We have and Environmental Control Board, an Architectural Review Board and a Joint Coastal Committee. Just try to find somewhere in the village code that says what their specific functions are supposed to be. I did find out from a sympathetic village employee that the ECB is advisory only, but don't tell the chairwoman that. We appeared before her and her cronies twice. The first time, she told us that the permitted 30% lot clearing in the code "didn't really mean that" and that "we don't do things that way here." She told us that our property was "environmentally significant" but when asked who had made that determination, she named a non-existent county agency. For our second go-round, we were required to have an arborist identify every tree over 8" in diameter on a 3.5 acre lot. Then, we had to have him prepare an affidavit to prove that a number of trees we wanted to remove were a "danger to persons or property." Even when presented with it, she told us she didn't believe him ("hogwash" was the word she used) and told us we should hire her son's friend to evaluate the trees (we politely declined). She also had the nerve to look at photos of naked, leafless trees our arborist had certified were dead and told us "They don't look dead to me!" When I asked her whether she or anyone else on the board had any credentials that would qualify them to challenge the arborist's conclusions, she finally had to admit that none of them did. Then she asked us to agree not to put in a swimming pool down the road, even though 2 other board members have pools themselves. When she saw that we were also tentatively considering a tennis court, she and another board member went nuts, talking about how I was ruining the "environmental integrity" of the lot with my "oversized" tennis court. When I pointed out that all tennis courts are the same size, I was nastily told "I know how big a tennis court is." I cannot tell you how rude, nasty and obnoxious these "public servants" were. And before anyone says it, you're right -- we should have asked more questions before we bought. However, after pushing every button I have (as well as a few I didn't know I had), I stopped trying to be polite and get along (she does live directly across the street from me, and I had hoped to preserve some semblance of neighborly accord). I told her I had never heard such bulls---t in my life, and then told them how the zoning laws in my state are interpreted. When she then asked me whether I was "some sort of lawyer or something," I sweetly replied, "as a matter of fact, I am." Turns out, from all accounts, she is an unmitigated bully and everyone is heartily sick of her. By standing up to her, I got everything I wanted (which was nothing more than the law allows, BTW -- in fact, quite a bit less). However, she has called the village police on me 3 times already for perceived violations (all of which she herself committed when she built a few months ago -- don't even get me started), although she has been quiet for the last month or so. The building inspector has her number, though, and he's been enormously helpful. Sorry for the lengthy rant, but this brought back very unpleasant memories. I didn't sleep for days after that fiasco of a meeting.

9+ years on F&P Intuitive (same basic design as yours...just more options) and not a whiff of anything nasty or moldy to be found. I do NOT run exclusively cold, which I have always found to be a bad idea. Also, I do occasionally use LFS (depends on the items being washed). However, I wash colds on cold, items recommended for warm on warm, whites and cleaning rags on hot, etc. I also run the recommended cleaning cycle 4 times per year (every season), with one of them (once per year) being exclusively hot water and lots of vinegar (i.e. no detergent). This not only cleans, sanitizes and deodorizes, but also removes every last speck of detergent reside too. The tub looks like new afterwards! The washer has been great and cleans very well, but every machine requires maintenance of some kind. If you never take care of it you will pay the price afterwards (if it were topic-appropriate, I'd tell the story of someone I know who never bothered to do any maintenance of any kind on their car...big mistake!).

I'm with prairiemoon2 on the privacy thing. I've already had the creepy experience of houzz emailing me to one email address when I signed up with a different one, and I'm not pleased. I hate the "like" buttons - they seem totally counter to the idea of people actually communicating with each other in a way that goes hand in hand with not being able to reply directly to a comment ("click 'like' instead!"). Bottom line: This new format really represents everything I hate about the social internet (intrusiveness, the feeling of your every move being tabulated and tracked, your method of interaction being subtly manipulated, etc.), most of which GW was blissfully free from in, as slowjane put it, its "web 1.0" way. So, I guess we were lucky for a while, and now I'll either adjust or be gone. And fyi, I did use the like buttons in this thread, but only as feedback for the houzz staff in case they're paying attention to people's reactions to the new site : )

I hope it gets fixed. This place is so easy to navigate that's why I love it. I don't want to have to do extra things just to upload a quick pick I took just to show an example of something. This morning I went through the Houzz photo icon, but it still took 30 mins to upload the pic. Reminds me of the dial up days;)!