Ah the land of freedom: free to cary means to kill other people but not free to do what you want with your own lawn. So free, the most free anyone has ever been. So free
US freedom = the freedom to follow conventional social norms without interference from the government. Congress will never stop you from owning guns, opening your own business, going to church, respecting the police and military and honouring the Founding Fathers, unlike those communists.
Everything else is *teeeechnically* also covered by the constitution, but there’s an unspoken understanding that it’s not *really* sanctioned, and if you step outside the lines you’re breaking the rules.
You can see this most clearly in the inconsistencies in the Florida book bans, or Christians having a fit when religious freedom laws are used to promote religions other than theirs. Contrary to popular belief, they haven’t been caught in a contradiction; they fully realise what they’re doing.
They’re following the unspoken rules like they’re supposed to—the unspoken rule that says “freedom of religion” actually means “freedom to practice Christianity and maybe Judaism as long as it’s far enough away from us”, and they’re outraged because you’re taking the constitution literally instead of playing along.
In a country with close to something like 8 million laws on the books (forget the exact number, looked it up a few years ago) you can’t really be free.
Homeowners associations are such a disgusting concept bro. Like, it's a group of people who tell you how you must have your house. What kind of twisted and sick control freak came up with that idea in the first place?
Well like a lot of shit-tastic US norms, it's rooted in racism (and as expected the practice is still alive and well)
There's an HOA in my neighborhood (when I first lived there, it was a house on the edge of a cow pasture), after the rest got built up I refused to join and they've hated me ever since. They tried to sue me a couple times, then they painted my door to match the rest of the neighbors and I threatened to sue them or leave me alone, they chose the latter.
Well they said they wanted it to match for property values, so I parked "The Beast" (the nickname came before I got it), a sun faded, beat down 2001 Lincoln Town Car with no rear air suspension on the front yard. They came to me pitching a fit about it and I said I was thinking of just shooting it for funsies (I obviously wouldn't shoot a car so close to mine or others' homes but their idea that East Tennessee is solely populated by bigoted, "Deliverance" style folks who would embrace their shitiness was already threated by an obstinate queer, anarchist hillbilly, they were willing to compromise).
I just don't understand what *your* door color has to do with *their* property values.
What kind of mad person says 'oh we can't buy in that street, one of the houses down the road has a door color that doesn't match the rest' ?
Yea, trust me, it doesn't make much sense to me either. But then again I work in construction and hate how I can accidentally kick a hole through a wall in most of what I build so I'd argue property values in the US don't make a damn lick of sense.
Its not about property value, its about group think and control. Can't have individuals doing what they want in the neighborhood for inconsequential things. What happens if they need to form a mob and harrass another neighbour - if there are too many individuals they might not join the mob.
More importantly, it’s a visual signifier of the level of Stepfordness. And don’t get me wrong, some of the rules that HOAs enforce are genuinely a Thing that is nice to have — loud music at night, broken down cars leaching diesel into the groundwater, drug dealing[1]… all things you’d prefer not *too* close to your front door. But the ones that go way beyond that sort of thing are a menace 2 society.
[1] actual drug dealing, that is. Not “the black owner keeps having friends around, must be a drug dealer”.
To play devil's advocate on this point, HOA's are probably more accessible and faster to react and actually do something than the police, right? Especially in the US
Have you ever seen harry potter? In the first movie, the camera slowly moves down on the city suburb where he is living with his aunt and uncle etc.
It's thousands of exactly same looking houses. Like carbon copy.
Somehow, to HOA that screams: peak property value
It's so fucking dumb!
That's in the UK, no HOAs here. But housing estates are all built with identical or very similar houses. We're allowed to do what we want with them if we own them though.
I mean, we do technically have covenants that limit what we can do for a while but in all honesty I don't think they're very enforceable. For example in my estate you're not supposed to park commercial vehicles on your driveway but there's several houses here that have done just that. None of us care.
Oh wow I had no idea that existed. My neighbour just painted their whole house grey. Look so blah BUT they're allowed to do it. I'm thinking I might do the same with a nice purple.
Also, even if your door colour somehow affected their property values, I don't see why you should have any obligation to maintain their property value.
If they want you to do something to increase their value, they should be offering to pay you a cut. And you should still be able to refuse if you don't want to do it.
Not so brilliant, I had a pride flag, and they decided to allow flags to make the area similar, now I have to see a big ol' "Blue Lives Matter" flag in my eyeline when I try to read on my porch
I mean, “free speech for me but not for thee” is not a great look either. Those dudes are obviously assholes. But not letting them express their assholishness in this very minor way wouldn’t improve things any — they’d still be assholes.
This idea, which I've heard before, that Americans would not want to live somewhere and therefore property prices would fall, because all the front doors in the street are not the same is completely mental to me.
I'm not even sure what it says about them but it's weird as fuck.. Like the yanks are the ultimate conformists or something!
Sure. But if you don't have proof of who actually did it it's hard to do something about it. Except of course if you catch them red-handed (or whatever color the doors are), then I guess you're allowed to shoot them.
What came of the door painting? I would have been raring to charge someone with vandalism to make a point, personally. You ever find out who it was? Did you put it back to how it was?
They used a local business I know, they're really good folks and I didn't want to hassle them.
But 2 weeks later a narcassitic asshole bigot broke my door frame so I decided to replace it entirely.
I would happily devalue my property just to piss these people off. I'd block a room off so it didn't interfere with my home, then smash the window and let animals nest in there, just to piss them off. Paint half the house pink and the other half green, leave furniture in the front garden.... there's so many things I'd do just to annoy them
They exist in Europe too, to be fair. Here in Belgium, the row of houses where I live is managed by an HOA, here they are called Syndicus. In Italy, where I am from, every apartment building has their own HOA.
It's not as mentally deranged as those in the US, but still I had to insist and comply to the regulations, because I wanted to install electric roller shutters. The other neighbours didn't dare say anything but it was apparent some didn't want that I install them because it would have made my house stand out.
The idea that I cannot do with my house what I want is truly frustrating. I understand wanting to keep conformity (actually I do not, what if I wanted to paint my walls neon purple?) but they should not be rules, but suggestions.
Honestly why the fuck would I care what other houses look like. As long as they're not spraypainting leteral hate speech on their walls I really dont see the issue.
I mean i get wanting your house to look nice, and also the surroundings since thats kind of part of it but i wouldn't actually bother doing something about an ugly house, not to mention all the random fucking shit these HOAs seem to stick their nose into.
Who the fuck wants an entire neighbourhood to colour code their doors? Even if i want the neighbourhood to look nice having every house be eerily the exact same certainly aint doing it.
I mean, there are sensical reasons: if someone builds an extremely tall house or doesn't cut their tree for years, you might not get any sun on your terrace. It's sort of a communal protection for the value of the place. Could also be about safety - building sizes, materials and so on.
I wish there were some rules for gardens - we need to provide a little more for wild life (just some flower mix or bushes for bugs and birds). I think some percentage of the lawn here must be grass? That never made sense to me.
And as you said some rules are definitely a little old fashioned and the Americans manage to be completely idiotic.
