Not to put too fine a point on it, but huh? It's rained more here than there, and our grass isn't green. We also have no restrictions...but why waste water?

Good for them. Finally a hoa with some cohones.

For those of you in the north, you will not understand what is happening down here with renters and 10 immigrant families per house and overall transient lifestyles. Nobody plans on staying in a lot of homes for very long so why replace that dead tree or waste money on water or mow the lawn. Meanwhile the entire n-hood looks run down because of a few bad apples.

These idiot investors that thought they were going to strike it rich can't sell their places now and will rent to anyone. They have to take what they can get.

This isn't about having the perfect lawn. It's about maintaining the property to reasonable standards. If someone is not mature or responsible enough to do this then move to a apartment or to a youth hostel.

Oh. I thought one bad blade and...you're toast, dude. As long as it's to reasonable standards, that's fine.

Barring drought restrictions, of course. An HOA can't override state law.

Latent racism aside, the community isn't overrun with immigrant families - only 2.1% hispanic in Wake Forest and this particular neighborhood is brand new, nice middle to upper-middle class houses. The rules aren't "reasonable" by any normal standards. We are currently experiencing the driest summer since they began keeping records. This is also the summer with the most days above 90 degrees. Needless to say, most lawns took a beating. This is a relatively new neighborhood, so all the lawns are new too. Also, the builders chopped down pretty much every tree, so most houses don't have any significant shade. To expect the lawns to be nice and green with no brown patches is not reasonable - especially when we have watering restrictions. If you look at the picture of one of the houses they are complaining about, it has a mostly green lawn with some dead spots around the driveway. It looks better than most of the lawns around here now.

I'm just expressing my opinion. It's happening in my neighborhood and so I'm bitter. It's not just immigrant families and I wasn't aware that the word immigrant was derogatory. Bill, care to tell us what you thought was racist?
Even though I brought up immigrants, I did so only to illustrate how the builder sold to anyone, including people that didn't have money for the house or to maintain it, investors and speculators who in turn rent the houses (regardless of price range it is happening everywhere here) to undocumented renters, teenage runaways, college kids or people who by themselves can't afford the house but pile enough folks into a house and it will pay the bills if everyone chips in. I'm guessing you got your statisic from the census (Not that it matters) but this is all very recent, I doubt any of these folks would have participated in the census anyway.

As for the subdivision in the article, I don't know because I'm not in that area and haven't seen it but I wonder how (or if) the people that are enforcing the rules have managed to keep their lawns at an acceptable level.

There are plenty of homes that do not do the most basic of maintenance with their lawns and they should be watered as part of basic maintenance to keep it alive. I don't know how you can phrase that in the convenants and have it come out sounding ecologically friendly. Then again there is not one single thing that is ecologically friendly about lawns.

I'm just going out on a limb and guessing someone up there got fed up with a number of homes not doing basic maintenance and came out with these seemingly unfair, unenforceable rules so that the actual owners of the house will get fed up by the fines or nasty letters and kick the tenants out.

Despite my status as a certified lawn nut, I think it is ridiculous to expect everyone to have a green lawn in drought conditions such as they have in NC now.

Based on the article, it seems that the folks who are running their HOA are on some type of power trip. I have an HOA in Pennsylvania. But the rules are fairly easy-going.

If the HOA board members here tried issuing that rule, they'd be impeached faster than you can say Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton (just to be non-partisan).

Besides, my lawn wouldn't look nearly so good to me if all neighbor's lawns looked the same as mine.

Quirky - you are the one who tried to blame immigrants for a problem that was completely unrelated. When you say "For those of you in the north, you will not understand what is happening down here" it is pretty obvious you are talking about hispanic immigrants because that is the only immigrant group that has significantly more people in the south than in the north. Sorry to here about your neighborhood, but when you try to blame hispanic immigrants for a problem that has absolutely nothing to do with them, it is racist - as are the comments about 10 families living in a house. It may be your opinion, and you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but that doesn't mean others aren't allowed to criticize you when you share it in a public forum. If you really want to talk about immigration issues, there are plenty of political forums out there - this just isn't one of them.

so wait, the immigrants caused a drought? ;-)

I say this because "in the north" a 3500 sf 4/3 on wooded lot with full basement costs 3 times as much. But you're putting words in my mouth. And I'm not going to argue this because it's just going to confuse blip.

You'd be upset if this was happening to you.

About an hour ago I was talking to my neighbor and he said he got a nasty gram from the hoa to plant flowers, kill his crabgrass, remove his dead tree etc etc. I couldn't believe they were sending out letters like that in here. He said he wasn't going to do much if any of it because and I quote: he's only gonna stay here "another 2 years".

And he's not an immigrant. People should have a little pride in their property. I told him bermuda care in a very condensed lesson and offered to give him a new tree if he takes down the dead one. I'm really not such a bad guy bill.

