Communism alive in MD

All right I may be exaggerating a bit but I am feeling a bit restricted lately. We moved into a community that has a very active homeowners association. We received this 30 page document outlining the restrictions of the community. The document talks about playsets, landscaping, pools, fences and a host of other changes to the appearance of your home. Even though you have the guidelines all changes must be documented on a HOA form, mapped out on the lot map and submitted to the architectural review board (ARB) for approval. You got it....my changes will have to be approved by others in the community. These include changes in the backyard of your home as well.

We would like our house to look nice and we will do all we can to keep it up. We did the hard scape in our backyard around the pool to make it look a little nicer and now we are doing landscaping along the fence line to get a bit more privacy. I submitted all the paperwork and I am waiting to hear back from them. The company will start on the 25th and will be done by the 26th. I actually know the head of the ARB board. Right now I am not really liking him much....in fact I will call him an A**hole. I do like to mess with him every opportunity I get. I saw him out for a walk the other day and told him I was submitting paper work for the improvements we were doing. He asked me "When are you looking to have these done?". My response was they ARE starting on the 25th. of this month. He gave me a sour look and then said it shouldn't be a problem.

The other reason I can not stand the HOA is that I got a letter in the mail stating that the front of our house needed to be pressure washed because it was dirty. I have 15 days to respond. Yeah it is still on my list to do. Ok, our house is mainly brick on the front. We have a bit of stucco on the top and then the gutters. Yes, they are a bit dirty. On our list of to dos has been get the house painted. My initial thought was that my husband would get a pressure washer and wash the front of our house. Then I could respond and let them know that we did in fact pressure wash the front of our house as the letter stated. The fact is that pressure washing will do absolutely nothing to remove the dirt. We will need to get up there and scrub or we will have to get it painted. Since we had planned on the painting that is what we will do. But it will take time to get estimates and then make a decision.

To top all of this off my husband is an incessant worrier. He worries about the littlest of things. It doesn't matter what I say he tends to worry regardless. So now he is worried that the ARB will not approve our plans. You got to be kidding me. They would have no reason not to approve.

There I said it all to you and I have to say I am very vocal around here about how much I dislike the HOA.