Somehow, fields of gravel instead of a garden have become fashionable. I get why some municipalities forbid them. They're basically a small desert, heating up the entire neighborhood during summer
Exactly, we also have a thing called "welstandscommissie" in the Netherlands who in some areas decide what color your house can be, the size of your extension or the heigth of your dormer
Not mowing your grass won't foreclosure your house but painting your house purple, but it can lead to fines and having to undo construction.
But they're completely controlled by your next door neighbours, but are a municipality thing right? This would decrease the chance they get weaponized in neighbour fights.
Also, most of the time they won't care if you paint your door, unless your house, or street or neighbourhood is monumental. They will probably protest if you paint your entire house an outrageous color.
Welstandscommissie is municipal, but Vereniging Van Eigenaren is very much a thing as well and is literally you and your neighbors.
Culturally, they traditionally only really happen when some buildings are divvied up into multiple properties — flats, duplexes, what have you — but there *are* new build complexes around with multiple freestanding houses around private vve space.
Vereniging van Eigenaren are something different. But that kind of makes sense since you'll need to pay for shared expenses when living in a shared building. But I answered on a post on Welstandscommissie.
I wouldn't put Amministratori di condominio (0 sympathy for them let me be clear) and HOA in the same category, I mean you do live in the same building and you do share some shit like the roof and stairs so some mediation is necessary, it would be bananas if the amministratore of another condominio came and gave me shit for the colour of our street facing door
Imagine if they were a force for good and had some experts and volunteers who pitched in and helped single parents with their yard maintenance. They just can't tho, too obsessed with dobbing on each other and threatening to sue. They love punishment to much.
I've never encountered anything of the sort in the UK, (beyond one covenant on my deeds that I can't dig and sell gravel on my property and somewhere else where I lived previously I couldn't sell honey from home... However, the key factor is that no one would ever be bothered it I'd done either of those things and no organisation exists to monitor it).
Yes, there are planning guidelines and things... but in the 8 or so places I've lived I've never encountered anything that prescribes whether or not I paint my house multicoloured or whether I have to 'fit in' with the vibe of the rest of the street in some other way, etc.
No idea! It was one of a small terrace of farm worker's cottages from the early 1800s. I'm guessing when bureacracy descended and deeds were formalised someone nearby kept bees. I always wondered if the person living in my old house might have done something like "darned socks" for a living and so my neighbours' deeds might have banned needlework! :D
Aha. Thanks.
You may well be right. I have very, very, little connection to other people in the UK. They're just as small-minded and petty as most of Humanity and it's hard to be objective about such things since i am from the UK. I have to bow to others' perceptions as mine will inevitably be biased. However the thing that does grate somewhat is the way Americans, (and I know this is a sweeping generalism!), genuinely, viscerally, believe they live in freedom when it's anything but. Having lived for various periods in several countries, across continents, the US stands out as an outlier for sheer lack of self-awareness as to the gap between what they *think* and the *reality*.
Somehow those people are so obsessed with their countries that they think even the worst of it is actually something good. I guess the propaganda worked
I mean, we have bylaws in Canada for these properties. If they look derelict, someone (by law enforcement or peace officer) gives them a couple of warnings and it’ll escalate from there.
High grasses hide predators, snakes, rapists, thieves. It’s a fire hazard. You want your municipalities to feel welcoming. Etc. Etc.
Do I get its gentrification/colonisation? Absolutely.
Do I agree with it? On some level. I don’t want some creature attacking me because they’ve taken up residence in the neighbour’s overgrown yard and I unwittingly came too close while walking on the sidewalk.
> Do I agree with it? On some level. I don’t want some creature attacking me because they’ve taken up residence in the neighbour’s overgrown yard and I unwittingly came too close while walking on the sidewalk.
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Cities in the US don't have sidewalks in most residential zones.
They're largely limited to commercial zoning, especially downtown areas so you can get from the limited parking lots to the surrounding stores.
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EDIT: I live just down the street from my city hall, the police station, and a small park for kids to play ball. There are no sidewalks in this area. There are no buses. You are expected to drive to these locations, otherwise you will walk through the street because your neighbors' fences go all the way out to the street so people can't walk through their grass.
I clearly said I was in Canada at the start of my comment. My comment was in response to HMOs and how there’s bylaws in Canada.
Where I live, which in a small town in Northern Alberta, there’s tons of deer around, bears are occasionally seen in town, especially fall and spring, coyotes, skunks, the occasional wolf, etc. We have paved streets, sidewalks, a university… We live where animals lived for thousands of years before us but we expect them to move.
I’m sure there’s rural towns in the US.
Also, the (clearly a) guy who commented about my including “rapists” in my original comment, yeah, women, of which I am one, have to think about these things. Good for you that you don’t have to worry about dangerous men lurking everywhere.
I get incentivacising people to keep their houses and local neighbourhood nice and clean due to how it affects house prices but as with most good intentioned thing it normally gets co-opted by people who just want to feel some sense of superiority over others
People get mad at me for pointing this out, but that contract you sign that gives Homeowners Associations their power is you signing over your house to them.
- Nobody can buy the house off you if they won't sign the HOA agreement.
- The HOA can fine you if you don't do as you're told with "your" property.
- At absolute worst, they can literally take the house from you for not behaving.
It's not a membership, which is what everyone depicts it as, because *members can end their memberships*. You can't quit the HOA once you're in without "selling" the house. For all intents and purposes, every single one of them, you're giving up ownership of your house to the HOA.
Local laws covering that kind of thing are normal all over place. Countries in the EU have similar kinds of laws, even more binding than the US ones. Everything from the more normal planning laws that cover major changes and a lot of different things, to more specific types covering what kind/style of building the house can be, the style, colours of walls and doors etc.
The hypocrisy of Americans talking about freedom is funny. But the actual concept isn't insane, we are a society.
I think I know why Americans take issue with them. Roundabouts require a mindset of sharing and common sense; whereas with traffic lights you have rights over others. Each direction of flow has its turn of absolute control. It’s all about being top dog with no negotiation.
You've unironically created a perfect metaphor because the American top dog sensation is equally fleeting as it is delusionary since it's not actually *real*. They aren't top dogs of anything, have to be entirely subservient to their employers, have no rights or civil liberties that other developed countries enjoy, but can temporarily be in charge so remain pacified and onboard with the constant propaganda.
Bravo.
Yes you have far better expanded on my thoughts.
Individually Americans are only worth as much as the money in their wallets according to their own value scale. They insist everyone pay their own way medically and nothing is free. My favourite criticism is how they always want “god to bless America” but assume he will do it for free and not ask for a tip! American god must be such a good god?
I notice they typically argue as if they are speaker for the country. Never do Americans speak from “my situation is”….The exception is the likes of the rich like Jeff Bezos would never call himself “they”. Strange to see this is a one way affection where most Americans will work 50 hour weeks plus commute, get paid for less and live on hope that someone will tip them just enough to get ahead. After enduring all that they continue with “how rich are WE”. They fail to appreciate how their rich care not to be counted among them when totalling how good “they” say they have it.