Wow. My thoughts on that are screw HOA's. I would never buy a house that has "rules". Does that mean my house will look like crap.... nope, but that means I don't want to be governed in a "communistic" way on how to keep MY property. I pay the mortgage, I pay the taxes, its MY property, and if I want brown grass and crabgrass or a lawn full of creeping charlie, its my right.

Or if I want to tear down a certain tree or plant a new one, etc, etc... its my decision, not a HOA's. If I want to be governed by rules, I'll rent.

I'm with you wxman81.

I tend to agree with you wxman81. But I also realize that everything you wrote is also a major reason many folks like HOAs.

They don't want to live next to the guy who has "brown grass and crabgrass or a lawn full of creeping charlie."

Having said that, not all HOAs are alike. The one where I live is pretty reasonable. (Essentially, they want you to get permission before removing any mature trees. They also don't want you leaving a junk car in your front yard. Other than that pretty much anything goes.)

I, of course, wouldn't choose to live in any community that had an HOA that tried to govern things such as grass, or curtains or anything of that nature.

I, of course, wouldn't choose to live in any community that had an HOA that tried to govern things such as grass, or curtains or anything of that nature.

Mine does. The grass, at least, but the rules are reasonable. Grasses must be kept under 1 foot tall. Street trees have to be living, but young ones are under warranty and replaced at no charge to the homeowner.

Er...and...er...nope, that's it. Cut once a month and you'll be just fine.

I agree with WXMAN too! And that is why in the past I lived in the city/county because I thought the rules were going to be too restrictive. I wanted to be able to keep a boat or trailer or whatever like that in my back yard and not have problems, things like that.

As it turns out, a lot of cities have the same rules as HOAs and their enforcement is actually worse because they have the power to really come down on you.

The county may not, but the reason why I moved into a sub was because I was tired of working hard to keep up my place but a lot of homes wouldn't. There was a house a few down from me that put in a blue roof, I kid you not. I read through the rules before I signed the contract for this hoa and they weren't anything I would break with the exception of an extra satellite dish and antenna which nobody can see anyway because I took steps to conceal it. I was excited to be finally living in a hood where there were rules to prevent people from having blue roofs.

But what I'm finding out is even with rules, there will still be people who do not care because they're only going to be there a short while or they just don't take any pride in their home. There really isn't anything a small sub hoa can do because they don't have that much money to hire a lawyer but about the only thing they can do is put a lien on your house for not paying dues and fines and things like that. Even if you don't pay your dues, there is really little they can do. As is the case in this sub, if someone doesn't pay their dues, they just raise the dues for everyone else.

And most importantly of all, buying in a subdivision is easy and costs a lot less. PRobably half as less or more. These builders here are struggling and it is very competitive. If you try to build a house on a county lot, you could very well pay as much for the lot as a comparably sized house in a subdivision. Not to mention you have to wait a long time for it to be ready to move in.

Also a lot of times in a suburban county lot there is no sense of community, no paved sidewalks to walk your dog, no ammenities, no pool or tennis court, and most importantly nothing to keep your neighbor from doing something that really looks bad. Storing old cars in the back yard, putting in a blue roof, painting the house pink. Stuff like that.

And this stuff really does happen. Not just to people with bad luck. It happens in nice areas surrounded by multi-million dollar homes

I'd gladly trade in my HOA for a blue roof here and there. They certainly aren't that bad by HOA standards, but I have to pay them a monthly fee for them to annoy me. It seems that the people who really aren't taking care of their property manage to stick to the letter of the law and skate through while well intentioned people with nice looking houses get caught up in the details. Example - there is a house in my neighborhood with so much mildew on it that you can barely tell what the original color was. The young couple who lives there doesn't seem to mind. It looks horrible, but there is nothing that specifically says you have to clean the exterior of your home more than once a decade. Meanwhile, it's been several months since my request of the HOA to approve a gray paint color for my house and no response yet. There is a clause that says I can go ahead with the work if they don't act on the request in 60 days, but you'd think they would just quickly approve any reasonable requests for people who are trying to improve their property.

I didn't say HOAs were efficient! Nor did I say they were all that effective!

I think the bottom line is with most subs you get some people on the board who are not very nice folks. At one time I volunteered but quit when I began to see that the other folks were nut cases.

There's a management company that collects the dues and keeps it and doesn't do anything with it to fix up the community.

To make matters worse, there's one way in and one way out of the sub and everyone is right on top of each other. This makes the rules necessary. Unfortunately it also means when somebody is being inconsiderate, it effects a lot of people.

I've lived in several states, including NC, and have also worked in real estate. In the OP, I would think that upset homeowners could collect a bit of research and take on the HOA successfully. Your county ext. agent should have specific, printed info on water needs of the typical grasses grown in the area. From the sound of it, it should indeed prove that the current water restrictions do not provide enough water to produce a green lawn of those grasses...in essence, the HOA is requiring the residents to break the law.

