Communists

How many of you live in a neighborhood that has a Home Owners Association? I never really gave much thought to HOAs until I recently had a run in with mine. I live in a HOA and I will never never never never never live in one again. Did I say never? Because I will never live in one again. I begged my boyfriend that when we get married to plese never live in a neighborhood with a HOA. He was in complete agreement. He never has like the idea of HOAs and since we will probably end up in the country (which is a whole other post in itself....can you picture me living in the country? LOL!) anyway once we get married we won't need to worry about them. But for now I do have to deal with the dreaded Home Owner's Association which equals....communists.

So here's the story. Yesterday I check my mail and I get a letter from them telling me that I'm not in compliance with an ordinance they have. (Side note here: When I bought my house I received a huge stack of papers giving me the do's and don'ts of the neighborhood. Did I read it? No...it was forever long and I had better things to do.) Anyway, they told me that my window treatments were not in compliance. All window treatments have to be white backed. In other words, if you are standing outside the house and look at the window all you should see is white. Stupid. I have white blinds on all my windows but none of my curtains have a white back. I leave my blinds down most of the time but will open them to let natural light in. I love natural light and use that as much as I can. Who wants to live in a shut up house all the time? One of my blinds in the living room is broken and I cannot open them up. I can raise it though which is what I was doing. I was raising my blinds about halfway. So by doing that you could see my curtains which, again, are not white backed.

So I called mister communist manager and asked him what his deal was. He explained that when he walked by my unit that he could see my curtains. I then explained that my blinds are not always raised but I do raise them because I don't want to live in a cave and I can't help how the curtains are made. He then proceeded to tell me that he didn't make the rules but he has to enforce them. I then told him that I don't have the money to buy new curtains and if he wants me to have white backed curtains than he can go buy them for me. He then responded with, "You said you have white blinds?" I explained again in plain English that I did and that usually when it gets dark I lower and shut my blinds. He said, "Well, then we have no problem and I'll erase this from your file." What? I have a file with the HOA? Crazy communists. But I won so I don't care. My neighbors, however, are not so lucky. They have the bamboo type blinds and they are being forced to change their blinds or get ticketed. Everyone has to have white blinds are curtains with a white back on them. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Now, I know that they have these rules so the neighborhood will stay nice looking and that the property value won't decrease by junky looking houses. I appreciate that and I accept that. It's nice to have the HOA to enforce the things that keep the neighborhood safe and pretty but white back window treatments? Isn't that a tad picky? Whatever, it turns out I'm not breaking any rules as long as I keep my blinds down.

Have any of you had trouble with your home owners association? I would love to hear the stories.