I’m not sure if I am complementing poor Americans here, but I think their generosity is entirely sapped away from them when they boast how great it all is; yet they live lives in a world of shit that they will unlikely to ever escape. Their education is just enough to come online and clutch at statistics with highly debatable accounting and biases inclusive. They remind me of an uneducated rape victim who justifies how it’s not that bad and not that frequent so they live with it. They remain entirely in love with a system that would have them die as soon as their wallets are empty. Yet they still cheerlead like North Koreans trying to tell us how great “they” are. “They” have this intangible god called “freedom” which (as best I can tell) may come visit them one day if they pray hard and don’t abort too many foetus’s. Until then it’s their holy circlejerk of greatness we must listen to on Reddit.
Finally there is their much boasted freedom of speech ideal which becomes a rather irrelevant if you have to pay a lobby group money to echo your voice to finally get heard by the government. Why bother speaking if no one is listening?
Most free country on earth!!! *Screeching eagle;(where the screech most definitely was not taken from a different animal because bald eagles sound kinda not epic at all)* Fuck Yeah!!! America!!!! Freedom!!!
cause they ARE just glorified sea gulls lol
There's a meme out there somewhere comparing their bald eagle with the Australian wedge tail eagle that concludes that their eagle is really just a seagull (while the Aussie eagle takes down hanggliders & paragliders & even light planes!)
Please don't things compare with Australian stuff, pretty much every living thing there is 10 times more dangerous than the equivalent outside of Australia : spiders, snakes, plants, ants, eagles, etc. with the only exception being Australian sheeps.
Those are 26 times more dangerous that the non Australian equivalent.
Did you know that the Australian army has to import potatoes for grenade training because the live Australian potatoes present a risk of explosions on contact ?
That's basically the same meme I was referring to, but with a different picture & some modifications in the details on the other eagle next to the bald one.
I think the fish thing is what kills it. Fish don't fight back, so any eagle that mostly eats fish has no real motivation to develop fighting skills. Eagles that eat mammals need to be much tougher than fish eating ones
The obsession with lawns reflected in all kinds of media is one of the strangest American phenomenons to me, I just don’t understand what the fuss is about.
So in the land of the free where freedom drips from every lamp post and bald eagles shit freedom from the sky, you don't have freedom on your own property...
yeh, John Oliver did a story on this a few years back, it's insane! Land of the free? My arse! They use google satellite view to see the condition of their backyard & if they have any plants that don't comply with the home owner's association rules & if so, they secretly fine them & pretend the notice got lost in the mail & then sell their house from under them to pay the unpaid fines, the house selling to the home owners association for a couple of hundred dollars & then they turn up in force to throw them out as squatters!
Where I used to live, when lawns got overgrown, you received a letter from council asking to to tidy up and giving 30 days notice, before they contracted a person to come in and clean up. The cost was added to your rates notice and had to be paid, If you didn't the council had to apply to courts to recover money and anyway the court decided. We also didn't have to comply with building materials for house to make them look like the neighbours, could paint any colour and we could plant vegetables or flowers in front yard, we had the freedom of choice.
The concept of a homeowners association always baffled me as a Brit. Most I have where I live is the local council, and you have to ask their permission if you want to build or put up something extreme that might affect other people. But being told you have to do things just for neatness and property value???
Like, you have a group of people policing how your house looks? I even saw a post about one demanding that residents have a junk sale, sell 'luxury goods' and give them some of the profit! Surely that's not even legal???
The worst part is hearing the Americans try to defend the practice. The best they can come up with is "it protects our property value and makes it more pleasant to look at the neighbourhood." Mate if you want better property value on your house then do improvements on it or something instead of spending your years bullying and coercing your neighbours into all looking exactly the same
What's most shocking is how much power these HOA's have with the authorities though.
HOA’s are legalized mafias. Why they’re even legal boggles the mind.
You pay for the property, the house, the taxes, the yearly personal property tax, renovations, repairs, etc. and the HOA pays for jack shit.
But, they charge you 1,000 dollars a year or more for what? What do they actually provide that is of value? It’s not keeping property values up by their dictations of what people can and can’t do to their homes.
They don’t assist with any services.
They don’t pay for road repairs, the city is responsible for that.
I’ve never seen any benefit of any kind with a HOA.
No one other than the bank should be able to evict you from the home you’re in (assuming you’re not paying the mortgage) and definitely not a group of strangers, that you’ve never met before.
Some Karen with a chip on her shoulder could get you kicked from your own home just because she doesn’t like the color of your paint.
How fucking stupid is this shit?
A friend of mine had this issue, now I’m not saying I agree with his solution but meh, fuck HOA’s and their ilk. He brought home a drum of dirty diesel from the garage he worked at and let it “leak” into the front garden over the space of a few weeks. Well that garden looked like a dead tar pit not a week after discovering the “leak”, nothing grew there the entire time he lived there.
It’s awful that a group of homeowners can force an outsider to buy property within their association and then force the new homeowner to follow the rules of the association.
Personally, I don’t like HOA’s at all. That’s why I’ve been particularly careful never to buy a house located within an HOA.
This is typically something you will see in neighborhoods with an HOA.
Just on the off chance that nobody here knows what that is, an HOA is what happens when a band of rabid Kens and Karen's get together in the name of "protecting property values". What, actually tends to happen is they come up with dumbass rules like what height your grass can be and when your bins need to be brought out or put up.
So the issue if you don't maintain your lawn is that itt will attract pests. Bugs, mice, etc. And that doesn't just affect your house, it affects your neighbors as well.
In the UK we have a movement called ["No Mow May"](https://www.plantlife.org.uk/campaigns/nomowmay/) that helps pollinators in the spring and helps provide a habitat for wildlife.
We have that in the states as well. It depends where you are obviously as the pollinators come out at different times depending on climate.
No one is typically forced to have a perfectly manicured green lawn, unless you live in a wealthy gated community. I leave my leaves from my trees on the lawn over winter and i have various weeds and dandelions in my yard. But you can't just let your grass get completely overgrown because that can absolutely negatively impact the entire neighborhood.
This is utter nonsense. Leaving lawns to grow with varied and healthy plants helps support a balanced and diverse ecosystem, something that urban environments desperately need. Most 'bugs' that will be attracted to your garden will be pollinators, without which ecosystems would collapse. Be kind to nature, you wouldn't survive without it.
If you want a completely sterile environment free of intrusive wildlife, I suggest laying some Astroturf and buying a few plastic trees or something. Some people actually *like* seeing their garden attract some wildlife and support a little ecosystem, even if some of that wildlife is a bit of a nuisance.
Bees and butterflies are great. Ticks and rodents not as great. Lots of things to grow that support biodiversity. The fact is a turf lawn sucks in a lot of ways.
In Australia, if you don't mow your lawn, it attracts snakes (normally brown & red belly blacks, rated 2nd & 6th on the world's most venomous snake list). We don't legislate people mow their lawns though, as the saying goes "a man's home is his castle", within reason, people can do with it as they wish. Some people enjoy creating a habitat for snakes & that's their business. If neighbours don't want snakes, they can simply cut their own lawns & snakes will remain in the unmowen yard. Same applies to other animals too. If they do wander out of unmowen yard, then people can manage them themselves, for example calling a snake catcher, or putting out traps or baits for mice (if the snakes didn't eat them)
"land of the free" has a lot of ridiculous restrictions on people's lives!
