Because my day has lacked some creativity…
Maybe it’s the post Olympic lull or the heat wave we’ve been having, but I am feeling very lethargic and not at all inspired. We are having our siding replaced right now so if we want to go outside we have to go to a park. Not that we’d particularly want to in 95°+ heat.
So because I have nothing of the creative to share, I will tell you about an annoying conversation that, thankfully, my husband handled. I was up in my son’s room watching the workers throw our old siding into the dump trailer when I noticed my husband talking to our retired next door neighbor. My first thought, as dictated by the nosy side of my brain, was to go out and see what they wanted, but my more rational side said, leave it alone. In the end I’m glad I stayed away.
We have a voluntary home owners association. It’s a minor deal, and we aren’t required to pay if we don’t feel like it. Well our neighbor, who is a retired lawyer and very seldom home, decided to come over and see if we had checked with the architectural committee before proceeding with our siding project, knowing full well we hadn’t because he’s on the committee. However, it isn’t even written up in the rules that you have to get any approval to replace siding. He then proceeded to tell my husband that not many people have hardy plank siding around here, to which my husband informed him that actually most of our neighbors do. Our house was crumbling LP, and is therefore necessary for the integrity of the house to replace.
Since he couldn’t win that battle, our oh so friendly neighbor decided to harp on some of our gardening choices, mainly the chopping down of a particular tree. The tree in question was a willow that we both liked, but was planted too close to the house threatening the foundation. My husband then explained all of the issues we have encountered since buying the house and that we have actually been in the process of remedying the issues. It makes me annoyed. It is our house, our property, we didn’t violate any of the “rules”, and has nothing to do with him. I sincerely hope that when I get to be that old I have enough on my plate that I could care less what kind of siding my neighbors have decided to put on their house.
P.S. I thought a voluntary home owners association wouldn’t be so bad (usually I dislike these associations) but I guess in this case it depends on your neighbors. Oh, and he didn’t even know that he had an external alarm that happened to off at 10:30pm a couple of weeks ago while they were on vacation. We had to call 911 to get someone to come turn it off. Ugh.
Springdoor 