The HOA and their harassment volume #1

In March of 2012 we bought a short sale that needed a tremendous amount of work. Our new house was sitting empty for 3 years before we bought it. Since then we have replaced the roof, all new electrical, new plumbing, closed in the loft to make a nursery, replaced half the privacy fence, removed 22 palm trees, replaced all the crushed shell and block with all new sod, but we know why the old owners had all the crushed shell in the front yard…

A note to my neighbors:

First off, this is nothing against anyone personally except the HOA who I feel have been bullying my family for years. I am technically calling people out by listing their house and images, but in the hopes to show the sheer size of the list of people breaking this same rule is enormous. I feel If I’m going to be getting a fee, so should everyone else – not just from my street or my little area, but the whole neighborhood. All or nothing. I’m not expecting anything from this. I just want all of us to be able to live our lives without the worry of a new letter ever other week or so about our lawns, fences, mailboxes, driveways, roofs, etc. There have been months where we have gotten several letters. The funny thing is we get letters that say second notice, but never saw the first. And based on the number of letters they send us, I know they know our address.

The entire time we have lived here it has felt like the Alafaya Woods HOA have been harassing us. I know we not the only one that feels like our HOA has been over-stepping, and I’m willing to say bullying us home owners .

So to my fellow neighbors, I’m not looking to cause problems with you. I do feel our HOA is a bit overreaching, and they should treat everyone the same, and/or they need to chill out and worry about other things than the density of my grass or the angle of my mailbox.

Replace Sod

I would like to stick to one point with this post, but it might be hard.

“This time” the HOA is harassing us on dead spots in our lawn. I went out with a full phone battery and started taking pictures. My investigation consisted mainly of 1 side of one main street “Shafer Trail” and 2 cul-de-sac. One being Leinhart Ct. (Mine) and the other is Teague Ct.(Because it was on the same site as the one sides walking plan.) I did not want to walk back and forth across the street at this time, but if needed am willing to walk every street the HOA manages in the Alfaya Woods subdivision.(Images below of areas walked and full area of HOA)

Around my first pass, there were 64 houses that had worse dead spots than ours. In fact, it would have been easier to count the house that hand perfect laws(6-8 max).

Screenshot 2016-07-19 15.44.05
The Area that I know Our HOA manages.
Screenshot 2016-07-19 15.46.38
The only area I checked for dead spots so far.

I was going to upload all the photos here, but the amount of photos was well over 400, so I’m leaving them in Dropbox, and anyone can take a look. Will be adding some of my favorites to a gallery bellow.

Dropbox Link:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xd1twzgb4b7ngnz/AAAtEf0NHLRhZ0PjxWD4SwiYa?dl=0

What have I done to help improve their issues:

I have been watering my lawn way more then we are technically allowed. I have added bags grass seed down on 2 separate occasions. I have added a bag of fertilizer to my front lawn. In fact, I have not cut my lawn in almost 2 months to allow the new grass to take. I let the the 2nd round of seed take and then let the grass cycle one seeding on its own to help fill the dead spots.

In fact, my grass seems to be growing so well that the city of Oviedo stopped by to let me know I needed to cut it. I let them know what was going on with the HOA, that the hearing was on the 19, and that I will be happy to trim it on the 20th.

It’s funny how we can get into trouble, told we need to re-sod, and then get told a conflicting instruction by the city that our yard is overgrown. You can’t really have it both ways, or maybe it’s all the new grass seed, fertilizer, and watering we have been doing.

I have receipts for some of the grass seed to show proof of attempting to fix the issue, and you can also ask our direct neighbors Chris, or Jim, who witnessed us doing the yard work.

 

The Cards are Stacked:

So what’s the main problem with resoding the lawn?

  • To start, our lawn was resoded about 2 years ago.
  • It’s been the hottest it’s been in years and the worst possible time of year to resod your yard based on the experts at Lowes, and Home Depot.
  • My house is facing west at the back of the cul-de-sac. This means it gets full Florida sun all day long.
  • Huge waste of water. Sure I can keep my grass green, but like the above bullet point states, full sun all the time. If I water my lawn every day, it stays nice and full and green. If I water when allowed, it looks brown and maybe a little patchy.
  • The added cost to our water bill. Just like any fees we might get from the HOA, this is flushing money down the drain to uphold some image of perfection.
  • Also, Trying to replace my whole fence. All home improvement money should go there first.
  • My yard is pie-shaped. This means that some of the dead spots are not really mine. (Sorry Chris and Jim…)

Our Lawn

Inside the two pink lines is our property. Dead spots on either side do make my lawn look worse. Sorry, Chris and Jim…

Lawns from around the block

As you can see from the gallery above, our lawn is not nearly as bad as most the houses that I investigated. Personally, I do not have a need to make sure my yard looks perfect. It serves no purpose, and is a waste of resources and a huge waste of water.

Now if the HOA allows me to fill my front yard with raised garden beds, I would replace my whole sod in a hart beat.

Let’s see what they say, meeting is at 7:30 pm July 19th, 2016.

1 thought on “The HOA and their harassment volume #1”

  1. I agree with you 100% it seem the the minions of the HOA only seem to look at certain houses, while totally disregarding the houses and lawns in disrepair. We are having similar issue on my block on McKinnon. It seems that the houses that are being targeted are the ones that are well maintained. For example one of the minions in her red Toyota came thru our block, my neighbor received a letter shortly after saying he had weeds in the driveway two tiny weeds growing in the crack between the cement slab, but bypassing the house next to me that has a large patch weeds growing out of the garage door and weeds growing out into the sidewalk. Hello, how can you miss that. It seems that they only target certain homes in specific neighborhoods. Good luck hope you win. By the way write draft on all your pictures of other violaters so they cannot use them to send letters, let them drive out to see for themselves.

    at a few houses once

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