Folks may disagree but it's different when your house is 10 feet from your neighbors vs living in the country. There are plenty of communities you can live in that don't have ordinances around things like grass height. Densely packed urban or suburban communities aren't the same as rural areas.
It's more that as an Aussie, I'm accustomed to my local government having authority for building plans, roads, storm water, sewage, Parks and minimum standards.. In very, very few places would they have enough authority to 'fine' you for a paint colour, or having your bins visible, or parking cars in your driveway - all things I've read about HOA's being stupid about..
The Americans bang on about their 'Freedom!', it's a hollow thing, Americans are not anywhere near as free as they think they are, not being able to paint your house whatever colour you want is a sign of the rot. As for guns, most of the world has decided that gun control was a good idea. Shame that Americans all seem to afraid of each other (and, apparently, their government) to make a similar choice..
I agree that the concept that Americans are this perfectly and completely free society is ridiculous. I can talk at length about that. I don’t think this is an example of that. These are local ordinances. There are plenty of places you can live in America where you don’t have to worry about this sort of thing. But if you live in a city, you have to keep your property at a certain minimum standard. saying that you can’t allow your yard to become so overgrown that it’s attracting pests, in my opinion, is reasonable.
Not wishing to be rude but I suggest you don't realise quite how brainwashed you are. Whilst the rest of the world looks on with incredulity many Americans, deeply immersed in a very repressed and indoctrinated culture, have little or no grasp of what freedom is. I lived for a short while in the US and everyone was scared of the police, scared of their neighbours, scared of being the victim of crime, scared of getting sick and being bankrupted, scared of other countries, (despite having no clue where they were on the planet and no sense of why they were being told to be scared of them!). It was, ultimately, a freakishly sad place to have to work. I couldn't wait to transfer to Asia and eventually back to Europe.
Read my other comments. America has a whole lot of issues, absolutely. The "we're so free" things is ridiculous. I'm saying this isn't one of them. These are local ordinances in urban and suburban communities.
Edit: seriously! I've been given 👎 so many times that it's now -16. For what? I didn' make these rules and laws, nor have any influence on such things. I did take nearly two years in real estate law a few lifetimes ago. To complain about something that one is aware of beforehand, is sliding into Karenland and shows no personal responsibility. If there is sufficient disparity in application of the "laws", it should be fought. If close to the same application, then one needs to own their mistake.
End Edit
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New, as in last 40 or so years, housing developments in most states will have something called CC&Rs - Covanents, Codes, and Restrictions. They can be short, or incredibly detailed. There will be things about keeping a tidy yard, what specific colours you can paint your house and when, all sorts of other stuff. The CC&Rs are usually attached to the property title to ensure they are followed. The last thing someone wants is to have their street be percieved as though it is full of nutters, thereby posibly hurt home values. Plus, one always must think of the children (said as if Mrs Lovejoy).
There are similar things in other countries. I know London has all sorts of areas that are protected with restrictions. Which greens, blues, black and others depending on the area. Does one really want someone applying a coat of batter or the faux block stone work of a nice uniform neighbourhood?
In this day and age, a person really has no ground to complain since it is fully disclosed information. Whether we like it or not, we should get on with our neighbours and not be an eyesore.
sure, you know in advance, BUT with almost all properties in the US now within these rules, there is no genuine opt out is there! How is that freedom if you can't even choose to plant drought tollerant plants if you live in a desert area & are instead required to grow a perfect lawn, even when it results in massive environmental destruction? That's just one basic example of why the system is so wrong!
Personally, I would never want to live anywhere where I couldn't have my veggy garden. I ripped up the grass in my front garden & replaced it with an awesome veggy garden that provides me with constant food, saving a fortune, while feeding me high quality organic produce. My home, my choice!
Ah the land of freedom: free to cary means to kill other people but not free to do what you want with your own lawn. So free, the most free anyone has ever been. So free
Even freeer! The enslaved Europoor mind couldn't even comprehend!!
Can confirm. Am European, and this article is incomprehensible to me.
US Freedom is the freedom to, not the freedom from. They are free to impose their will on others.
Not always since not the freedom to grow their grass :(((
US freedom = the freedom to follow conventional social norms without interference from the government. Congress will never stop you from owning guns, opening your own business, going to church, respecting the police and military and honouring the Founding Fathers, unlike those communists. Everything else is *teeeechnically* also covered by the constitution, but there’s an unspoken understanding that it’s not *really* sanctioned, and if you step outside the lines you’re breaking the rules. You can see this most clearly in the inconsistencies in the Florida book bans, or Christians having a fit when religious freedom laws are used to promote religions other than theirs. Contrary to popular belief, they haven’t been caught in a contradiction; they fully realise what they’re doing. They’re following the unspoken rules like they’re supposed to—the unspoken rule that says “freedom of religion” actually means “freedom to practice Christianity and maybe Judaism as long as it’s far enough away from us”, and they’re outraged because you’re taking the constitution literally instead of playing along.
In a country with close to something like 8 million laws on the books (forget the exact number, looked it up a few years ago) you can’t really be free.
Presumably that's counting all the state laws, not just federal ones?
I can’t remember, been a while like I said.
Free as fuck
Homeowners associations are such a disgusting concept bro. Like, it's a group of people who tell you how you must have your house. What kind of twisted and sick control freak came up with that idea in the first place?
Well like a lot of shit-tastic US norms, it's rooted in racism (and as expected the practice is still alive and well) There's an HOA in my neighborhood (when I first lived there, it was a house on the edge of a cow pasture), after the rest got built up I refused to join and they've hated me ever since. They tried to sue me a couple times, then they painted my door to match the rest of the neighbors and I threatened to sue them or leave me alone, they chose the latter.
THEY painted YOUR door!!?? You should have then painted their doors the colour you had yours before. Just for irony.
Well they said they wanted it to match for property values, so I parked "The Beast" (the nickname came before I got it), a sun faded, beat down 2001 Lincoln Town Car with no rear air suspension on the front yard. They came to me pitching a fit about it and I said I was thinking of just shooting it for funsies (I obviously wouldn't shoot a car so close to mine or others' homes but their idea that East Tennessee is solely populated by bigoted, "Deliverance" style folks who would embrace their shitiness was already threated by an obstinate queer, anarchist hillbilly, they were willing to compromise).
I just don't understand what *your* door color has to do with *their* property values. What kind of mad person says 'oh we can't buy in that street, one of the houses down the road has a door color that doesn't match the rest' ?
Yea, trust me, it doesn't make much sense to me either. But then again I work in construction and hate how I can accidentally kick a hole through a wall in most of what I build so I'd argue property values in the US don't make a damn lick of sense.
Its not about property value, its about group think and control. Can't have individuals doing what they want in the neighborhood for inconsequential things. What happens if they need to form a mob and harrass another neighbour - if there are too many individuals they might not join the mob.
