The Condo Nazis...

I live in a townhouse in eastern Maryland. I'm not allowed to work on vehicles on the property. Everyone else does it but I have a neighbor with a particular hate for me.

I bring parts inside my house to work on, but I still get complaint notices.
I run the bike around the row of homes into my fenced in back yard and I still get complaints. I don't sit around and rev it up all day. Most of my work is electrical or at least involves working with the engine off.

I'm financially able to upgrade to a better home but I'll never sell my townhouse in this economic environment. It's really getting tiresome.

 

Invite a few biker buddies for a cook out/ kegger party, rent a hot tub for the back yard.

there are laws that prevent idiot neighbors like this from being annoying and invasive. check out the local laws. maybe an order of protection. maybe this neighbor has a buddy who wants your townhome and hes trying to run you out of town

but stay within the law. BTW can't you work on you bike in your own home there?

 

maybe rent a storage shed thing, maybe you have one within walking distance, idk, thats why i want to live in the country when i graduate from collage, if i graduate.

Whats it gonna hurt to put your house up for sale? or rent it out too... im sure you can find a stellar deal on a house, i think we had a pretty nice house go for 25k in elkton, and it wasn't trashy, it was our neighbor's disabled son's house

 

Buy a rooster.
Stop by the local Kingdom Hall and tell the Jehova's Witnesses how bad your neighbor needs to hear the word.
Sneak up to the roof of his house in the middle of the night with a cordless drill and a 3/8" drill bit. Drill holes all over his roof. Then do a rain dance.
It won't improve your situation, but it should make you feel better knowing your neighbor now has a legit reason to hate you. Who knows. Maybe he/she will move.
Or, just bake a cake and bring it to him/her. Maybe he/she likes cake. Then he/she will like you. And you can work on your bike without complaint notices.

 

That's why I could never live in a townhouse or condo. Too many restrictions.

It's bad enough that the city starts hounding me if I leave my travel trailer in the driveway over night.

 

Great post 16ozbud! I live in a row house and except for the Boston Terrier hating hagbag 5 units down my neighbors are all cool and let me indulge in my mc extravagances with curiosity but without complaint.


If you're gonna call the JW's you should feel morally obligated to schedule a visit by 5 or 6 groups of LDS missionaries over a period of a week or two! In the interest being fair of course.

 

What's funny, is that I can totally see a time-lapse of this in my head, with the Benny Hill tune playing in the background, and everything...

:lol: :roll:

 

Of course!

 

The best part is I can't see any way it would be illegal! The louder the obnoxious neighbor protests the more determined the "visitors" will become to help them along the true path. At some point the O.N. should be willing to call a truce.

Discord between neighbors is really tough. One of the advantages the renters have over homeowners I guess.

 

yeah most cities have ordinances about this kind of thing...

my dad luckily has not had any issues in 37 years in this regard though and i think its because he a very personable neighbor to everyone...

the neighbors dont complain and the city doesnt visit...

 

Doesn't make any difference if you rent or own. Theres always someone that will complain if your a car or MC guy.

 

wow I have heard of not being allowed to work in parking area's (it doesn't help the area to have a bunch of broken down cages sitting around) but there is something wrong when a man (or woman) can't work on their bike in the back yard, tell them it's a hobby (and to sod off) not even a condo board should be able to tell you what you can or cannot do inside your privatly owed home, what next? will they tell you what type of sofa you can buy or how big your t.v can be. I would check your management contract and see exactly what this rule states, working on your bike in the back yard should be allowed, this has to be some sort of violation of your rights as a home owner.
Shaun

 

freakin A - xj650

you allow them to do that the next thing you know the toilet paper cops will be counting 4 squares off for each sitting

 

There's a thing called "protective covenence." As stupid as they are they are a fact of life and are clearly listed on the deed or lease for your particular place o9f residence.

Make sure you read the bold and fine print of the agreement before you sign on the dotted line.

I do however love the JW and FLDS idea. Thats almost poetic.

The Buff

 

See if you can schedule the LDS and the JW at the same time!!!! :lol: That oughta get the party started!!!!! :twisted:

 

Long story. My kids were in Cub Scouts. One of the parents of the pack were in a townhouse and had drunken neighbors screaming at 1am, 2am etc and keeping their kiddos from sleeping. I overheard the story and said I might be able to help.

The bedrooms are on the top floor and the walls are just lumber. Lower floors are concrete walls to prevent fire spread.

I installed a contact subwoofer in the bathroom wall. I put a signal generator and an amp under the sink. I turned on the equipment and did a sweep until I found the resonant frequency of the wall. Then I cranked the volume and tested it. The entire was shook violently and made one heck of a racket.

