Chalking (using sidewalk chalk) to spread a message is a great medium. It washes away from the surface on which it was used, leaving no long-term indication that it was ever there. People who get upset about it, are, therefore, uptight. However, believe it or not, using sidewalk chalk has resulted in arrests.

Now, in Colorado, a young child is being told that she can’t write on the sidewalk in her neighborhood’s “common area.” Of course, this is not the police telling her this, but the Homeowner’s Association (HOA). While I agree that people should have the right to join these things, I don’t know why anyone on earth would do it. The HOA board simply becomes the stand in for the police in terms of complaining about others and curbing their behaviors.

“We live on a courtyard and we all bought into the notion that we were sharing a space,” said Cohen.

But the HOA said because it is a shared space, anything that offends, disturbs or interferes with the peaceful enjoyment isn’t allowed. It seems that some neighbors have complained.

The woman and her child have no idea which neighbor complained. That’s a problem. Since when is it the norm to go to some authority for something that’s annoying you rather than talking to that person and working out a compromise?

A message to the people in the land of the free — if you cannot write on the sidewalk with harmless chalk, you are not free.

A message to the people in the home of the brave — sending some authority figure to deal with your 3-year old neighbor’s chalk drawings isn’t very brave of you.

A little while ago, I informed my readers about some states passing laws (and discussing similar laws in other states) that ban kids from being in public during school hours.  Of course, readers will probably say that there will be some exception for home schooled kids, but maybe they forgot about those kids.  Or maybe, like I suspect, they don’t care and they don’t want to see kids around during adult-only, kid-free hours.  Adults in this society are used to being able to send the bulk of kids away on buses for the majority of the day during the majority of the year.  I’ll admit, I like kid-free time (aka nap time), but having a law against children in public is taking it a bit too far.  A community in Florida has decided to take it even further by banning children being outside without parental supervision (regardless of school hours).

Of course, this is nothing more than house arrest, and completely unjust.  How many of you stayed inside unless your parents were with you until you were 18?

The rule isn’t new, it has been around since the neighborhood was built, but security is just now starting to enforce it.

…and that’s just the thing.  We all break rules that aren’t enforced. People often wonder why I make a big deal of unenforced regulations.  Well, it’s because they can decide to enforce them at any time and against anyone they please since probably everyone is breaking them.  (John Stossel agrees with me on this point, by the way).

Of course, Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids is all over this one.  And I really like what one of the comments on her blogs says.  From Havva (I have edited her statement slightly for clarity):

I distinctly remember a college professor summing up the American Revolution as: “The colonists having a fit when the British government finally deciding to enforce laws left unenforced for so long they were assumed to be rescinded by defacto.” He suggested that the only thing people find more onerous than the passage of an unjust law, is the enforcement of an unjust law that people have been violating all their life. These parents moved into a location where they saw kids walking around with out adults. Even if they spotted the rule in the HOA bylaws, they assumed it was an artifact. I think the parents will rebel. What scares me is that if they move instead of overturning the rule, the rule will gain legitimacy it should never have.

If possible, do not ever move into a community with a Homeowner’s Association.  Even if you currently agree with the principles of the community, they have the infrastructure in place to act in a tyrannical way against something you might be doing now or in the future.  The strange thing is that I am generally in favor of voluntary community standards.  But, these people move into a community unaware of the rules and, even if they did bother to read the bylaws, naively assume they aren’t enforced.  Also, it would be different if there weren’t already local, state, and federal laws to worry about.  Who wants to live with more regulation on top of that?

I’m enjoying some coffee this morning in the home of the brave, where we are scared of children.

Straight from the file labeled overkill, a New Hampshire woman is being sued by her Condo Board  for the having the audacity to break the neighborhood rules.  If possible, do not ever move into a neighborhood that has restrictive rules like this.  You are only asking for trouble.  The rule that she is accused of breaking is planting flowers in her front yard, rather than her back yard.  This is quite similar to the woman in Oak Park, Michigan who was fined for growing a vegetable garden in her front yard.  You see, the plant material wasn’t “suitable” according to the view of the city planner.  These two women are being treated as if they put heaps of garbage in their yards.  Nope, just some vegetables and flowers.

Sometimes, I find myself being annoyed.  Sometimes the neighbors dogs (all eight of them or however many there are) are just a tad too loud.  Sometimes it takes them (the neighbors, not the dogs) a while to mow their lawns.  Sometimes I wonder if they have any sense when they are loud after my kids’ bedtimes.  Sometimes this loud music lasts until after midnight.  Sometimes the block parties out here get use of the fire truck and give joy rides (complete with a siren) after 9:00 p.m. or so.  The other day, there was actually a parade that went by around 9:30 p.m. associated with the local college (my husband’s employer).  They were banging snare drums and blowing sirens on a week night.

