For those of us easily amused

2»

Comments

  • SilverGirlSilverGirl Posts: 2,824

    memcneil70 said:

    The only times I think my old neighborhood wished for a HOA was when the house I bought had been occupied by the deceased owner's daughter, her kid and they had a daily yard sale on the lawn, and the kid did taxidermy in one of the bedrooms. Dead animals were strung up on the neglected trees and fence around house. When I walked into it the first time, after I closed, trash, chickens, animal waste, the leftovers of the yard sales were a foot high in the living room, with a narrow path to the kitchen and hallway. My realtor and I had flea bites on our legs as we walked out. Parts of the kitchen equipment were found around the backyard.

    The first owners were landscape artists and their work had been trashed and the water system broken. These hidden costs that took me years to repair and pay off the bills in addition to a mortgage.

    Years later, two houses down, a lady allowed her daughter and her boyfriend to rent her house when she moved into assisted living. They ran drugs out of it, the beautiful front lawn turned into a weed and dirt patch. The cops finally busted the two and the older lady had to take the house to the studs because they found they had been cooking meth there also.

    An HOA might have helped the neighborhood in these cases. One that had reasonable rules.

    Wow. I'm surprised the city didn't step in!  

    The house next door to my parents' place is, we joke, cursed. When we moved in initially (1981) there was a lovely couple next door. The lady was an immigrant from England, and her husband had MS. When I was a little older, I used to go over after school to let their dog out and chat with the husband a bit because he'd get lonely, and since it was a split-entry, he couldn't really get off the top floor without massive assistance since he was in his motorized chair. I loved them both to pieces and was so sad when they moved. An odd family moved in next -- very large, weirdly religious, but kind of kept to themselves. They sold to another large, weird, super religious family, with wild kids -- at one point two of them were out back hitting each other with burning tree branches. When the kids got older they all moved, and started renting it out. The renters just got progressively more horrific until the batch that had a SWAT team running through my parents' back yard in full tactical gear, and an officer coming to their door to tell them to stay away from outside walls because there might be stray bullets. (Apparently it was a domestic situation, the guy with military training was in there with weapons and using his wife as a hostage.)

    The neighborhood got involved at that point, complaining to the city, and turns out the super religious pastor who'd been renting it out didn't actually have the paperwork filed to be doing that. He sold it after that, and the current residents are super trashy. Big, vicious dog they let run loose, screaming matches on the back lawn, the works. A large chunk of the neighbors just think the place needs to be torn down, and the ground salted and burned.

  • NylonGirlNylonGirl Posts: 2,203
    Well I wouldn't salt the ground.
  • LeatherGryphonLeatherGryphon Posts: 12,084

    Speaking of drying clothes on the line in winter:  Yep, it happens.  I remember having to go out and take frozen shirts & pants & underware off the line.  You just wait for a few days of no snow or rain and hang them wet and hope they dry/sublimate enough in the next 24-48 hours before you bring them in stiff as a board, let them thaw a bit and iron them for the final drying.  Everything got ironed back then.smiley

    I went SCUBA diving in northern Florida during the '70s.  We dove in fresh water springs with water at a permanent 72F temperature.  Cool enough to want a wetsuit for more than a few minutes in the water.  After our balmy late afternoon dive we camped next to the spring overnight and had hung our wetsuits on clotheslines strung between the palm trees.  A cold snap hit the area overnight.  We woke from our tents in the morning to an inch of snow on the ground and completely stiff wetsuits.  No problem, we just dunked them into the spring to thaw them out, but getting into them was a shock.  Although, after a few minutes, trapped body heat made them comfortable for our morning dive.

  • NylonGirlNylonGirl Posts: 2,203
    I once tried to iron a sock, and melted it.
  • memcneil70memcneil70 Posts: 5,290

    LeatherGryphon said:

    Speaking of drying clothes on the line in winter:  Yep, it happens.  I remember having to go out and take frozen shirts & pants & underware off the line.  You just wait for a few days of no snow or rain and hang them wet and hope they dry/sublimate enough in the next 24-48 hours before you bring them in stiff as a board, let them thaw a bit and iron them for the final drying.  Everything got ironed back then.smiley

    I went SCUBA diving in northern Florida during the '70s.  We dove in fresh water springs with water at a permanent 72F temperature.  Cool enough to want a wetsuit for more than a few minutes in the water.  After our balmy late afternoon dive we camped next to the spring overnight and had hung our wetsuits on clotheslines strung between the palm trees.  A cold snap hit the area overnight.  We woke from our tents in the morning to an inch of snow on the ground and completely stiff wetsuits.  No problem, we just dunked them into the spring to thaw them out, but getting into them was a shock.  Although, after a few minutes, trapped body heat made them comfortable for our morning dive.

