of say feels so undemocratic, but not in a standard way. We should not tolerate purely popular democracies. We allow representative democracies, and part of that public contract is for our leaders to represent all those in their constituency, not just those who voted for them. That means those in the minority. The crazy guy growing gourds instead of a lawn. The loon with the purple ho…

This is just the eternal conflict between people's freedoms.

Negative liberties ("freedom from") are limited and relatively easy to regulate. If you ban people from killing each other and stealing their property, almost everyone agrees it's not a huge burden. While these liberties sometimes come into conflict, such situations tend to be rare.

In practice, people care more about positive liberties ("freedom to"). In particular, they want the freedom to live a good life. Unfortunately people have different ideas of a good life, and those ideas usually require other people living their lives in a certain way and providing various services. If you try regulating this, you start quickly making choices who is allowed to live a good life.

Because laws are insufficient for a good life, people make voluntary agreements to ensure it. If certain kinds of agreements (such as HOAs) become popular, they can effectively prevent some minorities from living their idea of a good life. But the agreements are only a symptom, not the cause. The real cause are other people. Without HOAs, the same people would try getting actual governments regulate the same behavior. And failing to do so, they would often feel that the society prevents them from living a good life.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#155

Post by daydream »

alistairSH wrote: post #127
oxfordmale wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Spain it also related to planning permission. Once the building work has finished, you need to have the planning permission paper work in order. Therefore they often leave one small room unfinished (exposed on the outside wall) to claim work is still in progress.

I read something similar but in Egypt. Leaving the home unfinished avoided either taxes or planning paperwork or both.

It also lets the eventual buyer do a lot of customization. Buy a concrete shell, complete with the finishings you want.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#156

Post by Gigachad »

hamburglar wrote: post #146
nicoburns wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t se why this is a thing for front yards either. Growing vegetables are just as pretty as a lawn, and even if you don’t think so, surely productive use of the land ought to take priority. I find it so strange that such restrictions only seem to exist in the US, where there is normally so much emphasis on individual freedom.

There seem to be a lot of people who like the idea of willfully entering an HOA agreement that limits freedoms that they wouldn’t want their neighbors exercising. I can see both sides but it’s not really for me.

There is something to be said for being able to restrict negative activities. Someone piling up junk on their front yard for example. I own in a Strata title apartment building which comes with a lot of very similar restrictions but its all pretty reasonable imo. You are free to paint the inside of your apartment however you want but painting the balcony or the hallway side of your front door is not allowed as it compromises the visual image of the building.

Similar issues in a suburb. One person with rusted out cars on the front compromises the entire street. No one will care if the rusted cars are inside a shed though.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#157

Post by Gigachad »

harryh wrote: post #96
gardenmwm wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because other peoples property effects my my property, in value and enjoyment.

So what? Those other people aren't obligated to do things that lead to your enjoyment. Please.

They are in a HOA area though.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#158

Post by duxup »

woah wrote: post #139
duxup wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I had a neighbor who decided it was time to open his in home auto repair shop. Fortunately the HoA board didn’t look kindly on it for a variety of reasons/ issues. He eventually moved. I hope he found a good place with a big garage and fewer neighbors to do that thing. Same with the rental party house (before the days of air bnb(but same issues)).

What's wrong with a guy repairing cars?

Single car garages, connected townhomes, limited parking.

Dude operated at all hours with air tools and etc and took up all the guest parking with broken down cars, leaking all sorts of stuff. He was also dumping all sorts of shit in storm drains and dumping his greasy parts and trash in other people’s trash.

The catch was this wasn’t a constant thing (well not until he chose to go full asshole), just often enough to be a pain, then stop, folks hope he was done, and then he would start up again.

Even had his customers wandering around looking for where he stashed their car and asking to park in front of people’s garage… other times not asking. A few would empty their car trash on the lawns and streets.

Edit I was curious and I googled him, someone with the same name got into tax trouble a few years later. I would not be surprised.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#159

Post by seneca »

rdtwo wrote: post #132
deltarholamda wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems that those homeovner associations are on level of North Korea and Soviet Russia The HOA is an agreement that is designed to keep a neighborhood from going downhill by residents parking on the street, or turning their yard into a parking lot, or from painting their house some atrocious color. As normally designed, they are little more than a codification of "don't be a jerk." The problem comes when people g…

Quoted post unavailable.

What an absolutely absurd comment. It strikes me as fairly offensive to a lot of people to suggest that rules about maintaining your yard and not trashing your property are inherently associated with "whiteness".

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#160

Post by girvo »

cheriot wrote: post #143
geoffeg wrote: post #2

> Growing vegetables on what should be a lawn is verboten in many locations, if not by the government than by private association bylaws. I'm aware that some HOAs limit (sometimes to what seems like an extreme) what can be done with the yard and lawn, but I wasn't aware of any governments that ban growing vegetables. Is that more common in water-restricted municipalities? (I live in midwestern US, where backyard gard…

I've seen municipalities prohibit keeping chickens, but not gardens.

Where I live, they only prohibit keeping roosters, though there are restrictions on chickens as well I think -- though theres no enforcement. A couple of my neighbours have them (and they escape and wander around the scrub land behind my fence and make friends with the local brush turkeys, which I find cute and endearing). Its quite fun to live basically in the centre of Brisbane's city, but have chickens wandering around. But that's also part of what makes this place neat, in my opinion, while I'm a kilometre from the CBD, the townhouse I live in is in a suburb filled with old Queenslander houses, newer builds, townhouses and small apartment buildings.
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