July 1, 2016
Dear Everyone:
It all started a couple of months ago.
One of our residents, an elderly lady we’ll call “Bethany”, came out to
discover that her neighbor’s truck was parked in her
carport.
She tried contacting him, but no one came to the door.
She tried placing a notice on his windshield, to no avail.
After several days, she had the truck towed.
When the neighbor (we’ll call him “Dick”) finally became aware that his
truck was “missing”, he blamed “Bethany”.
Apparently, “Dick” had loaned the truck to a friend who
carelessly “returned” it to the wrong carport, a fact that “Dick” failed
to take into account.
“Bethany” told me the whole sad tale one day in front of the Clubhouse,
while she was out walking her dog.
Then she said it would be nice to have some way to remind
residents of a few facts of life.
Like carports are deeded property and not up for grabs.
Frequently, our
property
management company will include some kind of reminder in the monthly
HOA
Dues bill. However, a lot of
our Owners are not necessarily Residents.
Probably better than 50% of our Units are not Owner-Occupied.
We don’t know the exact number because the property management company
scrupulously avoids keeping that kind of information.
You see, when someone applies to a bank for a home
mortgage loan,
the bank will typically ask how many of the homes in a community are
actually occupied by the owners, as opposed to being rented by third
parties.
The property management company craftily avoids this question by
claiming that they “don’t track that information”.
The banks have just as craftily started asking how many owners
have a different mailing address than the unit they own.
This information can be misleading.
One of our HOA Board members uses her office address as her
mailing address, even though she actually lives in her unit.
So there.
But the point here is that mailing announcements, and reminders, to unit
owners doesn’t always get the message through.
So someone suggested mailing the announcements to the actual
address of each unit. That
way, whoever is living in the unit will get the message, right?
It is very interesting how many people these days don’t bother to look
in their mailbox. I first
noticed this at work a few years ago.
I had sent a small gift to a co-worker in another state via the
company mail system. When I
asked about it a bit later, he confessed that he never checked his mail
slot.
Even then, mail was no longer delivered to individual offices.
The company had figured out that it could eliminate paid mail
clerks by having one person deliver all the mail on a given floor to
just one centralized location.
Employees were expected to go to the central location to get
their mail.
But so much “important” mail was now delivered electronically that
people got used to the idea that nothing “important” could possibly be
delivered physically. So
they didn’t bother to check.
These days, you can opt to have your bills sent to you electronically
via email.
I decided to choose this route when the official
United States Postal “Service” failed to deliver certain bills the
old-fashioned way. And I use
the Bill Payer service at my bank to make equally certain that my
payments get to their appropriate destinations.
Nevertheless, I check my mailbox at least every other day.
Especially when I get an email from my bank informing me that a
new ATM/debit
card is on its way.
So mailing announcements doesn’t always work.
Instead, what we have is a dozen locations around the community
for Important Notices.
Things like, “The Water Will Be Shut Off from 2:00 to 4:00 on Tuesday.”
Or, “The roofs will be replaced on Buildings 13 and 15 next
week.”
The locations are primarily at the aforementioned mailboxes and at the
dumpsters.
Even people who don’t bother to look in their mailboxes still
have to take out the garbage.
So I drafted a “Friendly Reminder” notice, with an eye-catching image,
to inform the residents that carports are deeded property and each one
belongs to someone specific.
Don’t park in just any old carport or your vehicle could be towed at the
carport owner’s discretion and the vehicle owner’s expense.
Also, uncovered parking is not to be used for more than four days
(96 hours) at a time. Interestingly,
several cars that had been sitting in open spaces for quite some time
suddenly found new spaces to occupy.
So it would appear that the “Friendly Reminders” were effective.
I already have a number of new “Reminders” to put up, but don’t want to
overload anyone. There’s one
to remind everyone that
cigarette
smoking is prohibited within 25 feet of any residence (i.e., you
can’t smoke on your patio or balcony) and anywhere in the Common Area
(which is pretty much throughout to community.)
And another one about no open-flame cooking within 10 feet of any
structure. (That one is a
county ordinance put in place by the
Fire Department.)
Then, this afternoon, I realized that this was the
Fourth of July weekend.
So I created another notice to remind people that
fireworks are
illegal anywhere in our county.
It might discourage folks who plan to start celebrating early.
At least they can’t say they didn’t know about the law.
The last thing we need around here is some chucklehead giving himself
the illusion of power by flouting the law and starting a fire.
After all, as
Johnny Carson
once quipped, “California has four Seasons:
Fire, Flood, Mud and Drought.”
We’re definitely in the Fire Season right now.
Everyone have a Safe and Happy Fourth of July (aka Independence Day)!
Love, as always,
Pete
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