While I disagree with an HOA personally, I DO understand the point. My next door neighbor has let his house fall completely apart. Currently, I don't really give a shit, it only really matters when I decide I want to sell my house. We all know I work at city hall. This guy is breaking SEVERAL ordinances and building codes. I could make a few calls and force him to clean up his property. I choose NOT to because I'm more interested in not pissing him off than I am with him making his house look nicer.

The previous owner and he had a feud going before we bought the house. The kind of feud where they were pointing lights in each others windows to to be irritating and the like. Only once did I call code enforcement to come out. My wife was letting the puppies out in the back yard to do their business and a rat ran across the back porch, closely followed by 8 babies. THAT I cannot abide. I did a little investigating and it turns out that 4 people had made complaints against him in the last year. The inspector came out to make him cut his grass, etc, and he talked his way out of it every time. The next day I got the mayor to come to my house with the director of code enforcement and had them both peek over my fence into my neighbor's back yard. The inspector that let it slide 4 times was written up, the neighbor cut his grass for the first time in YEARS (it took 4 guys a full day to do it, with a bushhog), and the rat problem has since disappeared. 3 years have gone by and he still keeps his grass cut now. All that being said, he has no idea who called on him, so we still get along fine.

I still get 1-2 tiles from his roof in my pool every week, but I can deal with that. I KNOW his house has termites, but I can live with that too, so long as I keep mine sprayed. Basically, It's kind of a live and let live with me, until it starts to affect me personally. As an added bonus, my grass always looks great, in comparison to his. I'll try and get some pictures if I can do it without him seeing me. ;8^)