As for HOAs, of course, like most things in life, there are good and bad. The appearance of ALL properties does make a huge difference when prospective homebuyers come through a neighborhood. While most HOAs I've dealt with have had reasonable restrictions, there have been a few that I feel have taken away too many personal freedoms. Then, there's the whole enforcement issue....

As a homebuyer (or renter), one has to be aware that HOAs exist and review the restrictions prior to signing a contract or lease.

"As a homebuyer (or renter), one has to be aware that HOAs exist and review the restrictions prior to signing a contract or lease."

And just like "most things in life" there are some who do and some who don't.
In the case of my hood they financed anyone included speculators that had no intention of living here.

And once again I think in an effort to make the article more juicy it was probably a little slanted because there are people who do not do the most basic of care to their lawn. If you don't know or care to learn about lawn care that's fine, just abide by the rules. What's going to happen if this type of person does not follow the water your lawn rule is that their lawn is going to die, then come fall they aren't going to overseed it in time so that goes out the window then they're left with a bunch of huge bare spots in their lawn that gets taken over by weeds that they probably will never mow. Doesn't this sound familiar to anyone?

It goes back to my neighbor getting a letter about his lawn. He's got weeds but mows it regularly, once in a blue moon he'll fertilize it. It's definitely not the worst in the hood. My lawn has been brown for the last month and a half because I killed it off to replace it, yet I didn't get a letter. I bet it's because it is very obvious I have made many enhancements to the property and keep this place up where others have failed to do that and can't even manage to drag a sprinkler out there once in a while.

Or maybe it's because I don't leave my garage door open all day like everyone else so passersby can all look over and see piles of junk pouring out.

Or maybe it's because I don't have 20 rusted out cars in my driveway missing hub caps and with doors and other parts from junk yards that are a different color from the rest of the car.

I never thought the day would come where I would hand deliver a neighbors dog turds back to them after repeatedly requesting nicely that they don't set their dog loose to roam the streets and relieve themself in other peoples yards.

Now you probably think I'm the one who's nuts. Could be that it's not the neighborhood, maybe I just need to have more space in between me and the rest of the people in this town. Since there are rules for each and every one of these complaints I figured this type of community would be perfect for me.

Hey, at least you overcame the urge to perform the bag, light, ring and run maneuver. Though admittedly that might have been more satisfying. Deep down, you know.

"It seems that the people who really aren't taking care of their property manage to stick to the letter of the law and skate through while well intentioned people with nice looking houses get caught up in the details."

That's the frustrating part. I take meticulous care of my home and yard. I have a neighbor who parks a dump truck, and multiple vehicles in front of their house. Add to that their quarterly mowing, trash on the porch, etc, etc and it's very frustrating. Amazingly, I got a letter from my HOA about my trash can being in public view - on trash day!!! And these people (who are renters, by the way) just do whatever the hell they want. Ugh!!!

Like many have said, there are pros and cons to HOA's. 90% of it though is the people who are running them. If you don't have anal retentive control freaks with too much time on their hands, its usually a good thing. :-)

I wish my HOA would do something about treeless and landscapeless lots. I don't even know what mine ever does anyway other than hire somebody to mow the neighborhood park twice a month which isn't even enough.

I agree that there are some control freaks running HOA in some places but mine are just lazy freaks...

boatboy- the good news is the renters don't last forever. When they take off and leave the house trashed the person that owns the house is stuck with a big problem on their hands. Then they wind up selling the property.

I had some take over this one house that was some kind of frat house or something and those red party cups all over the lawn daily, scummy looking grunge balls sitting on the front porch smoking and drinking beers, lots of cars on the driveway and in the street, newspapers piling up, the whole house just looks used and abused. The renters are gone it looks like and the house is on the market. I make a point to throw the newspapers at the door when I walk by with my dogs. They were probably using it as a meth lab or something.

With the whole lending crack down hopefully we won't have as much of this house flipping and investing B.S. and people that cannot afford to live in a house outside of their price range. You can no longer buy a house like this in this area for what we all paid so I think after time if will begin to straighten up.

In GA I think it's 7 years that HOA's have to option to put to a majority vote to dismantle or keep it going. That should be interesting. It's not that much time when you think about it.

Don't hold your breath. Most HOA's give a proxy vote to the president for the owners who don't show up for the vote. I learned that at my first meeting. Maybe 20 homeowners showed up to vote against buying a new sprinkler system for the front (instead of just a new controller) Everyone but the board members voted against it, but the president got to voted in favor and cast all the proxy votes as well. Since most of the homeowners didn't show up, his votes outweighed all the ones who did. So much for the democratic process!

I not so sure that having as much common area as we do and no hoa is a good idea.

Thirty or so years ago, a community in Long Island tried to force a guy to change the color of his house because it was not white or grey like all the others. Case got nasty and the home owner won. To get back at them, he painted every shingle of the siding a different color. Incredible to see.

Amazing the results these conflicts result in.

Capt Tom

I'm preparing to get a letter some day about being the only house with a green lawn in winter. What do you say to that?!