Our House- In the Middle of this Unpaved Street

If I may, I would like to write a parody of the great song, "The Long and Winding Road," written by Lennon/McCartney:

The short and bumpy road

That leads to my door

Will never be paved

I've seen this mess before

It always leads me to tears

Pave the road some more!

If you can't sing these lyrics this to the tune, please check it out (not available on iTunes) and try again...

I have been thinking that I haven't had much to write about lately. I wasn't sure what to do. I knew it had been a while, but nothing was coming to mind... Therefore, I have our neighborhood builder to thank for this post:

This is my newly paved street. Beautiful, isn't it? By beautiful, I mean reprehensible. I left the house after lunch to return to work and within hours my street went from a horrible work in progress that has lasted for the past 4 years to this mess. I didn't think it could get any worse than this. I guess this is what we get after putting up with a construction throughway for the past 4 years. It's like the guys didn't even try to do it correctly and only finished part of the street. Instead, they arbitrarily paved what they felt like paving and called it a day. The best part is that it was so poorly done, that huge rocks are being tossed all over the sides and undercarriage of each vehicle passing by.

Of course, this is just the norm for what we get in paying our homeowner's association fees. Each house pays in $250 each year and we have dead trees along side the medians, a field that has grown taller than my privacy fence behind me, and this for a roadway to show for it. Not an inviting look if you want to sell houses in the back of the neighborhood if you ask me.

We have seen this before- one day that they were digging up our ornate black mailboxes. With only about 24 houses in our subdivision at the time, I came home from work one lunch to see a group of workers digging up our beautiful black iron mailboxes. These mailboxes were wonderful and really dressed up the neighborhood to give it a very dignified look. To make matters worse, the were replacing them by inserting a cheap standard mailbox on a thin black pole. They began to come up to my mailbox and I advised them to stay off my property or I would call the police. If needed I would file an injunction to prohibit them form changing the mailboxes. I immediately contacted the homeowner's association and advised them to stop until we could come to an agreement to this problem. The builders' argument was that the Post Office were classifying these mailboxes as substandard and would have to be replaced. I countered by stating that I bought the house and by doing so, paid for that specific mailbox. Furthermore, there were several other neighborhoods that had the same mailbox and they were not losing their for the same reason. I rallied the neighbors together to raise the issue to the association as a community. We came to an agreement that they would brick each mailbox to coordinate with the brick on each home. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the builder did not have enough money allocated to purchase the same mailboxes for the entire neighborhood and decided to go a cheaper route. That was the first sign of things to come.

Another example is the first time the builders dug up a water main in the middle of the street several times over the past 4 years. Each time, the road has been unnavigable for several days. Once completed, they pour tons of gravel rock into the hole and leave it that way for months. Finally, they pave the patch, only to dig it up again and again.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that this episode will be any different than the previous. Hopefully, the neighborhood will rally again if necessary. If I have to, I will beat the pavement in order to have them finish the pavement...