If It Ain’t Pretty, Don’t Put It on the Front Porch

Another notice posted to the front door yesterday. This one detailing new rules and regulations re patios and balconies.

I can understand that if it ain’t pretty, don’t put it on windows, balconies or patios, but “muted colors … no larger than 7 ft … no more than three plants … no more than 5 gallons each”?

I vaguely recall a horror movie about a family having moved into a community where, unbeknownst to them, individuality was not permitted. Everyone was surreptitiously spied upon and, should the family be observed making changes or additions to the property, a committee appeared at their door for a “friendly chat” with threatening undertones. Failure to comply with the subject matter of said chat, so that everything in the community could maintain an exact precise sameness, resulted in a beast rising out of the ground, devouring the offending family.

When I look back at first the 90 plus healthy trees this management group slaughtered when they took over latter part of 2012; then the decimation of beautiful rose bushes and other well-maintained personal touches to the little patches of dirt in front of individual units, I see a correlation between what appears to be Nurse Ratched’s determination to turn this place into that same kind of exact precise sameness demanded by the beast's minions.

Not wanting to sit looking at bare and almost bare dirt, as the plants management put in after didn’t seem to live long, or look near as nice, the residents, who did not opt to move out, turned to potted plants on patios.

It was just a few months ago when management removed ALL the water spigots so residents could no longer attach hoses to water those patio plants.

Not to be outdone, some residents opted to go back to using watering cans. Other residents, like the woman beneath me, who says carrying the heavy cans of water, from sink to patio, was too hard on her back, decided to clear the patio of plants altogether and began making plans to relocate to one of the two new complexes being built, one in Fontana, another in Redlands.

So now, in order to further her insane plan of exact precise sameness, Nurse Ratched has come up with “no more than three plants … no more than 5 gallons each”.

Inasmuch as she only wants patio umbrellas in “muted colors … no larger than 7 ft”, I’m thinking her next move will be specifying what each of the three plants shall be.

We absolutely will be losing more of the nicer tenants to newer complexes, opening up the door for Nurse Ratched to fill vacancies with more of the shady bringers of trouble types.

I don’t even know what it means “caps of the patio or balcony” and what are these “common areas”? I’m guessing that means the residents no longer have control over the Community Garden, which the residents themselves created, maintained and had certified as a Wildlife Habitat.

Come to think of it, I’ve not seen anyone working in the Community Garden for some time. Probably with the thievery of plants, gnomes, bird houses, etc., and the loss of a spigot for the water hose, they feel defeated and have finally given up.

So that’s the latest, here at everything the sameville. Inasmuch as some of the residents have patios with walls of plants UPTOHERE, I hope no monster rises from the ground.

“Valued resident” my arse.