Apartment Life (rolling eyes)

Racer1930

Racer1930

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(in Atlanta)....Wasn't sure whether to post this here or the Grin thread, but I thought it is worth posting and others might have similar stories (needn't be just about apartment life...more about life in general).

When I moved over to my current apartment (for a better view of the lake) the lady who was leaving said that the little "Aussie" gas grill tucked into the hedges and locked via a chain would not be going with her to her next place and I could have it. Cool I thought, but in the last two years I haven't used it, only thing I have done is make sure it remained covered so as not to rust up too much. So this last Tuesday I get a notice that any grills on patios or "common grounds" are in violation of lease rules and the Dekalb County fire inspectors had ordered that they all be removed immediately.

Even though I didn't really feel like I had done anything wrong - I figured I better get rid of it to avoid a "fine" - besides I hadn't been using it. So I unlocked it and rolled it up to the nearest dumpster. This morning I took my usual Sunday morning walk around the lake and "Wallah!" there was the old Aussie, rescued and on the patio of another tenant ;).

Add to that, I grow cherry tomatoes on my patio. One of my plants is close to the edge of the patio to where a person can walk up the steps and "harvest" them. I didn't think anybody would actually do that but while awaiting the pre-race show at Bristol, I noticed a "Latin looking" lady was leaning over the railing and picking my tomatoes. I quickly went out and said "what are you doing?" She smiled (obviously didn't speak English) and just said "OK?" I said "NO - give those to me and leave my tomatoes alone!" I guess she figured, if you can reach them it's alright to steal them. Holy Cow.

Later I thought about it and realized that that particular plant (while producing green tomatoes in very good quantity) never seems to have any ripe ones to speak of. I guess she has been "harvesting" them while I'm at work and finally made the mistake of doing it while I was at home and looking out the sliding glass door.

I guess it takes all kinds. :rolleyes:

Actually the grill thing doesn't bother me that much since I didn't buy it and wasn't using it....but the tomato thing really gets on my nerves.
 
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I will never live in a place that has a HOA that can tell me what I can and can't do on the property I pay the mortgage and taxes on..
I will live in my car before I subject myself to the insane rules some apartment complexes have. Friends can only use the laundry room in their complex between 7 and 9 pm on Wednesday nights and one load only.

Everybody wants to live in a nice place, no cars up on blocks, old recliner in the yard but that's why we have zoning laws. Don't need some busybody with nothing better to do telling me to cut my grass because it's a 1/2 inch to long or the color I plan to paint my shed isn't a approved color.
 
Pisses me off when people help themselves to items on my property. Non-English-speaking immigrant came 30ft up my driveway and took a pair of rare, rust-free early 60's truck doors so that he could sell them for scrap.
 
"I guess it takes all kinds." A workmate told me his uncle had a better version: "It's not that it takes all kinds, it's just that there are all kinds."

I've had people pilfer out of my garden too. One was a neighbor who was always preaching at me - especially the 10 Commandments - but he apparently didn't understand "Thou shalt not steal." Same neighbor first talked me into planting that garden, then later wanted me to get rid of it. The next year he was mad at me for not planting cucumbers (that he wanted).
Another was a kid who kept stealing blueberries. Making it worse, he'd cut my netting to reach in and leave a big hole - then the birds would get in and clean out my whole crop.

Once I was working in my yard, about twenty feet from the side of the road, and a "good ole boy" stopped to take my wheelbarrow. It was sitting three feet away from me. Got all ill at me when I told him to scram. He was on a junk hunt and figured anything he saw was fair game.

A buddy of mine caught some migrant workers stealing gasoline from his pickup truck. They came back to "make things right" by refilling his tank - but they had water instead of gasoline. That cost him a bunch to get fixed.

Some different migrant workers broke into my shed and stole my gasoline cans. They got away with it since I couldn't prove they were mine. But karma got them back - I saw their disabled car smoking on the side of the road... the gasoline they stole was mixed heavily with oil for my chainsaws.

When I had an apartment it was on the ground floor, with a door to the outside and an itty bitty slab of concrete they called a "patio" - and charged me an extra $35 per month for it. Although I wasn't home much, I didn't get along with my upstairs neighbors because they were always complaining about me for something... often for music that was "too loud" (I didn't have a stereo at the time, so they must have thought somebody else's music was mine). One day I came home and per habit walked across the courtyard to enter via my patio door. They were having a cookout on my patio, and blasting their boom box plugged into a power socket that I also had to pay for. They got arrogant at me - wanted to know why I was walking through their party... I got mad and ordered them off my patio pronto. Never saw or heard from them again.
 
Funny thing is...I said to a friend of mine...I had four new (large) pots that the old lady could have stolen but she didn't (?)

He said...well she wasn't interested in pots...taking them would take effort on her part (filling with dirt, planting, etc.) She just wanted the fruit.
 
