A brief history of the origin of Homeowners' Associations. Long, long ago (possibly even the '70s) a man painted his house pink. The neighbors were outraged and came to the man and said "Hey, dummy, you painted your house pink and now are property values have plummeted. Paint it back."And the man said "Screw you, I can paint my house any color I want." Then the neighbors grabbed their pitchforks, burnt down the man's pink house and hung him from a tree in their quaint, community park. And, thus the beginning of the modern HOA.
The HOA is a good thing, if you're on the right side of it, your property values stay up because people who do stupid things get punished, often with death in the ritzy Cherry Hills area. There are no junker cars idling in front of houses and children who make too much noise are immediately shipped to a home for bad children in Torrington, Wyo.
Lest, you get on the bad side of your HOA. I tremble even writing this because we're in the midst of getting a jungle gym approved and this could severely damage it, if not lead to a midnight raid where our TV is stolen and our cars vandalized.
Our HOA, the ominipotent God who knows when you plant a new bush in the front yard and even if you pee just a little in the shower, sent out a letter a few weeks ago. Apparently, no one passed on to them the axiom that sometimes life just isn't fair. The letter groused about how some people we're just blowing the HOA off and weren't responding quickly enough to fix problems. So they decided, in the same little room where they watch me, via surveillance camera, move a little pebble in my backyard and disturb the rotation of the Earth in the process, that they we're upping the fines and shortening the warning times. The letter stopped just short of quoting Kurt Russell from the movie "Tombstone." You tell em' I'm coming and hell's coming with me."
The HOA has taken on mythical proportions in recent years. Thanks, in no small part, to the rogue agencies that have burnt American flags in front yards because they don't meet size requirements and sawed tree houses to the ground with children still inside of them. Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of the HOA (mostly for the aforementioned property value protection part) but all an HOA really is a convienent, impersonal way for the neighbors to tattle on you. Think playground rules – "Billy just planted a Spruce Tree – ooooooooh, Billy you're in trouble." This is because we don't care about each other anymore. We can't respect each other and not paint our house orange with blue and green stripes just for the sake of the neighbors. So, we need an intermediary. Enter the HOA. Put some power-hungry people in charge of that and look out. Hide the children.
