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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Them's the Rules

The hearts are blocking our address.  I don't have hearts on our door.
 There are lots of pluses to living in a place with a Homeowner's Association.  You have a great pool, some rules, your neighbors can't put up a gnome village all over the place, and everyone has to keep things fairly neat.  There are some major downsides, however, when you yourself don't comply with the rules.  Then I hate rules.

About a year ago, we got a letter in the mail saying that we were noncompliant in two things.  First, our railing on our stairs had rusted through at the bottom (true) and then they said that the rust stains were on the concrete (true).  So, we replaced the railing and ignored the rust stains.  They didn't notice.

This past weekend, we got another letter in the mail, saying that we weren't compliant in FOUR things.  What?!  I'm sure you are thinking that one of those had to be the rust stains, but, surprise, surprise, they picked four brand new things to pick on, all paint colors.  Each house has specific paint colors for shutters, trim, railing, and front door.  We have never touched the trim or the shutters, but they claim that our colors are incorrect.  Le Sigh.  We DID replace the railing, but we went to the uber-expensive paint store and found the exact color that they required and painted the railing the lovely Amber White.  So, I don't know what they are talking about there.

The front door....enh....we might not be compliant. But we are close.  They want it to be "Georgetown Green" which is a color that only comes in gallon-size at Duron and is priced at $50.  You have to be fucking kidding me.  We pulled out our amazing Paint Template and matched the color we needed as best as we could.  It's a shade lighter than what it's supposed to be, but it's the closest that we could get.  We got a quart of that for $12 and called it a day.  Until the letter.

I went outside to walk Dash and a pile of neighbors were outside comparing paint colors and letters from the HOA, so we aren't the only ones that it affected, but how frustrating, right?  Turns out that our other neighbors always get the same letters and don't every change anything, so I'm not really worried.  Our option from the letter is to demand a hearing, and naturally the lawyer part of me wants to, but I think we'll just see if we can slide by on our colors until the next inspection when they will undoubtedly find something totally random wrong.

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