When I lived in the St. Louis area, I sometimes heard gun shots within the city limits.  Of course, that probably had something to do with the Cardinals winning the World Series.  Also there were gun shots on New Years Day, and maybe the 4th of July.  I can’t remember.  Anyway, it was annoying.  When we were trying to sell our house, we were twice told that prospective buyers were concerned about our neighbors.  Once we were told that a prospective buyer was “creeped out” by the neighbor because “he was outside the whole time” they were viewing the house.  Uh….since when is that suspicious?

You see, we have the idea now that we need to stay inside — that civilized people stay inside.  If you do happen to go outside, you definitely go to the back yard behind a privacy fence.  There’s no place for a person to be in the front yard.  That’s uncalled for.  Also, a civilized person most definitely would not live in a home without central air.  They wouldn’t gather outside after dark in the summer to cool off.  Don’t they know they’re supposed to be inside where the climate is controlled?

This entire rant is going off the deep end.  My crazy mood started when I read this article.  It’s about a family in Chicago who bought their home more than 40 years ago and then watched the neighborhood around them change over the years.  Even though they describe their house as “run down,” they never suspected what was about to happen to them.  Simply because their neighborhood has undergone gentrification before their eyes, and because people assume crimes are occurring if you don’t live a posh lifestyle, neighbors called and reported suspected crimes.  What happened next?  A raid involving 40 officers and smoke bombs.  What did they find?  No drugs.  No guns.  No suspicion of dog fighting….just a long list of ways in which their home does not comply with municipal codes. They ended up being banished from their home for things like “bad wiring, clogged gutters, torn siding, broken plaster, rotting window sashes, unsanitary living conditions.”  Nobody bothered to say what was unsanitary about their living conditions.  I suspect whatever it was was more about pleasing the complaining neighbors than making sure these individuals are safe in their home.  You see, these pesky neighbors had purchased their home in a “good” neighborhood and they can’t have people like this around.  It is killing their property values.  These types of individuals are more concerned about their property values than about the people who live in their neighborhoods.

Please remember, these municipal codes are in place to make sure that these snoopy, wimpy neighbors get what they want by kicking out these old school, down to earth folks.  We should be ashamed of ourselves.  As one commenter pointed out, the government should have used the money for helping these people make some necessary improvements to their home rather than sponsoring a raid that was attended by 40 officers.  These aren’t some fly by night renters that aren’t concerned about their home.  They’ve lived there for more than 40 years!

By the way, I’m not saying this is about race at all.  I think it is more about status.  We assume the worst when people don’t live like us.  Then we assume the police can fix it for us.  Technically, these people were breaking the law — the municipal code, to be exact.  But, I suspect most of us do break municipal codes (as I document in my book).  Do you think this is enough reason to lose your house?  If so, you better be prepared to follow all of the rules yourself, and you should start by reading them.  You might be surprised what’s in there.

Today’s HOA horror story comes to us from Florida.  Click the link for a story about a guy who, after incurring $200,000 in legal fees, was finally allowed to park his truck IN HIS OWN DRIVEWAY.

Update: unfortunately, the original link no longer exists. The current link is relevant to the original story, however.

Homeowner’s Associations (HOAs) are neighborhood-specific organizations that are responsible for neighborhood maintenance. There are rules in place for decor, etc. that behave like the municipal code on steroids.   The residents of the HOA willingly submit to the rules when they move into the neighborhood, but it’s becoming difficult to find a neighborhood that isn’t governed by an HOA.

When Matt and I moved to Kansas, that was one of our criteria — NO HOAs.  But, we ended up in one.  In our case, the fee was minimal ($130/year) and it didn’t have any weird rules.  The HOA fee was basically a neighborhood pool fee.  It was cool…I guess.

Today, I’m starting a series of posts on HOA horror stories.  These stories are not necessarily recent, but relevant.

Today’s horror story comes to us from Colorado.  (The original link was broken and this one is a different version of what I originally posted). A woman hung a Christmas wreath on the outside of her house that was shaped like a peace sign.  Some sensitive residents complained because they have “kids in Iraq” and they saw it as an anti-war protest piece.  Others were offended because the peace sign was seen as satanic.

She insisted that it reflected her spiritual values and insisted on keeping it up until Christmas, and they threatened to fine her $25/day.  It would have totaled $1000 for her if the story had not made national news, which prompted the HOA to back off.

Just another crazy story from the land of the free, and the home of the brave.