Every time the neighbors had a drunken screaming party the mom would wait until the kids were up for school and would turn on the generator and amp and leave it cook for an hour while getting the kids off to school. The neighbors would be hung over and trying to sleep and would start screaming.

Lots more to the story but this was my contribution.

 

Yeah... I like the JW idea. REPEATEDLY.

 

MN. I didn't finish out the owner/renter issue. I should have continued: if you rent you have the option to move and leave the issue behind, no harm no foul. If you own you either have to lease/rent it out or sell. The owner options stink.

 

It's rarely here. I'd come back from a hunting trip, season really, late on a Sunday and parked it in the driveway to clean it before storing. The notice was in the mailbox Tuesday.

By ordinance it's allowed to be there for 72 hours.

 

Well, I guess your 72 hrs. was about up! Do they shovel the snow before it falls?

 

WA I know what your saying. But my thing is even when you rent and move where ever, there is still some jerk that can't stand motorcycles and cars. Its tough to rent in the middle of nowhere. I live in the city and I'm lucky my problems have either moved or passed away. For now its all good here. My next move will be out of town with some land and my closest neighbor will be several city blocks away.

 

IDEA take the loss and sell it to JW's OR LDS for social gatherings. , better yet find some crackdealers with money to buy it they won't take no crap from the neighbor trust me I lived in the slums of chicago for 35 years..

 

I love living on a mountain in Vermont. I shoot guns off @ 2 in the morning, and no one cares.

 

......except for the racoon with the bead between his eyes.

 

Buffalo is right. I know the HOA rules. I have no legal recourse except to nag the hell out of the HOA by tattling on everyone else that violates the rules to ensure that they are enforced even-handedly.

I honestly didn't know that I couldn't work on the bike in the fenced in confines of my own back yard though. That one really bothers me.

Housing is EXTREMELY expensive in some parts of Maryland. It's the price I pay for good schools, easy access to mass transit (since I work at the Pentagon), and reasonably low crime.

The thing is, I don't want to fink on my other neighbors. I don't care if they work on their cars or bikes. Times are hard enough and if they can save a few bucks by doing their own work, then good for them. I only consider doing it because the HOA only comes after me. They only come after me because they only receive complaints about me. The neighbor only complains about me, because she has a personal beef with me.

It was strictly bad luck of the draw when I chose this unit. Any other one and I could have had cooler neighbors and easier access to the street or my back yard.

 

"wow I have heard of not being allowed to work in parking area's (it doesn't help the area to have a bunch of broken down cages sitting around) but there is something wrong when a man (or woman) can't work on their bike in the back yard, tell them it's a hobby (and to sod off) not even a condo board should be able to tell you what you can or cannot do inside your privatly owed home, what next? will they tell you what type of sofa you can buy or how big your t.v can be. I would check your management contract and see exactly what this rule states, working on your bike in the back yard should be allowed, this has to be some sort of violation of your rights as a home owner.
Shaun"


Welcome to the new America.

 

I looked at a condo once in the early 80s. I asked if they had garage space planned for rent because I would like to store my bike. I was told they didn't encourage motorcycles and you can not do any vehicle work on premises. At that point I walked out.

So it's not so new. My current house has very few covenants - I had to search hard to find a neighborhood with no HOA.

Now a buddy of mine got around his rules - a few tarps and into the condo went the bike. Complete tear down and no one was the wiser. Of course you have to bring it in when the complainers are gone.

 

Our first home was a condo and I swore I'd never own another one.The list of bylaws is a mile long.We weren't allowed to have anything on or around our townhouse that didn't look exactly the same as everyone else--not even an air conditioner in the window.There was even a line in there that said we had to ask permission from the condo board if we were going to have house guests for an "extended" period of time.

 

I agree. When I move on, I'll be hunting hard for a place that isn't like living in a prison camp.

 

Oh? Maybe you could see if anybody at work knows someone over at NSA... :twisted:

 

Or how about chatting up someone over at the DHS about your neighbor?
I hear they're really pleasant and understanding...

 

I made a point of buying a house in a neighborhood that had no HOA.
I can play with my bike all hours of the day and night. Well the city has a noise ordinance I'm sure the lady across the street would let me know at 2am. lol

My house is owner financed through my uncle. The lady across the street knows this. One morning I rode my bike to work. (5am) The b*tch promptly called my uncle (5:15 am) woke him up to complain about my very loud motorcycle. He had a few choice words. It wasn't like I was loud or anything. The bike might have idled outside for 5 min while I closed the garage door behind me.

Last weekend we went out on our bikes and she was getting her mail as we pulled into my driveway. She gave us both dirty looks. My uncle said he should have hit her.

 

No
Such
Agency

:twisted:

 

the crabby S.O.B. will complain about you working on your vehicles, but i bet if his car wont start one cold winter morning he wont think twice about asking you for a jump!