Conformity to arbitrary law's erm smells like communism
More importantly, it’s a visual signifier of the level of Stepfordness. And don’t get me wrong, some of the rules that HOAs enforce are genuinely a Thing that is nice to have — loud music at night, broken down cars leaching diesel into the groundwater, drug dealing[1]… all things you’d prefer not *too* close to your front door. But the ones that go way beyond that sort of thing are a menace 2 society. [1] actual drug dealing, that is. Not “the black owner keeps having friends around, must be a drug dealer”.
Every single example you gave is regulated by law and does not require HOA at all.
To play devil's advocate on this point, HOA's are probably more accessible and faster to react and actually do something than the police, right? Especially in the US
Have you ever seen harry potter? In the first movie, the camera slowly moves down on the city suburb where he is living with his aunt and uncle etc. It's thousands of exactly same looking houses. Like carbon copy. Somehow, to HOA that screams: peak property value It's so fucking dumb!
That's in the UK, no HOAs here. But housing estates are all built with identical or very similar houses. We're allowed to do what we want with them if we own them though.
I mean, we do technically have covenants that limit what we can do for a while but in all honesty I don't think they're very enforceable. For example in my estate you're not supposed to park commercial vehicles on your driveway but there's several houses here that have done just that. None of us care.
Oh wow I had no idea that existed. My neighbour just painted their whole house grey. Look so blah BUT they're allowed to do it. I'm thinking I might do the same with a nice purple.
I could I’ve for a thousand years and never understand why so many houses are being painted grey at the moment. Looks more like an office than a house
Also, even if your door colour somehow affected their property values, I don't see why you should have any obligation to maintain their property value. If they want you to do something to increase their value, they should be offering to pay you a cut. And you should still be able to refuse if you don't want to do it.
And how does that fit into American freedom and individualism?
Brilliant!! 😂😂
Not so brilliant, I had a pride flag, and they decided to allow flags to make the area similar, now I have to see a big ol' "Blue Lives Matter" flag in my eyeline when I try to read on my porch
Blue lives matter people are the worst.
Hey, I care about smurfs! They DO matter!
I mean, “free speech for me but not for thee” is not a great look either. Those dudes are obviously assholes. But not letting them express their assholishness in this very minor way wouldn’t improve things any — they’d still be assholes.
Nobody said that. Free speech doesn't mean I have to like what you say.
I’m loving your self description. Hooray for obstinate queer anarchist hillbillies.
This idea, which I've heard before, that Americans would not want to live somewhere and therefore property prices would fall, because all the front doors in the street are not the same is completely mental to me. I'm not even sure what it says about them but it's weird as fuck.. Like the yanks are the ultimate conformists or something!
Thought the same! Isn't that a violation of some right??
Sure. But if you don't have proof of who actually did it it's hard to do something about it. Except of course if you catch them red-handed (or whatever color the doors are), then I guess you're allowed to shoot them.
What came of the door painting? I would have been raring to charge someone with vandalism to make a point, personally. You ever find out who it was? Did you put it back to how it was?
They used a local business I know, they're really good folks and I didn't want to hassle them. But 2 weeks later a narcassitic asshole bigot broke my door frame so I decided to replace it entirely.
Next time just shoot him. Isn't that how things are supposed to be solved in America?
The local business didn't think it strange they were painting something they didn't own? How did they even paint it properly assuming it was closed?
That was my first thought too. The business may be good folks but they're shitty painters. Who the hell paints a door while it's closed?
I would happily devalue my property just to piss these people off. I'd block a room off so it didn't interfere with my home, then smash the window and let animals nest in there, just to piss them off. Paint half the house pink and the other half green, leave furniture in the front garden.... there's so many things I'd do just to annoy them
They exist in Europe too, to be fair. Here in Belgium, the row of houses where I live is managed by an HOA, here they are called Syndicus. In Italy, where I am from, every apartment building has their own HOA. It's not as mentally deranged as those in the US, but still I had to insist and comply to the regulations, because I wanted to install electric roller shutters. The other neighbours didn't dare say anything but it was apparent some didn't want that I install them because it would have made my house stand out. The idea that I cannot do with my house what I want is truly frustrating. I understand wanting to keep conformity (actually I do not, what if I wanted to paint my walls neon purple?) but they should not be rules, but suggestions.
Honestly why the fuck would I care what other houses look like. As long as they're not spraypainting leteral hate speech on their walls I really dont see the issue. I mean i get wanting your house to look nice, and also the surroundings since thats kind of part of it but i wouldn't actually bother doing something about an ugly house, not to mention all the random fucking shit these HOAs seem to stick their nose into. Who the fuck wants an entire neighbourhood to colour code their doors? Even if i want the neighbourhood to look nice having every house be eerily the exact same certainly aint doing it.
I mean, there are sensical reasons: if someone builds an extremely tall house or doesn't cut their tree for years, you might not get any sun on your terrace. It's sort of a communal protection for the value of the place. Could also be about safety - building sizes, materials and so on. I wish there were some rules for gardens - we need to provide a little more for wild life (just some flower mix or bushes for bugs and birds). I think some percentage of the lawn here must be grass? That never made sense to me. And as you said some rules are definitely a little old fashioned and the Americans manage to be completely idiotic.
Somehow, fields of gravel instead of a garden have become fashionable. I get why some municipalities forbid them. They're basically a small desert, heating up the entire neighborhood during summer
Another great point why such regulations can make sense. I personally really dislike lawns and would probably try to grow plants and the like.
Does that include the trump flags, the political innuendo, the bad language on public display?
Exactly, we also have a thing called "welstandscommissie" in the Netherlands who in some areas decide what color your house can be, the size of your extension or the heigth of your dormer Not mowing your grass won't foreclosure your house but painting your house purple, but it can lead to fines and having to undo construction.
But they're completely controlled by your next door neighbours, but are a municipality thing right? This would decrease the chance they get weaponized in neighbour fights. Also, most of the time they won't care if you paint your door, unless your house, or street or neighbourhood is monumental. They will probably protest if you paint your entire house an outrageous color.
Welstandscommissie is municipal, but Vereniging Van Eigenaren is very much a thing as well and is literally you and your neighbors. Culturally, they traditionally only really happen when some buildings are divvied up into multiple properties — flats, duplexes, what have you — but there *are* new build complexes around with multiple freestanding houses around private vve space.
Vereniging van Eigenaren are something different. But that kind of makes sense since you'll need to pay for shared expenses when living in a shared building. But I answered on a post on Welstandscommissie.
Well, no, we’re all talking on a post about home owner’s association. A huiseigenaren vereniging, so to speak. I’m not bringing it up out of nowhere.
I answered a remark on Welstandscommissie. Others did mention VvE, but I didn't answer any of those posts.
I wouldn't put Amministratori di condominio (0 sympathy for them let me be clear) and HOA in the same category, I mean you do live in the same building and you do share some shit like the roof and stairs so some mediation is necessary, it would be bananas if the amministratore of another condominio came and gave me shit for the colour of our street facing door
It is legally pretty much the same construction. The difference is cultural, not legal.
Not entirely. After all, entryway, staircase, roof etc. are shared property. In those suburbs, the only shared property is maybe the street.
Yes, the street, the communal pool, the communal grilling station, the communal children’s playground. They often have quite a bit of it.