    I am laughing but I am cringing too. My last attempt at camping was in the Oregon forests near the coasts. There was a cabin, but yeah, no facilities. And it was late summer, so read damp and cold. My core body temperature dropped and I froze. I didn't warm up until the next day when I was dropped off at home and was able to stand under the hottest shower possible for a half-hour. I never said a word to anyone, but my teeth never stopped clicking. Misery is being cold. A three-day music festival in a farmer's field in Germany convinced me I never wanted to see dirt, rain, mud again. No matter how good the English bands were.

  • SilverGirlSilverGirl Posts: 2,824

    The only times I ever get out an iron are when I'm doing a sewing project or if I need to press the pleats into Little Dude's kilt.

     

    At one point about a year after we were married, my ex- and I were out shopping for some work clothes for him. He brought over a shirt and asked if it was okay if he got one that needed ironed. I said sure; there was an iron and board in the laundry room he could use. It wasn't until he just stared at me for a moment and then put the shirt back that I realized I'd misinterpreted his question.

    I don't iron MY clothes; I don't know what on earth made him think I was going to iron HIS.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,847

    ...we had an old Speed Queen tub washer like that. I remember being able to hear the "clunk-clunk" of the agitator even up in the second floor bedroom.

    We also had clotheslines in the back yard (most of the neighbourhood did) that ran form the back of the house to a a set of poles about midway out in the yard.. Still miss the smell of line dried clothing.

    For when it wasn't nice out (or winter) there were clotheslines strung from the rafters in the cellar.  Fortunately the old house we  lived in had a deep foundation so we didn't get "clotheslined" walking through that area of the cellar.  The old coal furnace (and later the gas one) kept the cellar reasonably warm and dry in winter so no musty smell.

    Eventually we joined the "modern world" and bought one of those new fangled (late 60s) automatic washer and dryer sets.

  • LeatherGryphonLeatherGryphon Posts: 12,084
    edited August 16

    What I remember about the old tub washer was seeing how gray the water got during the process.surprise  And when the clothes were fed between the rollers of the wringer mechanism the water that got squeezed out cascaded back into the tub like a gray milkshake. (*blech*)frown  Modern machines hide all that nastiness.

    Post edited by LeatherGryphon on
  • NylonGirlNylonGirl Posts: 2,203

    Well, usually this green dish is filled with candy and the clear one is filled with "fruit snacks". But every now and then, my mother empties them to clean them. And I liked how pretty they looked to me when they were empty and perfectly clean. I just stared at them a while and then decided to take a picture. I figured this is the appropriate thread for someone who gets enchanted by clean bowls.

    Empty Candy Dish and Bowl

  • SilverGirlSilverGirl Posts: 2,824

    NylonGirl said:

    Well, usually this green dish is filled with candy and the clear one is filled with "fruit snacks". But every now and then, my mother empties them to clean them. And I liked how pretty they looked to me when they were empty and perfectly clean. I just stared at them a while and then decided to take a picture. I figured this is the appropriate thread for someone who gets enchanted by clean bowls.

    Empty Candy Dish and Bowl

    I love that green one! 

  • It's not just HOAs, it's everything. Give somebody a little power and they go run amuck.  Its a mad Mad MAAAAD world!.  

  • maikdeckermaikdecker Posts: 3,037

    nannerfkm said:

    It's not just HOAs, it's everything. Give somebody a little power and they go run amuck.  Its a mad Mad MAAAAD world!.  

    You better never move to germany into a small bavarian village, which, in the summer, is overrun by tourists. The town council will force you to keep the part of your property to have a certain "historic" look, fitting the expectations those tourists - often american - have about a small bavarian village. Colour of outer walls, design of windows, style of doors etc. etc. up to how a frontyard garden has to look and what type of plants allowed.

    We're lucky, that the for us more important part of our house can't be seen by "the public", but just by our neighbours, so most of those regulations don't work for our garden.

