For real though, I don’t give a shit if my neighbors set a car on fire in their front yard or paint their whole house bright neon pink. Ain’t my yard, not my place to tell them what they can and can’t do. 

And honestly I WISH more people WOULDN’T mow their lawns. 

And high property values are BULLSHIT anyway. 

I would LOVE for there to be more community emergency funds to help your neighbors replace your roof and I really do appreciate that and want to make things look nice for my own neighbors.

But frankly a lot of the rules in HOA arrangements are classist garbage. You know who doesn’t have time to mow lawns? People with broken or no lawn mowers working double shifts. Single parents. Disabled people. Old people. You know who has dead cars sitting in their drives they’re hoping to fix one day? Poor people. People working side mechanic jobs to get by. You know who hoards shit and has tacky lawn junk? Old people who grew up with nothing who just want to have a little fun.

I may not like my neighbors’ plastic palm tree margartitaville but she’s 70 years old and she should be able to decorate her lawn however she damn well chooses. And I happen to like neighbors who brighten up my day with ridiculous house colors. And there’s no harm in kids being allowed to leave their bikes and toys out in their own freakin space. Yards are living spaces, not museums or public gardens.

Bingo.

“Oh, maybe that’s fine if you intend to stay there…”

I do. This is my home, not an investment property that I want to profit off of. What kind of person gets all worked up about kids leaving a few toys on the grass? Hell. I don’t care if the kids down the street leave their toys in MY yard for a day or so. They’ve got a standing invitation to eat raspberries off my bushes and watch my bees whenever they want. 

Also if the property values are lower then working stiffs like me might be able to actually, y'know, buy a home.

The professional-managerial caste and the petit bourgeoisie can choke. “It’ll lower the curb appeal” my entire ass

HOAs don’t exist to help the people living in the neighborhood, they exist to keep the “wrong sort” of people from moving in.

The cap class to one of the training series I took at my last job was called “Orange County 101.” It was the only offsite training and we gathered at the Orange County History Museum to do a scavenger hunt and listen to lectures from different department representatives.

The woman who spoke on behalf of the Environmental division was by far the most informative and what she had to say about HOAs blew me away.

She said that every tree in the county is worth a base of $2,000. Trees only get more valuable because of what type of tree they are and their placement, but trees, for what they contribute to the environment in the county, the shade they produce that reduces energy bills in your home, and the material they’re made up of, are highly valuable on their own and when you plant a tree, you’re planting $2,000.

She also showed us pictures of Florida-landscaped houses versus typical HOA mandated landscaping. First of all, the division’s biggest issue with HOAs is that they often mandate that lawns be sodded in a type of grass that is not native to Florida, requires constant upkeep, is a strain on the water supply, and doesn’t do well in the shade of tress which, again, are vital to our environment and to reducing our energy bills. But HOAs will die on that hill every time: the hill sodded in expensive, dying grass. (I think it’s St. Augustine but don’t quote me on the name - I should know by now but all I know is it’s the thick-bladed gross kind that feels awful on your skin.)

The division has been invited into different neighborhoods over and over again to show individual citizens the benefits of Florida-native landscaping but they’re then cautioned to check with their HOA on what plants they’re allowed to have. The process usually stops there, when the HOA quashes all the hopes and plans of the individual homeowner by not just nixing their ideas, but also issuing a caution letter to let them know they’re being watched closely and on notice.

Orange County can help individual citizens when invited to do so, but it normally doesn’t go far, because people can’t or won’t fight their HOAs to plant energy-efficient, low-maintenance, Florida-native yards. This woman, who regularly represents an entire division of county government on environmental issues, point-blank said that they have little-to-no power in assisting residents with landscaping that’s better for their homes, environmentally and financially, because of HOAs. I will never forget her telling us that the best bet we had, in HOA neighborhoods, of helping save the environment in our state, was getting elected to the HOA board in our neighborhood, because the county has NO AUTHORITY over HOAs.

Now, I don’t know if this is how government works in just Florida, or just in the southern states. My mom lives in Arizona and that’s not how it is around her, at least. But how’s that for a conservative extreme, huh? Not just the home-rule of a charter county government, but home rule by HOA – HOAs that are set up by the corporations that throw houses up in Florida literally as if they’re coming off giant conveyor belts. Company after company setting up unreasonable, financially-restrictive home-rule regulations at the street level to be exclusive of people who so much as wish to grow fucking grass that’s native to their own state. And making sure that the people who say in charge are all about those closely-guarded personal freedoms. Until it comes to your freedom to have a certain door color. Or a certain kind of bush in your yard.

gonna apply pokemon types to stuff that’s not pokemon

Holy shit im dying right now..prob the best one

This actually probably is the best one hahahaha

a lot of my faves

VINE WAS A TREASURE FUCK TWITTER FOR KILLING IT OFF.

This is art. We need to send it to the stars

TikTok could never make me laugh like vine does

It’s a bummer that one of the most popular versions of this post is where a dude removed the original caption - thus removing the link for part two

every time you get called a slur on twitter its from this account

This Pi Day, don’t be afraid to start arguments with friends over what constitutes a pie.

women who cook four pounds of pasta by accident are valid

now listen to me young man, i am talking directly into your ear now. i need you to do me a favor. you will do this for me. i need you to go to gamestop, and i need you to ask the bastard working the counter if they have dragon quest xi s echoes of an elusive age definitive edition on the nintendo switch. if you come back empty handed youll be in big trouble mister. you will never see the light of day.

I love how irrelevant tumblr is. like no celebrities on here, no colleagues or family on here, no one’s famous off tumblr or making money, tbh no ones even updating the site like is there even any staff? who knows? it’s bliss

Seal - Kiss From A Rose

Seal II (1994)

seal-kiss_from_a_rose.mid