Odd. I find myself agreeing with just about everything that has been posted so far.
Yes, ineligible people are using our amenities. Villagers are in violation of this-or-that rule. Airb&bs exist also here, and can (and apparently do) attract people who have no interest in following the rules. And so on. But a lot of it is hearsay...people talk, and pass things along, and things get blown out of proportion. We HEAR about a lot of things related to the above. But just how much of it do we actually SEE? Especially if one reads The Online Newspaper That Shall Not Be Named one gets the definite impression that TV is being overrun by rulebreakers, unkempt properties and Airb&B hellraisers. But drive through any Village and the reality, aside from rare examples to the contrary, is totally different.
But...the fact that they exist at all is just a symptom of the real issue, and that is that there is nearly zero enforcement. What I find especially ludicrous is this system, if you can call it that, that allows people to get away with rulebreaking unless reported to the powers-that-be by another Villager! It can conceivably lead to situations where two houses on the same block have identical violations, but only the one that gets reported must fix the issue or get fined until he or she does. I know of no other place or situation where the people governed by a rule have the primary responsibility for ENFORCING that rule. Yet that is precisely what we have here. The powers that be apparently just sit on their hands, never enforcing their own rules unless they have no other choice.
Yes. We're lucky that the problems so far are probably more apparent than real; a lot smaller than word-of-mouth and rumor would have us believe. But the fact that they're not only allowed to exist at all but to actually become worse over time is an affront to all of us who bought here believing we were becoming part of a community where the rules and standards that we sought as retirees were being enforced. The fact that they routinely are not is something that can be learned only AFTER we became residents here. I won't go so far to say that we were sold a bill of goods. I certainly wasn't. We have a nice home in a well-kept Village with good neighbors and zero hellraisers. TV is everything I thought it would be. But with the "system" the way it is, will I be saying the same thing five years from now? We should ALL be asking ourselves that same question.
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