  • LeatherGryphonLeatherGryphon Posts: 12,084
    edited September 12

    I never had much of a problem with HOA type of regulations.  Most of my homes weren't involved.  But Max and I did once live in a condo in Reston, Virginia for several years.  Twenty miles northwest of Washington DC.  The only regulations were that we couldn't install window A/C units, no structural changes, and our balcony needed to be "unmodified and uncluttered", and I couldn't change the apartment's entrance door.  We did some interior changes like adding crown molding in the dining room, extra TV cable and speaker wiring outlets installed on the walls, etched glass shower doors, oak baseboards and a marble sink in the bathroom, cabinetry above the washer/dryer area, a long oak plank fastened to the concrete ceiling to make it easier to mount a long run of fluorescent lighting and floor to ceiling vertical blinds across the room wide window area facing the balcony.  But on the balcony we did do a couple of modifications, we put down ceramic tile on the concrete balcony floor and we had an electrical outlet installed out on the balcony wall into which we plugged a small water pump in a wall mounted marble fountain with water spouting out of a lion's mouth into the attached half-circular basin.  That, and a teak-like (Jojoba/Jatoba wood?) wooden coffee table and two chairs of the same material suitable for semi-protected outside environments.  It made a wonderful place to sit outside to smoke, have breakfast, and relax in fresh air facing the wooded area between us and the next building in the complex.  We were visited frequently by squirrels, deer, fox, and rabbits.  But I never felt guilty about "modifying" the balcony.cheeky  And of course we never let it get cluttered.  Those changes and the teak-like furniture stayed with the apartment and added a lot of value & sellability.yes  What I didn't like was that that was the first place I'd ever lived where I didn't have control of the temperature.frown  It was whatever the building management decided it was going to be, no A/C until mid-May and no heat until mid-October regardless of what the weather was doing.  Unfortunately my current situation is somewhat similar.  The furnace in this house supplies both apartments but the neighbors have the only thermostat.  But at least I can run a window A/C unit on my own schedule.smiley

    However, I have to admit that "I'm that guy" who reported my neighbor in the farm next door for keeping horses in his 200 foot deep front yard right outside my kitchen window, here in this little town.  The smell, the sight of horse dung piles, the horseflies.  Nope, didn't like it.angry  It turns out that the town has a rule, saying essentially; no animals in the front yard.cheeky

    Post edited by LeatherGryphon on
  • maikdeckermaikdecker Posts: 3,037

    LeatherGryphon said:

    ...

    Wow... after this I feel a lot more comfortable with my towns regulations. wink

    I can understand the problem with the horses. One of our neighbours, right across a small street - 10 feet or so - had a donkey, a couple chicken and a cockerel and, iirc, one or two goats. There wasn't a lot smell, but the concerto starting at 4:30 in the morning directly in front of our - in the summer usuall open - bedroom window wasn't too nice either.

    Some things I can read here are weird, for a german, as usually here when renting a flat, apartment or a whole house, it's unfurnished. So we decide how it looks on the inside. Otoh we usually have to get the okay from the landlord to make any changes to the object we have rented (except for wallpapers) and when we want to move out, we usually have to get everything back to how it was.

  • richardandtracy said:

    Yes. My house, with a 1-in-3 bank behind it has a restriction against renting out a houseboat as accommodation, and there is a prohibition against breeding goats, both restrictions are 'In Perpetuity'. Perpetuity is now defined in English & Welsh law as 125 years if the optional lenth of 80 years is not explicitly chosen (Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 2009). So both restrictions expired four years ago on my house.

    However, what @memcneil70 said seemed to imply that there was a restriction coming from the neighbours, and that's something I can't figure. I knew an ex-soldier who lived in Jacksonville, Fl, where some of her neighbours had 'invented' a neighbourhood resident's association & collected fees and imposed their ideas on the street, gardens, back gardens etc, and did so for over 20 years before my friend moved in and actually checked up with the city authorites. Only to find there was no registered association in the area. That was, apparently, when the fur really started to fly as the other people in the street were being - umm - fleeced.

    Regards,

    Richard

    I remember hearing about many historical events like anyone doing such fleecing often ended up getting tarred and feathered....Mayhaps, by chance, such traditions ought to return into polite society. In Perpituity.

  • Ryuu@AMcCFRyuu@AMcCF Posts: 772
    edited September 12

    And what is it with this sight suffering from "Bad Gateway" connections right whenever I'm posting here, like I just went through with the above post?

    Edit-->The time for the above post was 1610 EST (New York), so just prior to that is when the glitch occurred. But other times I've been hit was in the morning, like around 10AM. What's up with those??? angry

    Post edited by Ryuu@AMcCF on
  • NylonGirlNylonGirl Posts: 2,203

    We were sitting in a Pizza Hut lobby and I saw people picking up DoorDash orders. And I was thinking to myself, I could stand out from all the people wearing Jordache jeans because I would be wearing DoorDash jeans.

    Hahahahahahahahahahaha

    I'm sorry.

  • maikdeckermaikdecker Posts: 3,037

    NylonGirl said:

    We were sitting in a Pizza Hut lobby 

    Hahahahahahahahahahaha

    I'm sorry.

    I'm not cheeky 

Sign In or Register to comment.