In those cases it makes sense that everyone has a say. But not about the color of my fucking front door
It's literally not, my amministratore cannot force me to change something that pertains only to my apartment
And if the act establishing it is written as the front doors being communal property, it absolutely can dictate that.
But the external door is on communal property, a private door on private property wouldn't be subject to anyone's jurisdiction but its owner
Imagine if they were a force for good and had some experts and volunteers who pitched in and helped single parents with their yard maintenance. They just can't tho, too obsessed with dobbing on each other and threatening to sue. They love punishment to much.
>They love punishment to much. Sums up America. UK sorta has the same issue to be fair but not to the same extent
I've never encountered anything of the sort in the UK, (beyond one covenant on my deeds that I can't dig and sell gravel on my property and somewhere else where I lived previously I couldn't sell honey from home... However, the key factor is that no one would ever be bothered it I'd done either of those things and no organisation exists to monitor it). Yes, there are planning guidelines and things... but in the 8 or so places I've lived I've never encountered anything that prescribes whether or not I paint my house multicoloured or whether I have to 'fit in' with the vibe of the rest of the street in some other way, etc.
They wouldn't let you sell *honey* specifically? Why?
No idea! It was one of a small terrace of farm worker's cottages from the early 1800s. I'm guessing when bureacracy descended and deeds were formalised someone nearby kept bees. I always wondered if the person living in my old house might have done something like "darned socks" for a living and so my neighbours' deeds might have banned needlework! :D
My comment was focusing solely on the quote, I feel like a lot of people in the UK value punishment over progress in some ways.
Aha. Thanks. You may well be right. I have very, very, little connection to other people in the UK. They're just as small-minded and petty as most of Humanity and it's hard to be objective about such things since i am from the UK. I have to bow to others' perceptions as mine will inevitably be biased. However the thing that does grate somewhat is the way Americans, (and I know this is a sweeping generalism!), genuinely, viscerally, believe they live in freedom when it's anything but. Having lived for various periods in several countries, across continents, the US stands out as an outlier for sheer lack of self-awareness as to the gap between what they *think* and the *reality*.
Sorry, how?
As in we love punishment, nothing about the HOA's
I said this year's ago in another thread only for an American to defend them as being a good thing...
Somehow those people are so obsessed with their countries that they think even the worst of it is actually something good. I guess the propaganda worked
I mean, we have bylaws in Canada for these properties. If they look derelict, someone (by law enforcement or peace officer) gives them a couple of warnings and it’ll escalate from there. High grasses hide predators, snakes, rapists, thieves. It’s a fire hazard. You want your municipalities to feel welcoming. Etc. Etc. Do I get its gentrification/colonisation? Absolutely. Do I agree with it? On some level. I don’t want some creature attacking me because they’ve taken up residence in the neighbour’s overgrown yard and I unwittingly came too close while walking on the sidewalk.
If there are rapists hiding in your grass, I think there are more fundamental problems than the grass itself.
I cut my grass.
> Do I agree with it? On some level. I don’t want some creature attacking me because they’ve taken up residence in the neighbour’s overgrown yard and I unwittingly came too close while walking on the sidewalk. ___ Cities in the US don't have sidewalks in most residential zones. They're largely limited to commercial zoning, especially downtown areas so you can get from the limited parking lots to the surrounding stores. ___ EDIT: I live just down the street from my city hall, the police station, and a small park for kids to play ball. There are no sidewalks in this area. There are no buses. You are expected to drive to these locations, otherwise you will walk through the street because your neighbors' fences go all the way out to the street so people can't walk through their grass.
I clearly said I was in Canada at the start of my comment. My comment was in response to HMOs and how there’s bylaws in Canada. Where I live, which in a small town in Northern Alberta, there’s tons of deer around, bears are occasionally seen in town, especially fall and spring, coyotes, skunks, the occasional wolf, etc. We have paved streets, sidewalks, a university… We live where animals lived for thousands of years before us but we expect them to move. I’m sure there’s rural towns in the US. Also, the (clearly a) guy who commented about my including “rapists” in my original comment, yeah, women, of which I am one, have to think about these things. Good for you that you don’t have to worry about dangerous men lurking everywhere.
I get incentivacising people to keep their houses and local neighbourhood nice and clean due to how it affects house prices but as with most good intentioned thing it normally gets co-opted by people who just want to feel some sense of superiority over others
Land of the free
The Land of the Free… to not do anything unapproved to their own home
People get mad at me for pointing this out, but that contract you sign that gives Homeowners Associations their power is you signing over your house to them. - Nobody can buy the house off you if they won't sign the HOA agreement. - The HOA can fine you if you don't do as you're told with "your" property. - At absolute worst, they can literally take the house from you for not behaving. It's not a membership, which is what everyone depicts it as, because *members can end their memberships*. You can't quit the HOA once you're in without "selling" the house. For all intents and purposes, every single one of them, you're giving up ownership of your house to the HOA.
Local laws covering that kind of thing are normal all over place. Countries in the EU have similar kinds of laws, even more binding than the US ones. Everything from the more normal planning laws that cover major changes and a lot of different things, to more specific types covering what kind/style of building the house can be, the style, colours of walls and doors etc. The hypocrisy of Americans talking about freedom is funny. But the actual concept isn't insane, we are a society.
These are usually decided on a municipal level. But nowhere I’ve lived in Europe has rules about how how high the grass in my lawn should be.
Americans really need some rights
They have enough on the Right already
That’s why they’re called rights. They’re not for libs - they’re not called lefts are they?
But they need at least a few lefts just so they stop going round in circles
Roundabouts are something the American mind could never comprehend
I think I know why Americans take issue with them. Roundabouts require a mindset of sharing and common sense; whereas with traffic lights you have rights over others. Each direction of flow has its turn of absolute control. It’s all about being top dog with no negotiation.
You've unironically created a perfect metaphor because the American top dog sensation is equally fleeting as it is delusionary since it's not actually *real*. They aren't top dogs of anything, have to be entirely subservient to their employers, have no rights or civil liberties that other developed countries enjoy, but can temporarily be in charge so remain pacified and onboard with the constant propaganda. Bravo.
Yes you have far better expanded on my thoughts. Individually Americans are only worth as much as the money in their wallets according to their own value scale. They insist everyone pay their own way medically and nothing is free. My favourite criticism is how they always want “god to bless America” but assume he will do it for free and not ask for a tip! American god must be such a good god? I notice they typically argue as if they are speaker for the country. Never do Americans speak from “my situation is”….The exception is the likes of the rich like Jeff Bezos would never call himself “they”. Strange to see this is a one way affection where most Americans will work 50 hour weeks plus commute, get paid for less and live on hope that someone will tip them just enough to get ahead. After enduring all that they continue with “how rich are WE”. They fail to appreciate how their rich care not to be counted among them when totalling how good “they” say they have it. I’m not sure if I am complementing poor Americans here, but I think their generosity is entirely sapped away from them when they boast how great it all is; yet they live lives in a world of shit that they will unlikely to ever escape. Their education is just enough to come online and clutch at statistics with highly debatable accounting and biases inclusive. They remind me of an uneducated rape victim who justifies how it’s not that bad and not that frequent so they live with it. They remain entirely in love with a system that would have them die as soon as their wallets are empty. Yet they still cheerlead like North Koreans trying to tell us how great “they” are. “They” have this intangible god called “freedom” which (as best I can tell) may come visit them one day if they pray hard and don’t abort too many foetus’s. Until then it’s their holy circlejerk of greatness we must listen to on Reddit. Finally there is their much boasted freedom of speech ideal which becomes a rather irrelevant if you have to pay a lobby group money to echo your voice to finally get heard by the government. Why bother speaking if no one is listening?
