As if I didn't have enough drama going on last week due to the offer that was made on my house, my homeowner's association decided to add a little more. I got a letter from the HOA Saturday in the mail that told me I had violated the covenants by having a for sale sign in my front yard. Even though the sign has been there for 10 months and one-half to two-thirds of the houses in this neighborhood have had similar signs up over the last two years, the HOA ordered me to remove the sign within seven days, or they would remove it for me and access me a $150 fine.To say I was livid was an understatement. I called the number in the letter, and, of course, no one answered so I left a not-so-nice message on the management company's voice mail. I then dragged out the covenants and read the section regarding signs. According to the section, the declarant may put a for sale sign on the property without first seeking the HOA's permission. You or your bank may also put one when the house is in foreclosure or you're trying to do a deed in lieu of foreclosure.
The way the covenants read led me to believe that I was the declarant so I called and left a second message to that effect. Those messages were returned by a snarky little thing who informed me that I was not the declarant; the builder was. She also refused to tell me why I was being the one singled out; that is, why the HOA had not made anyone else remove their signs, why they didn't say something 10 months ago, and why they haven't done anything about the numerous other violations that have dragged the value of my property down (e.g., the car that was up on blocks for two years, the window fans, the weeds up to my waist, the dog feces in my mailbox, etc.). She just told me I had to remove it or pay the consequences. Furthermore, if I applied for permission to display it, the HOA had every right to wait 30 days before looking at my request and to deny it outright.
I don't have $150 to waste on a freakin' sign so I took it and my ADT sign, which wasn't mentioned in the letter but would still fall under that section, down yesterday. I put them in the garage, but there was a much darker place that I would have liked to put them, if you catch my drift.
What gets me, other than the random enforcement of the covenants, is that the state of this neighborhood is the very reason I can't sell my house. I can't get anyone, including the people who were supposed to see it Saturday, to get past the driveway because the neighborhood has gone down that badly in the last five years. Meanwhile, I'm one of the few people who actually upkeeps her property. I plant flowers. I put out fresh pine straw twice a year. I pick up those little brats' trash. On top of that, I'm trying to sell my house before it becomes yet one more vacant, foreclosed property that drags down the property values that much further, but I'm the one they choose to single out. I'm the one who has to take down her for sale sign. I'm the one whose pool of potential buyers has been reduced that much further.
Now I'd understand if I lived near the country club in a home worth $500,000 to $1 million, but I don't. I'm so far from the country club that it's not even funny. I can't even get someone to pay $70,000 for this house for the reasons already mentioned. So the HOA seriously wants to tell me that my for sale sign is detracting from the beauty of this neighborhood? Seriously? What beauty? Please, somebody point it out to me because I haven't seen any beauty in years.
Since Saturday, I have been asking myself, "Why me?" The only answers that I can come up with have to do with the neighbors from hell, the ones who have made the last four years of my life completely miserable. Either their out-of-control, foul-mouthed monsters kicked the sign--it would explain why it was leaning last week--and hurt their precious toes so their parents reported me--who cares that they had to be trespassing once again to be kicking the sign or that the pure act of kicking it is a criminal offense--or the parents got brought up on a violation and automatically assumed that I was the one who reported them. Every time they get reported for something, I hear the little brats outside blaming me. I can say I didn't do it until I'm blue in the face, but they're still going to blame me. It's just one more reason that, one way or the other, I have got to get out of this neighborhood.
