'
re picking up after dogs.
Thinking of your neighbore....if you break one covenant...I would guess you would break more.

I hope your my nieghbor when I get there, you'll love my boat in the car port, and the parties I'll be having with my Harley riding buddies. I can't wait to get to the friendliest hometown, (Comrade)

Fenced Dog
 

SABRMnLgs, how does your beagle react to being a prisoner after being a free dog all those years? I have a great, one year old Beagle (Bob) who enjoys his fenced in yard here in snowy Upstate NY (and he loves the snow too - crazy dog). I'm about three years from a move to TY, depending on the economy, of course, and the plan for Bob's sake is to get something with a fence, like a Courtyard Villa. I don't think he would like being chained up, and I'm wondering how your dog behaves. Does he bark/howl when tied up?

collie, I dog sit 3 beagles. They all survive quite well with an invisible fence. They still have the run of their yard. Heck, they're so used to the fence that it is turned off and they still stay in their yard. No howling, baying, barking except when someone comes to the door.

Sorry Jerry, I didn't realize you had moved out of a courtyard villa with a fenced yard. I suggested a courtyard villa because I read your statement "we would opt for a fence in no time if we could".

I don't believe in shocking my dogs with electrical fencing, so we do have a courtyard villa for our dogs.

It is the friendliest hometown!. But bragging about breaking the rules doesn't make sense to me.
Sorry no carports, unless you are moving to the historic side....I'm sure you will get as much love there as in the newer villages.

Dogs
 

Thanks for the reply, Red. I truly wish you were here so we could have you dog sit Bob - He's going to be boarded at the vet's kennel next week when we head for Cancun (got to get away from this nasty winter in Upstate NY).

Already in your face
 

Hey Bogie,

Read the posts and you see what I mean .............. I bother absolutely no one. But somebody has always got that darn covenant comic book out telling you what you can and cannot do. You gotta have this, you can't have that. Well you can have that, but only over there. You can't have it here.
While this is supposed to be a "Friendly place" it is also one of the most sterile environments I have ever experienced. There is NO personality allowed
except for what the yard nazis and covenant freaks allow. And snitches abound, believe me. Some have nothing better to do with their time.
And now watch them come out in defense of their "holy book". You cannot write anything you feel is an injustice or derogatory without getting someone elses dander up.
That being said, there are a number of A-1 class people who live here. And with any large group there are going to be good and bad. Intelligent and ignorant. On my very few and far between forays into the community you can strike up some great conversations even in the grocery line. Yet other times you run into someone who can't pour water out of a boot. These types you see at the CDD meetings.
Well, I've belabored the point long enough. But I suggest you look into Orange Blossom or Silver Lake. At least there you some some say in what you can have and do.

Jerry.

I know you believe passionately that people should have the right wherever they live to put anything in their yards and that is so sad because I wonder if you knew that there were deed restrictions when you bought here?

I didn't think of myself as a yard Nazi but I cringed when I passed by a yard in Hadley that had bright artificial flowers stuck in the yard bordering a tree in the front yard. They weren't pretty to me. I just hated to see it because wherever else my eye falls here is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. It is one of the primary reasons I fell in love with this place.

It is just me. I don't think badly of the person who lives there. I imagine that that person looks out and thinks how beautiful those artificial flowers are and how much every person who passes by enjoys them.

I am glad for the rules and sad for people who get their feelings hurt about them.

GracieGirl.

Hi Gracie:
 

That is what I mean by yard sterilization. They could have tons of flowers and it wouldn't bother me. As long as it's not in my yard they are putting them.
We had some very weird things in yards where I lived in Oviedo. I thought they were down-right dumb and ugly. But hey ..... it's supposed to be a free country. I just shook my head, smiled and thought what bad taste those folks had.
Would I run off to report them? NEVER!! I was a flight medic in Viet Nam and saw hundreds of body bags of young guys who died expressly so these folks could make their yard in bad taste happen. It's called freedom.
They paid their hard earned money for their house and as long as they weren't trying to raise cattle on it (we lived in the burbs), I really could not and did not care what they had on their private property.
Their home belonged to them, not to their neighbors and certainly not to a group of people who decide what is right for others. I would disgrace the memory of those guys who died to cowtow to any group like that.
Didn't mean to ramble but opinions here are accepted. Nespa?

Two sides to this
 

SABRM is absolutely right.

However, it is a two sided situation. The other side being we have right to live in a community that, among other things, has deed restrictions. We also have the right to expect and insist those restrictions are adhered to.

Yes, freedom is a protected right. However, a contract that one freely signs should also be enforceable without the signee complaining that his freedoms are being taken away. You are free to sign or not sign a contract, but once you sign it, you are expected to abide by it. That is part of the rule of law that people have fought and died for as well.

I'm with NJ on this one. You don't have to move south of 466. The rules are far less stringent north of it. If you purchased a home south of 466, you signed a contract agreeing to those rules and restrictions. There's no excuse for breaking the rules after you VOLUNTARILY agreed to them. No one forced you to purchase there. You could have just as easily purchased a beautiful pre-owned home where the rules were more to your liking.

I agree with your point completely and I recently has a personal experience with the "lawn nazi's" that got my dander up until my wife and I discussed it. Here's what happened: We live in Duval. We spent a lot of $$$ on the typical landscape upgrades. My wife's cousin lives in Glenbrook and is a talented artist and woodcarver and specializes in exotic birds, herons, cranes etc. As a housewarming gift, he gave us a beautiful white heron that, from 10 feet away looks so real we had neighbors stopping by to see why this heron was always in our yard. We had it discretely placed in the landscaping along the corner of the house. For some reason, 7 months later we start getting notices from the CDD attached to our front door indicating we are in "violation".... I threw the first few in the trash and then the notices started getting harsher... that's when my wife and I had the discussion which essentially ended up with, "we knew from the start there were very strict restrictions and that we were moving into a Stepford Wives kind of environment when we decided to move here, blah, blah,blah" so I took the damn bird down. Now I'm waiting to see what they do about the home down the street that has a giant birdbath in the front yard with a cherub spewing water" Funny thing is I never paid it no attention.... now I wonder if that'll have to go too. Life'a a trade off.... I used to live on a mountainside deep in the woods.... no zoning.... some of the properties close by were pretty scary. Nobody cared if I had a bird or a 500lb gorilla in my front yard. You either suck it up and become a Stepford or head back to the mountainside.

From Wikipedia: Hypocrisy (or the state of being a hypocrite) is the act of preaching a certain belief, religion or way of life, but not, in fact, holding these same virtues oneself.

Signing a covenant with your fingers crossed behind your back seems to be a tad hypocritical.