Exactly! I thought the citizens of my neighborhood get to vote on the rules, but she said nothing like that too me so I'm not sure. Garages are usually meant to store stuff, like they store your CARS! I can't believe her neighbor actually called and reported that, what a nazi!

"It depreciates property value if everything isn't tidy and in its place." What a bunch of crap. We have some nasty neighbors (which I'm convinced are paid by the HOA or something) who always call the HOA to "tattle" on us and all the neighbors.

We live in a subdivision with an HOA that requires us to keep our trash in the garage. Its not that bad. I make sure everything is bagged up tightly in put the trash bins the city provides, and I set them at the end of the garage by the door so it not near the door to the house. Our trash is picked up on Monday's, and we don't have much trash during the week but the weekend is another story. I don't think I would every live in a neighborhood that does not have a HOA, IMO you have those few neighbors that could careless about there house and yard and need to be forced to care. I had to complian to the HOA about the my next door neighbors because they were not maintianing their yard, they have a lawn guy now.

I would think that you could start with your county health department. they should be able to tell you what is acceptable or not with just a phone call. then you won't have to mess with tracking down the right number for the FDA.

OK I get where you are coming from because our HOA is stupid. We were the first to move in (new construction) so 2 years later and we JUST got control and before that the builder had control and there was a crappy management company which we just FIRED. Anyway, you don't even want me to go into all the stupid rules. Some lady actually knocked on our door to ask us to remove our satellite dish because she thought it was over the size limit. It's Dish Network, which is an 18x20 dish. She said the limit is 18 inches. My husband gave her a tape measure and told her she was welcome to crawl onto the roof and measure it....

I also have been here 2 years and 1/3 of my garden is dirt because they installed dead plants that I spent a summer trying to revive and they refuse to replace - oh but wait - I'm not allowed to plant anything, it's in the covenants. So they won't replace it yet I get fined if I plant something. They also said that our completely dead sod that they left on a pallet for 2 days before installing is dead because of our dog. Yeah. In a part of the lawn he never goes in. And he's 10 pounds. What about everyone else on the block who does not have a dog - what are you going to blame it on there?

So my husband joins the board so we can fix some of this stupid stuff and what happens? One guy wants to make their top priority getting our freaking addresses changed from ABCD to just numbers because he thinks it sounds like we live in apartments. Guess what - he knew what his address would be when we bought his house. Oh and what else? OH, yeah.. YOU CAN'T DO THAT! The freaking post office won't let you. Moron. :mad: What a waste of time.

Anyway my constructive advice is this: We got a "hopper" (?) from Waste Management. I "rent" it for $30 a year and it's huge and green and has a big heavy lid. Basically it only smells when I open it to put a bag in it, and I have it right next to our inside door to our garage so I don't have to put my shoes on to take out the trash. Some weeks hubby forgets to put the trash out (not my job!) and it sits an extra week and it only gets a little stinky. WAAAY better than those flimsy rubbermaid ones. We got this big thing because it's windy here and twice we lost our trash cans and our lids kept getting run over by cars. This thing could survive a tornado. It's as tall as me and has like 12" all terrain wheels. I just tie up all the bags really tight and double bag Loki's poop and it keeps the smell inside pretty well. I just hold my breath when I open it :D So anyway, that was our solution.

I see your in the burbs too, where do you live at?
I would be pist if our grass and plants were dying. Actually right now some plants are dying, but I think that's because of the fall. If they stay dead in the summer I will complain. We also got like a balloon (popped) in a plant, do you think the landscapers took it out? Nope. I could, but it's not my job, I'm paying THEM for a reason! Also, you can't even see the balloon unless you look for it.

Do you live in a townhouse? We can't plant either, but because we live in a townhome.

We also got a big garbage can that we rent from Waste Management. But the association has to understand that it can still smell! Unless it's airtight, it can smell. I should tell our association bitch to buy me an airtight garbage can.

I'm in Sugar Grove. Just west of Aurora. There's not much here yet but it's coming. We'll be the next Naperville. But yeah, we live in a townhome. We are all end units (they are like duplexes back to back) so it's pretty cool but we still share driveways and stuff.

The plant thing is stupid. They do a terrible job keeping things up. We had this weed that was HUGE and really obvious and they left it there for weeks. Finally they cut off the top (you have to PULL weeds) and left it sitting there. I thought having a landscaper would be cool but I don't like having no freedom with the garden if they aren't even going to take care of it. Don't even get me started on how they plow the snow... or rather DON'T plow the snow and then my husband ends of shoveling the entire HUGE shared driveway because no one else helps..... We are happy to do our retired neighbor's, but seriously our other neighbors are never home so we have to do it even though we supposedly PAY for plowing service!

I would make the association knock $$ off my bill if I had to do WHAT THEY are supposed to do! My dad owns his own landscaping business, so if we didn't have a landscaper my bf would cut the grass and do maintenance, but all larger projects my dad would guide us. Kinda sucks now that we gotta pay for landscaping, plus they wait forever to cut the grass! Were waiting to see how it is with the snow. My boyfriend leaves at like 5:30, I leave at 6, so our association better pray to God, or whomever they believe the higher power is, that my driveway and streets are plowed.

How can someone work for landscaping and think you can just cut weeds? Isn't that like one of the first rules, and common sense? What idiots!

Who was your builder if you don't mind me asking? I know what style of townhomes your talking about. We checked out soo many new-constructions before we contracted here.