I have a coworker that had a pile of bricks stacked against her house, just waiting for a time when they could build a sidewalk with them. They noticed the pile getting smaller, and caught the little old lady next door taking a few each for herself. No immigrants involved, just a little old lady next door.
 
The previous owner of our first house kept a lot of stuff in what was now my shed located on my, and the banks, property. He had built a new place on the lot next door. Over the course of a year or so I told him repeatedly to get his stuff out. Finally I backed my truck up and emptied my shed and his stuff went to the dump, still had dumps in the late 70's.
When I came back my wife tells me Joe was upset and needed to talk to me right away. Hey, he wants to talk to me he can come to me. He did later that night and wanted his stuff. Told him where it was. He flipped out, told him to sue me. Still waiting.....
 
I'm one of the people that can't live in an apartment/gated community. I've tried it several times and it just doesn't work out for me, I need my privacy.

When I lived in Jacksonville I did landscaping for a lot of gated communities in and around the city. I saw the HOA doing a lot of things that made me think "WTF?".

For example, most of those communities have a model house that they show to prospective buyers. Instead of seeing the house you'll get (because it hasn't been built yet) you get to see a carbon copy of it. We were always told to make sure the model houses got extra attention, so you'd see lots of expensive flowers and trees in that particular yard and we made sure all the maintenance was done perfect.

Anyway they would put up a front any time that house was begin shown. I always knew when they were showing it because the HOA would park a Rolls Royce in front of the house next door. We weren't allowed anywhere near that street on those days either.

The funny thing about those communities were you'd hardly ever see the residents outside. Couldn't fish the ponds, couldn't ride bikes, can't pee behind some bushes without someone raising hell (damn cameras), too many rules.
 
NC HillBilly said:
can't pee behind some bushes without someone raising hell ....
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Can't pee off my deck! That's damm unamerican!!
My in-laws bought a place with a HOA in New Port Richey Fla. My FIL was a engineer who worked on the designing of retro rockets for NASA. He was a smart guy and always tinkering with something. He got gigged for;
Washing his car in his driveway.
Leaving his car in his driveway overnight.
Left his car in his driveway with the hood up <GASP> and garage door open <OH MY GOD!> when he went in for lunch and then took a nap.
Was warned several times his grass was too long.

They sold out in less than a year. Moved to a "real" neighbor without a HOA.
 
What's worse than an official Home Owner's Association is an unofficial Home Owner's Association = neighbors who try to tell you how to keep your property.
When I first moved here, into a regular neighborhood, I started getting visits from neighbors telling me how I needed to trim my shrubs and pull those weeds and how high my grass could be and I needed to paint using certain colors etc. etc. One of them would even come by on his riding lawnmower and start cutting what could be seen from the road, if he thought the grass was too high. (He did this to everybody, when they were away at work.) He finally quit doing it when he rolled down somebody's bank and almost hurt himself.

Another one of them kept complaining about my car in the driveway. I decided to build a separate garage, big enough for both cars and some working room. But when we went to get permits we found there was a covenant that limited the size of outbuildings to too small. So I had to go in front of the Zoning Board. That shouldn't have been a problem, accept those "HOA" neighbors went around and got people to sign a petition against me. They got the signatures by making wild claims about what I was building and by pushing people's buttons. Later some told me they had been told I was building a body shop, a gas station, or a go-kart track. But the truth came out during the Zoning Board meeting and I was allowed my permits. (Later even found out that most of the signatures on the petition were coworkers of the "HOA" people who didn't even live in our town.)

Eventually most of the "HOA" folks moved away or were sent to nursing homes. Finally peace!
 
gone said:
What's worse than an official Home Owner's Association is an unofficial Home Owner's Association = neighbors who try to tell you how to keep your property.
When I first moved here, into a regular neighborhood, I started getting visits from neighbors telling me how I needed to trim my shrubs and pull those weeds and how high my grass could be and I needed to paint using certain colors etc. etc. One of them would even come by on his riding lawnmower and start cutting what could be seen from the road, if he thought the grass was too high. (He did this to everybody, when they were away at work.) He finally quit doing it when he rolled down somebody's bank and almost hurt himself.

Another one of them kept complaining about my car in the driveway. I decided to build a separate garage, big enough for both cars and some working room. But when we went to get permits we found there was a covenant that limited the size of outbuildings to too small. So I had to go in front of the Zoning Board. That shouldn't have been a problem, accept those "HOA" neighbors went around and got people to sign a petition against me. They got the signatures by making wild claims about what I was building and by pushing people's buttons. Later some told me they had been told I was building a body shop, a gas station, or a go-kart track. But the truth came out during the Zoning Board meeting and I was allowed my permits. (Later even found out that most of the signatures on the petition were coworkers of the "HOA" people who didn't even live in our town.)

Eventually most of the "HOA" folks moved away or were sent to nursing homes. Finally peace!
Click to expand...

That's where we are at with the new house. Nosey Neighbor Association. Except we have a land lawyer :)
 
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