As I look at local real estate listings it is disheartening to see that homes on streets such as Thimbleberry are selling for more than those on Arrowwood. It is my assumption that it is directly related to the upkeep and maintainence of the homes. Arrowwood seems to be in decline; homes need painting, unmowed lawns, unfinished repairs, paint of all colors, vehicles with no plates etc... When talking to others about this situtation it has been brought to my attention that other home owners associations are much more stringent than the Arrowwood governing body. I am curious if anyone else is interested in having some revamping of our system and how lax things appear to be. I try to maintain my home and would like to get the return on it that others are able to.

Nope, I wouldn't be interested. I lived through the early days of the neighborhood associations when they were run by Mr. Mackey. He had this obnoxious little man named Barney (as I recall) who would issue a judgement for the slightest "offense." More recently, as indicated by the comments from about a year ago regarding the Ermine Lair Association, you'll notice that homeowners there were penalized for installing (be still my heart) WHITE replacement windows. I prefer to live in a neighborhood than a youth camp for people who don't get enough fiber in their diets.

Barney....

Now there's a name I haven't cursed in a long time. My favorite was the way he would just make up rules and then use our neighborhood fees to pay for the laywer to defend his position against the neighborhood. So that no matter how wrong he was, you essentially had to pay your lawyer to defend you while paying his laywer to attack you. :-)

At any rate, I hate to say it, as many times as I have had to fight w/ my neighborhood association over stupid stuff (I find keeping paperwork to be critical), it does help maintain the neighborhood and I'd rather have one than not. I think the bigger problem is that not everyone moving in even has a clue about their obligations because sellers often neglect to bring up the rules.

Good luck to you on Arrowwood.

I'm grateful for the association also. The board members do a fine job but remain nearly invisable. They've kept the medians looking lovely; they're fighting for reasonable accomodation for home owners situated nearly on top of the new roundabout. Life on Arrowwod is just fine, and certainly much better with the end of the reign of Barney. Be well, EB.

Maybe I wasn't clear in my original post. All I am interested in is half as much attention given to the exterior of homes (much needed paint, garage doors falling off, vehicles without plates, lawns not mowed for entire summers, unfinished renovations) as is given to the median areas. I think that it is possible to have a "happy medium" without your concerns of a "Barney" situation returning.

I agree with you,Schuyler. My suggestion is to contact the president of the FWW Assn. and he will write a letter to the homeowner. The board will handle the complaint. At the last meeting I attended in November they said they would take care of any problems such as you stated but they have to be contacted.

I was reading this discussion and found it quite interesting. being a newer resident of The Forest. I think it is good to have an Assoc. but also I don't want too many things dictated to us and too rigid rules. We did request approval from the Assoc. when we put in improvemnts to the house we bought. They approved. I do hate slovenly neighborhoods and junk collectors. The Association should be protecing us from that kind of thing.