The Trash Wars

Incredibly, this post has nothing to do with my brand new, precious, adorable, baby.  And I guess that's good considering the title of the post has the words 'trash' and 'wars' in it.  There will be lots and lots and lots of posts about Harrison, but for now I have another story to tell.

We live in a small, quiet subdivision with a home owners association that for all practical purposes simply exists to keep the gate at the front of the neighborhood serviced.  There are occasional meetings for the HOA that no one ever goes to and sometimes signs at the front announcing garage sales, but other than that, for two years (aside from paying dues) we've not heard much from the HOA.

For this reason, we were quite surprised one day in August when we received a citation in our mailbox from the HOA--a $50 fine was being imposed upon us for "failure to properly store our trash cans."

Confused, I called the number on the paper.  The woman on the line explained to me that our HOA has a rule that trash cans must be stored out of view of the street at all times.  We had been fined because our trash cans were neatly stored on the side of our house.  Hmm...

After more discussion with the woman, we came to an agreement that our citation would be revoked since we had received no warning about this rule and since we wanted to file an appeal.  She also let slip that we weren't alone--about 75% of our neighbors had received a similar citation, and about 100% of them were hacked off about it.  I was pretty incensed, too, but I tried to be nice on the phone as I planned the wording for my appeal.

Below is the appeal that I wanted to write.

To whom it may concern:

Are you kidding me?  You don't have anything better to do than to go around checking on the location of people's trash cans?  It's not like we parked them in your front yard--they are on our property, out of the way, and not bothering anyone! 

You know what would be a better use of your time?  How about you fine the people who go dove hunting in the tiny greenbelt directly behind our house, or cite the folks who live right at the front of our neighborhood and have about 4000 different plants in their 200 square foot front yard.  (It does not look good.) 

Maybe there are even projects you could put your time toward that would benefit the neighborhood instead of make everyone mad.  You could host a block party or a recipe swap.  Life could be fun and we could all act neighborly.  But instead you have chosen to become the trash can police.  Well, somebody call the WAH-mbulance because I'm gonna cry about it.  I'm 9 months pregnant and I don't have the strength, energy, or desire to drag my big huge trash can back and forth from the back yard each week.  And as for the suggestion that we stow them in our garage?  Well, once I have my baby's and my toddler's diapers in there sweltering in the Texas heat, what will that stench do for property value?

Sincerely,

Me

Of course, I didn't write that appeal.  I wrote a very nicely worded, respectful, responsible appeal and they responded with a big, fat 'no.'  So now there sure is a big trash can full of two stinky boys' diapers in our garage every day, cooking in the heat.  We're basically going to have to fumigate the property before we sell it. 

HOA-1, Edwards-0