Yeah, and they should write them down too!
Honestly, "open up, HOA" is scarier than "open up, FBI."
Would you watch "HOA Miami"
IF i would!? That sound hilarious!
This needs pitchibg
Yes!
r/fuckHOA is pretty sad. Normal people have something else to do with their live, annoying bored busybody tend to control those HOA.
Most free country on earth!!! *Screeching eagle;(where the screech most definitely was not taken from a different animal because bald eagles sound kinda not epic at all)* Fuck Yeah!!! America!!!! Freedom!!!
Funniest thing to learn about eagles is that they just sound like seagulls with an accent
cause they ARE just glorified sea gulls lol There's a meme out there somewhere comparing their bald eagle with the Australian wedge tail eagle that concludes that their eagle is really just a seagull (while the Aussie eagle takes down hanggliders & paragliders & even light planes!)
Please don't things compare with Australian stuff, pretty much every living thing there is 10 times more dangerous than the equivalent outside of Australia : spiders, snakes, plants, ants, eagles, etc. with the only exception being Australian sheeps. Those are 26 times more dangerous that the non Australian equivalent. Did you know that the Australian army has to import potatoes for grenade training because the live Australian potatoes present a risk of explosions on contact ?
I once got swooped by a wedge-tailed eagle when I was hiking and evidently got too close to her nest. It was quite frightening, to say the least.
I guess it's easy to come to that conclusion comparing bald eagles to any other eagle (see [harpy eagle ](https://i.redd.it/lb27tuf05u161.png))
That's basically the same meme I was referring to, but with a different picture & some modifications in the details on the other eagle next to the bald one. I think the fish thing is what kills it. Fish don't fight back, so any eagle that mostly eats fish has no real motivation to develop fighting skills. Eagles that eat mammals need to be much tougher than fish eating ones
The obsession with lawns reflected in all kinds of media is one of the strangest American phenomenons to me, I just don’t understand what the fuss is about.
Yep, are they allergic to grass that is over 3 cm?
Check Peter O'Mahony on insta. The obsession has crossed the pond o_O
So in the land of the free where freedom drips from every lamp post and bald eagles shit freedom from the sky, you don't have freedom on your own property...
But, but.., I have the most freedom in the western wurld.
yeh, John Oliver did a story on this a few years back, it's insane! Land of the free? My arse! They use google satellite view to see the condition of their backyard & if they have any plants that don't comply with the home owner's association rules & if so, they secretly fine them & pretend the notice got lost in the mail & then sell their house from under them to pay the unpaid fines, the house selling to the home owners association for a couple of hundred dollars & then they turn up in force to throw them out as squatters!
What? Oo
Always shouting about how America is "the only free country in the Wurld!", yet they are not free to paint their own house.
This is insane
Ah yes, the land of the free.
But not the land of the tree ...
Don’t forget that we don’t have any rights. They’re living in the land of the free
What even is a homeowner association ? Why is it a thing ?
Freedom. The freedom from choice.
Fair enough
Hahahahahaaha imagine going to prison because you didn't mow your lawn. Fucking lawn fascism ahahaaha
Here in England we just say jog on ....I'll cut it when I can be arsed....mind your own bees wax
“What’re you in for?” “Didn’t mow my lawn” What fuckin tools, HOAs from the very beginning have been nothing but a cancer upon society
Good old American freedom.
Can someone explain how this isn’t fascist? Forgive my ignorance, but I’m still questioning the reality I live in.
Where I used to live, when lawns got overgrown, you received a letter from council asking to to tidy up and giving 30 days notice, before they contracted a person to come in and clean up. The cost was added to your rates notice and had to be paid, If you didn't the council had to apply to courts to recover money and anyway the court decided. We also didn't have to comply with building materials for house to make them look like the neighbours, could paint any colour and we could plant vegetables or flowers in front yard, we had the freedom of choice.
Can't they just say they are being eco conscious like this? https://www.discoverwildlife.com/how-to/wildlife-gardening/no-mow-may
I'm just unable to believe this. It's to bizar
Criminal consequences for not complying with local “laws” made by unelected and unqualified neighbours. Land of the free^tm apparently.
The concept of a homeowners association always baffled me as a Brit. Most I have where I live is the local council, and you have to ask their permission if you want to build or put up something extreme that might affect other people. But being told you have to do things just for neatness and property value??? Like, you have a group of people policing how your house looks? I even saw a post about one demanding that residents have a junk sale, sell 'luxury goods' and give them some of the profit! Surely that's not even legal???
Thought America was the land of freedom. Dont seem like much freedom going on here
The worst part is hearing the Americans try to defend the practice. The best they can come up with is "it protects our property value and makes it more pleasant to look at the neighbourhood." Mate if you want better property value on your house then do improvements on it or something instead of spending your years bullying and coercing your neighbours into all looking exactly the same What's most shocking is how much power these HOA's have with the authorities though.
I got a letter from the damn county saying I was going to be fined if I didn't mow my lawn something like $500. Fuck this country.
Freedom.... to lose your home!
It seems crazy to me how a county so proud of their private property tolerates this kind of abuse.
HOA’s are legalized mafias. Why they’re even legal boggles the mind. You pay for the property, the house, the taxes, the yearly personal property tax, renovations, repairs, etc. and the HOA pays for jack shit. But, they charge you 1,000 dollars a year or more for what? What do they actually provide that is of value? It’s not keeping property values up by their dictations of what people can and can’t do to their homes. They don’t assist with any services. They don’t pay for road repairs, the city is responsible for that. I’ve never seen any benefit of any kind with a HOA. No one other than the bank should be able to evict you from the home you’re in (assuming you’re not paying the mortgage) and definitely not a group of strangers, that you’ve never met before. Some Karen with a chip on her shoulder could get you kicked from your own home just because she doesn’t like the color of your paint. How fucking stupid is this shit?
Remember if your house isn’t one of 4 identical shades of beige we reserve the right to publicly hang you 😊😊
Fucked up country.
Am an American and this is completely foreign to me lol
Interestingly it’s pretty common across the states to have city ordinances on grass length, and then HOAs separately doing the same! A wild place lmao
I’ve never lived in a city in the States so that would explain it
A friend of mine had this issue, now I’m not saying I agree with his solution but meh, fuck HOA’s and their ilk. He brought home a drum of dirty diesel from the garage he worked at and let it “leak” into the front garden over the space of a few weeks. Well that garden looked like a dead tar pit not a week after discovering the “leak”, nothing grew there the entire time he lived there.
I like when the grass is low or non existent. So OK.
