The Letters - posted Oct 29, 2010

It’s that time of year again. No, not that time of year when the leaves start changing. Not the time of year when strangely dressed little kids whose parents are perfectly capable of providing them with food come knocking on your door begging for candy. Not the time of year when Christmas decorations find their way into a store near you along with cheesy music like Winter Wonderland which you can’t get out of your head for months. Not the time of year when you start pricing tickets to the BCS Championship game so that you can go support your Longhorns as they play for the national championship (wait….) I’m not referring to any of this. I’m talking about the time of year when in Addison Place residents can be found on ladders above garages, with hammers around gutters, with paint cans near door trim. Because we all just got “THE LETTERS”…. “The Letters” come out once a year. Normally we get them around the July time frame, this time it wasn’t until late September. I’m not sure the reason for the delay, but I suspect it took that long to type up everything in every letter for every resident. This year, “The Letters” were particularly ridiculous. “The Letter” starts like this: “As you may know, the Architectural Standards Committee of your Homeowners’ Association makes periodic surveys of our neighborhood. One of the Committee’s objectives is to make homeowners aware of conditions on their property that may detract from the overall appearance of Addison Place….” It’s at this point that I start to feel like I’m a kid who just got in trouble at school. “The Letter” goes on to detail the results of the inspection of my property and the areas where I was found to be in violation of rules and regulations put in place by my HOA. It also says it is the owners’ responsibility to comply and they hope this can be resolved without a “formal enforcement” of rules and regulations. I had 30 days to address my violations, or I could request a hearing before the board. So with letter in hand, I walk around my property to check out my violations. 1) Repair roof over garage – tile slid Standing outside the garage in the alley, I glance on the roof to see this:

Can you see the offending tile? It was hard for me to find too. Nevertheless, it seemed an easy enough fix. So a few days later I bribed David Jones to get on my roof and slide the tile back up. That should hold until next years’ inspection. One down, four to go. 2) Replace torn screen – rear of house I strained my neck and squinted my eyes and still had trouble finding this one. So I called my HOA and they sent me this picture (magnified about 10,000X)

Upon further investigation of the HOA rules, I found that I am not even required to have a window screen covering a window that doesn’t open to the outside (which this doesn’t), therefore this window screen isn’t even required. So again I bribed David Jones to get on my house and he took it down. However I am having to prove that to the HOA by taking pictures from the inside that prove the window cannot and is not intended to open. Right now my case is pending. Say a little prayer for me. 3) Repair mailbox numbers This is an interesting use of the word “repair.” I mean how do you repair mailbox numbers? After contemplation, I took this to mean “drive to Home Depot and buy decorative number stickers that don’t appear to be gradually fading and stick them on your mailbox over the ones that are there.” That set me back about $1.25 plus gas, but I sure am glad to get that out of the way. 4) Repair trim around the front door I have several feet of trim around the front door, so again I didn’t really know what the specific issue was here. So the HOA sent me pictures of this one that showed some wood cracking and peeling off at the bottom. Repairing this would prove to be a bigger challenge, and one in which I would have to solicit help from (aka bribe) several people to pry off existing wood and replace. The Lowe’s adventure that ensued in buying this wood was exhausting. First, 30 minutes or so of meticulous measuring – height, width, and depth of multiple pieces of wood that made up the door frame. Then probably 45 minutes or so of evaluating different cuts of molding at the store trying to perfectly match the dimensions. Then buying paint (by the way – the HOA limits to specific brand and colors the paint you can use, but since my house was painted long before I moved in and I didn’t know the color, I had to go through all the approved paint samples to try to find the one that matched). Finally trying to figure out how to get 10 foot pieces of wood in my Honda Accord. I painted the molding, but that’s about it. I may have to ask for an extension on this one. One suggestion was to just squish some play-dough into the cracks and paint it the color of the trim. I wonder if anyone would notice? 5) Install screen for small window – south side This one took 10 minutes on the phone with the HOA to figure out. I have several windows pointing to the south, and it took a while to find the one they were referring to. Turns out it’s a small stained glass window overlooking my neighbors’ front porch. Again, the rule is if the window opens to a common area it must have a screen. So if ever I decide to crawl on top of my countertop in my bathroom and reach up above my head to open the window, I should make sure to protect myself from bugs flying in. So David Jones and Billiam got the honor of making me a window screen and popping it up there. Mission accomplished. So I’m still working on getting myself in compliance, but is it just me or is this whole thing a little ridiculous? On the one hand, I appreciate that my HOA has a nazi-ist interest in keeping up the community. They told me out of 174 homes, 169 of them got “The Letter” this year for at least one violation. On the other hand, is this not a little overkill? I’m pretty sure my next door neighbor to the north is on the Architectural Standards Committee and made sure to find me a nice assortment of violations. This is the neighbor who, about a year ago, got ticked off when one corner of my mailbox came loose and caused a slight tilt. I got a letter in my mail that said “Please fix your mailbox.” No friendly greeting. Not even a signature. I’m surprised she said “please.” Two weeks later I got another letter, “Second notice – please fix your mailbox.” So one night about midnight I took a hammer out and just started banging on the mailbox trying to nail it back in. When she came out to see what was going on I simply explained I was fixing my mailbox. She didn’t seem pleased, but I guess now I shouldn’t be surprised I’ve been cited for so many “violations.” The last several days in particular have been a frenzy of home repair here in Addison Place. I’ve seen all kinds of repair trucks, painters, and guys on ladders. I wonder if these guys are in kahoots with “The Letter” senders. This could be a very successful business strategy. So here I am, trying to be a handywoman, bribing dudes to help me (beer seems to work), and doing the bare minimum required to avoid “formal enforcement” of HOA rules. If I’m successful, I will have done just enough to get by for the next year. Until then, “The Letter” is going in the trash.