Our Neighborhood

We live in a nice middle class neighborhood. The neighborhood to the south used to be a nice one, but it’s a slum now.

It seems their Home Owners Association fees were exorbitant and it made it harder and harder for the owners to pay their fees AND keep their homes in good repair. Over time, it simply became a slum. Why didn’t they throw out the association and put new more reputable managers in? Why didn’t they throw the bums out, instead of allowing them to rape their earnings, until they were bums themselves? Who knows?

Instead of standing up to the association, they have started simply moving into our neighborhood. They are camping in our yards and our neighborhood park. We called the police to arrest them for trespassing, but were told the government said leave them alone.

We got together with our own home owners association and decided to make our community a gated one to stem the tide. We began construction on it, and the government came and said, you cant build that.

In fact, they said, the people living in your yards need to be brought into your homes. After all, they said, your house is much bigger than just you need. So a family moved into our second floor.

The family upstairs in our home has 4 kids and one on the way. The mother is having complications. The government came to me and said, you have health insurance. The family upstairs doesn’t and the mom needs medical attention for her pregnancy, so you need to let them use your insurance and you need to pay the deductibles.

Their kids go to our schools now, and so our property taxes went up to pay for the influx of kids. Our crime rate has gone up, but the new people say it’s not them. Yes, they were trespassers, but that doesn’t mean they would commit other crimes.

The dad upstairs has agreed to mow the lawn for $10, but it hardly offsets the myriad of extra costs we’ve incurred since they moved in. 

Where does our housing addition go from here? We don’t know, but it doesn’t seem fair….does it? We are told it’s partly our fault that the addition to the south is in the shape it’s in, but isn’t it THEIR fault? Didn’t THEY allow it? Why does our neighborhood have to suffer, because they didn’t make the needed changes in theirs?

Gosh, I hope this doesn’t spread to the whole country. The cost would be unbearable, wouldn’t it?

 

Cheers!