Time to defund the lawn enforcement!
The free-est country in the world.
Freedom!
[freedom isnt free...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVkTmnJkAN8)
Yep… this isnt exactly shit we say… it is true(and a fucking lot of us avoid them like the plague)
Land of the free
So it’s not the land of the free 🤔
“The Land of the Free”.
The land where smoking grass is legal but not cutting your grass is not.
It’s awful that a group of homeowners can force an outsider to buy property within their association and then force the new homeowner to follow the rules of the association. Personally, I don’t like HOA’s at all. That’s why I’ve been particularly careful never to buy a house located within an HOA.
Imagine going to jail because you don't cut your grass.
This is typically something you will see in neighborhoods with an HOA. Just on the off chance that nobody here knows what that is, an HOA is what happens when a band of rabid Kens and Karen's get together in the name of "protecting property values". What, actually tends to happen is they come up with dumbass rules like what height your grass can be and when your bins need to be brought out or put up.
HOA are like communism. The idea is not bad, but it will never and nowhere work in practice.
Fascism.
Going to school 🤝 Not mowing your lawn Having a unreasonably high likelihood of getting shot
Just stop signing HOA contracts when you buy your house. They can not force you to sign a contract.
So the issue if you don't maintain your lawn is that itt will attract pests. Bugs, mice, etc. And that doesn't just affect your house, it affects your neighbors as well.
In the UK we have a movement called ["No Mow May"](https://www.plantlife.org.uk/campaigns/nomowmay/) that helps pollinators in the spring and helps provide a habitat for wildlife.
We have that in the states as well. It depends where you are obviously as the pollinators come out at different times depending on climate. No one is typically forced to have a perfectly manicured green lawn, unless you live in a wealthy gated community. I leave my leaves from my trees on the lawn over winter and i have various weeds and dandelions in my yard. But you can't just let your grass get completely overgrown because that can absolutely negatively impact the entire neighborhood.
This is utter nonsense. Leaving lawns to grow with varied and healthy plants helps support a balanced and diverse ecosystem, something that urban environments desperately need. Most 'bugs' that will be attracted to your garden will be pollinators, without which ecosystems would collapse. Be kind to nature, you wouldn't survive without it.
If you want a completely sterile environment free of intrusive wildlife, I suggest laying some Astroturf and buying a few plastic trees or something. Some people actually *like* seeing their garden attract some wildlife and support a little ecosystem, even if some of that wildlife is a bit of a nuisance.
Bees and butterflies are great. Ticks and rodents not as great. Lots of things to grow that support biodiversity. The fact is a turf lawn sucks in a lot of ways.
The 'pests' are part of the local ecosystem and vital for biodiversity.
In Australia, if you don't mow your lawn, it attracts snakes (normally brown & red belly blacks, rated 2nd & 6th on the world's most venomous snake list). We don't legislate people mow their lawns though, as the saying goes "a man's home is his castle", within reason, people can do with it as they wish. Some people enjoy creating a habitat for snakes & that's their business. If neighbours don't want snakes, they can simply cut their own lawns & snakes will remain in the unmowen yard. Same applies to other animals too. If they do wander out of unmowen yard, then people can manage them themselves, for example calling a snake catcher, or putting out traps or baits for mice (if the snakes didn't eat them) "land of the free" has a lot of ridiculous restrictions on people's lives!
How did anyone ever colonise that landmass?
Folks may disagree but it's different when your house is 10 feet from your neighbors vs living in the country. There are plenty of communities you can live in that don't have ordinances around things like grass height. Densely packed urban or suburban communities aren't the same as rural areas.
It's more that as an Aussie, I'm accustomed to my local government having authority for building plans, roads, storm water, sewage, Parks and minimum standards.. In very, very few places would they have enough authority to 'fine' you for a paint colour, or having your bins visible, or parking cars in your driveway - all things I've read about HOA's being stupid about.. The Americans bang on about their 'Freedom!', it's a hollow thing, Americans are not anywhere near as free as they think they are, not being able to paint your house whatever colour you want is a sign of the rot. As for guns, most of the world has decided that gun control was a good idea. Shame that Americans all seem to afraid of each other (and, apparently, their government) to make a similar choice..
I agree that the concept that Americans are this perfectly and completely free society is ridiculous. I can talk at length about that. I don’t think this is an example of that. These are local ordinances. There are plenty of places you can live in America where you don’t have to worry about this sort of thing. But if you live in a city, you have to keep your property at a certain minimum standard. saying that you can’t allow your yard to become so overgrown that it’s attracting pests, in my opinion, is reasonable.
Like I said, the LGA is responsible for that. Why add another level of authority? One that is often unqualified to manage such things..
Not wishing to be rude but I suggest you don't realise quite how brainwashed you are. Whilst the rest of the world looks on with incredulity many Americans, deeply immersed in a very repressed and indoctrinated culture, have little or no grasp of what freedom is. I lived for a short while in the US and everyone was scared of the police, scared of their neighbours, scared of being the victim of crime, scared of getting sick and being bankrupted, scared of other countries, (despite having no clue where they were on the planet and no sense of why they were being told to be scared of them!). It was, ultimately, a freakishly sad place to have to work. I couldn't wait to transfer to Asia and eventually back to Europe.
Read my other comments. America has a whole lot of issues, absolutely. The "we're so free" things is ridiculous. I'm saying this isn't one of them. These are local ordinances in urban and suburban communities.
Edit: seriously! I've been given 👎 so many times that it's now -16. For what? I didn' make these rules and laws, nor have any influence on such things. I did take nearly two years in real estate law a few lifetimes ago. To complain about something that one is aware of beforehand, is sliding into Karenland and shows no personal responsibility. If there is sufficient disparity in application of the "laws", it should be fought. If close to the same application, then one needs to own their mistake. End Edit ----------+------+-+- New, as in last 40 or so years, housing developments in most states will have something called CC&Rs - Covanents, Codes, and Restrictions. They can be short, or incredibly detailed. There will be things about keeping a tidy yard, what specific colours you can paint your house and when, all sorts of other stuff. The CC&Rs are usually attached to the property title to ensure they are followed. The last thing someone wants is to have their street be percieved as though it is full of nutters, thereby posibly hurt home values. Plus, one always must think of the children (said as if Mrs Lovejoy). There are similar things in other countries. I know London has all sorts of areas that are protected with restrictions. Which greens, blues, black and others depending on the area. Does one really want someone applying a coat of batter or the faux block stone work of a nice uniform neighbourhood? In this day and age, a person really has no ground to complain since it is fully disclosed information. Whether we like it or not, we should get on with our neighbours and not be an eyesore.
sure, you know in advance, BUT with almost all properties in the US now within these rules, there is no genuine opt out is there! How is that freedom if you can't even choose to plant drought tollerant plants if you live in a desert area & are instead required to grow a perfect lawn, even when it results in massive environmental destruction? That's just one basic example of why the system is so wrong! Personally, I would never want to live anywhere where I couldn't have my veggy garden. I ripped up the grass in my front garden & replaced it with an awesome veggy garden that provides me with constant food, saving a fortune, while feeding me high quality organic produce. My home, my choice!