Chris_924s

Move to the country. You'll love the neighbors (none) You can play your stereo as loud as you want- hell, start a band. No one touches your cars in the yard. and no one really cares about the screams late at night.

j/k..

weigh the differences. create a list of wants and one of dislikes. If it makes you crazy change it. You would be surprised what a petition of 100 neighbors signatures will do. Become active on the association board. If you can't beat 'em- join 'em

jonnybgood

I have to rent now in Redwood City and I have clause that says no working on cars. That was no problem with a 2000 Ranger. Now that I need to check belt tension and such it really sucks! I have to pay to get the work done.

MacWolffe

the problem is that the people complaining (i'm assuming) live around the corner, not even on my street. we know all but 2 people who live on our stretch of townhouses. so it's not like they see it, they come over around the corner to check out what we're doing. i mean my mom's a painter but she can't work in the garage cos whenever she opens the garage door people are looking in trying to get us screwed again.

Peckster

Why don't you put your car in the garage while you're working on it?

PorscheDoc

I agree with Matt also. You guys read the rules when you bought the place, so you shouldn't have a problem with it. And what is the word 'cos'? Is this a new slang word that I don't know or is this because you can't spell? I thought they taught this in school still. These rules enforced by your association are in place in order to keep trash out of neighborhoods and keep property values up. Nobody wants a car up on blocks in their neighbor's driveway...it looks like crap. That is why there are towns that end up like Compton. And it is too cold to work on your car outside? You live in California, grow some ***** or put on a sweatshirt. I don't want to hear anyone complain about it being to cold to work on a car unless they are from Canada or somewhere else that has snow on the ground 6 months out of the year, or anyplace where it actually gets too cold to snow! Oh and pay for your tabs when they are due, the DMV gives you plenty of notice usually as to when your tags are going to expire. Most cities won't allow a car with expired tags to be in sight, so deal with it.

Carrera GT

This idea of "you read the rules" is nonsense. Think about the sales situation. A real estate agent giving the buyer the rosey picture and blurring over the issues that turn out to be trouble.

The only thing I'd add is, well, if you looked around at some spic-n-span condo development and thought "Gee, I'll be the only guy here working on my oily old Porsche! They're going to love me!" you've made your bed.

To be a little more constructive, I'd say you could look for a storage and work shop to rent. Maybe share the cost with your Dad to store his cars and maybe sub-let a few feet to friends to store their jet-skis and boats or excess building materials etc. I was living in a small house near Redwood City and ended up doing this just because I had a single car garage and no work space.

PorscheDoc

Bud if you aren't smart enough to read the fine print in any business deal, especially one costing as much as a new house, then you have a lot to learn. I love people who mearly glance over long contracts and just sign their name at the bottom without reading the whole thing. Obviously clauses such as "not being able to work on a car in the driveway" are put in writing. Take the time to read. I don't mean to be rude, but ignorance when it comes to business really bugs me. Then again i do have a double major in it (business that is, not ignorance...i only have a minor in ignorance), so maybe that is why it bugs me so much.

PorscheDoc

Oh and i agree 100% with carrera GT about the renting a storage unit. Usually you can even work on your cars there. Inside where it is nice and dry

BeerBurner

When I bought my place, they sent me the HOA guidelines and I had several days to read them on my own. No sales pressure there...

BB.

89magic98

To be fair...

Because of the car tax increase and the subsequent revocation of the increase, there is huge confusion with the California DMV this year. I paid for my registration before the 12/10 deadline and still have not gotten my new registration stickers yet.

On the HOA stuff and working on cars...

In my place, you are not allowed to perform any maintenance on your cars. I cheat by taking all my tools down to the garage and closing the door behind me. Most repairs can be done without any hammering or banging, so I pretty much feel what I do is just fine, and should fall under "peaceful enjoyment" of my home.

On the other hand, not having any natural light inside the garage is kind of depressing sometimes, it would be nice to have at least a window on the side of the garage to let some light/fresh air in.

SidViscous

I read the docs for the place I'm buying and it doesn't like like a big deal. Some of the neighbors kids were a bit odd, luckily since I work from home, I'm not the guy you want to **** off, as I have all the time in the world to be petty.

Friend of mine found a nice house in a beautiful developement. Single family home. then she got the HOA docs.
- No vehicles over 3k Gross weight
- No recreational vehicles
-If you have a cat your going to let out you have to put up a fence around your property.
- can't work from home
- can't rent a room to anyone not a realitive
- Association has to have 24 hour access to your house to make sure your abiding by the rules.

Keeping in mind, these weren't condo's, these were houses.

Needless to say she passed.

