4 ms·
I grew up in the North East in the US and I only knew a few people across all the places I've lived that actually were interested in their lawns. Most of everyo
by jjice 2y ago
I grew up in the North East in the US and I only knew a few people across all the places I've lived that actually were interested in their lawns. Most of everyone's laws just "happened". I really never gave it much thought. Water comes from the sky and your lawn grew to the point you needed to cut it every two weeks or so. You had some clovers and weeds in there, but it was mostly grass. We'd pull weeds as kids if they were particularly egregious, but that was only when my mom would plant flowers near the house.
I rent in a city now, so I have very little lawn exposure these days, but is this experience similar for others in the North East (or maybe East coast in general)?
HOAs are a completely separate beast entirely. I can't imagine spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a home only to pay an additional fee for the privilege to do what someone else tells me. I don't care if my neighbors have a project car that's half built sitting in the drive way or a dead lawn.
- GuinansEyebrows 2y agoI wonder if HOAs would still exist the same way they do now if the American economy wasn’t so centered around the promise of infinite property value growth
- foobarian 2y agoI've been in New England a while and have the same experience. And for all the talk about "evil HOAs" I can't say I've run into such a thing here. Maybe they are more popular elsewhere and became a meme.
- smeej 2y agoI'm also in New England but grew up in suburban Denver and I think it might well just be a matter of the houses and neighborhoods' having existed before anybody got the bright idea to make HOAs. It's hard to enforce an HOA on owners who already have their houses. It's a different thing altogether when you're expanding into unbuilt territory.
- chneu 2y agoLook for suburban golf courses and you'll find hoas
- Izkata 2y agoThat's how it was in the Midwest where I grew up too, we mowed lawns because we had to (every week even, not every two weeks) but otherwise it was rare to find someone who really cared about them. Most people would have at least one patchy area on the side of their house caused by kids using it as a shortcut.
- mock-possum 2y agoSame with my place in the PNW - I don’t do anything to my lawn aside from mow it occasionally, I don’t water it or seed it or anything. Sometimes it’s mostly clovers, sometimes it’s grass, sometimes there are dandelions, or crocus, sometimes it’s mostly dry and dead. I just let it do its thing.
- thechao 2y agoOhhhh... my HOA is west of Austin. We've been in stage 3 draught restrictions since 2016. That means one-day-a-week watering, and total water expenditure limits. I have the 3rd largest lot in the neighborhood. When the temperature goes above 105°F, the lawn requires 1" of water per day, which would be 75k gallons per month. With penalties, this would be a 50k$/month water bill. Needless to say, the lawn is ... dirt. The HOA sent letters, telling us to water, so we told them to foot the water bill through the water district first (which was a HOA change made a few years ago, thankfully). They STFU pretty quickly after that.