I told her to buy the place, put a lawyer on retainer. She stays at my place, I stay in the house. Within a month they'd take her on her own conditions gladly.

I had dreams of firing up the welder at 3AM, with the stereo blaring.

Campeck

dont you even think about it......

Legoland951

California law does not allow you to get your tags if your car does not pass smog and you can't show proof of insurance. When your transmission is out or something simple like a slave cylinder, YOU CAN'T GET TABS and you can't get insurance because it won't pass drivability inspection. Also, does one have no ***** because they don't want to be discomforted because the temperature is cold in their opinion? I just find it offensive to call someone "trash" to be kept out of their neighborhood because they work on their car. I currently own 5 BMWs, 4 944/951s, a motorhome, a truck, a corvette, a renault caravelle (only about 300 in the U.S.) a gsxr 1100, 4 gsxr 750s and a 2003 flatbed trailer. All except 2 that are in my garage are registered and in nice condition. I do work on them because I enjoy it and the implication that when someone work on their car makes the neighborhood "trash" is offensive to me. Even my lamer cars are better than the cars my neighbor drive and if I sold the parts in my garage I can probably buy a new boxster and pay in cash. If anything, the vehicles I park in the street probably increase the value of the real estate in my neighborhood. If you want to talk about reading the fine prints, do you know there are association codes in some places that will not allow blacks to own homes in Torrance? I don't think they enforce rules like that anymore but it is in the fineprints. One of my majors is also in honors track economics/business where we use partial derivatives to figure out marshallian demand curves but no class unless you learn law taught anyone how to read fine prints in contracts.

All in all, live and let live. If someone has a problem, don't be chickensh*t and tell them directly instead of crazy glueing their lock cylinders. In no way can you satisfy everyone.

BeerBurner

Fortunately, my HOA isn't all that bad. Plus, to make it better for me, our little group of houses has pretty much taken to dealing with problems on our own, rather than involving the HOA. That part, I like.

My only real concern is that in an area where parking is kind of tight, my houe occupies a bunch of parking spots since I have three roommates. I try to minimize this deal by putting all of the cars in my driveway/garage, so that at least it's just my roommates who are taking the other spaces. And aside from my one roommate's 951 that hasn't moved under it's own power in about 3-4 months, no one really cares.

In any event, at the moment I simply cannot afford my house without roommates, so the constant underlying rumbling on parking regulations does have me a bit concerned. It shouldn't be a problem, since the last attempt at something like that ended with the Virginia Supreme Court saying that they couldn't start doing that. Which has me wondering... I bought the place with the understanding that there were no parking regulations... Is that something that they can even legally change after the fact?

Anywho, it probably wouldn't be nearly as big a problem if people a) actually used their garages for parking instead of overflow storage; and b) would park their second car in the driveway instead of parking on the street so that they wouldn't have to shuffle cars around...

<shrugs>

Oh well, in the mean time, I'll continue to stay on everyone's good side. I'm supposed to do my car work in the garage, but the neighbors don't mind if I do smaller jobs out in the driveway, just so long as the car isn't left in pieces over night. Fortnately for me, suspension swaps now qualify as "shorter"...

BB.

PorscheDoc

I never called anyone specifically trash...I was trying to get across a point. I work on my cars too, but if i don't finish the work, I take them off stands or ramps while i am not working on them, so then it just looks like a car parked in the driveway; the point i am making is that they make rules like that to keep people from putting their camaro up on blocks in their driveways, which then leads to someone else thinking "well since he has his car up on blocks, i can too, plus i'll take it one step further and drop the tranny and just leave that laying in the driveway too since i can't finish that in one day", and don't say that doesn't happen either...just go to arkansas and have a look for yourself. It quickly escalades if you see my point. And yes, then that does look like trash. If i payed 250k for my house, the neighbor's house damn well better not look like crap, I don't want my property values going down because of him. And did you not take a business law class as a requirement for your business degree? (One of my business majors focus was economics, but there were still core requirements that you had to take from the general business area) I thought this was standard (i took 2 B. law courses for mine). Hell this was taught in a general personal finance class. And all there is too knowing how to read the fine print is.....read it. No wonder the education system in this country sucks. So yea you did learn about it, you were probably asleep.

Don't get me wrong, i have lived in a lot of apartments, and I have had similar rules, but I knew that when i moved there because i read the print. It sucks, but if you don't like it, tough. And if you are going to break the rules, then at least find a way to be sneaky about it. Take the thing off stands when you aren't working on it and at least make it look presentable. Or at least flip flop one of the cars out of the garage that you have and use that.

Im sure i'll **** alot of people off with this, but whatever. There are a lot of people out there who make a lot of money off those that don't read the fine print