Piss & Moan Table

That's what mine is. lug bolts is a good description instead of lug nuts. Luckily the wheel and tires are small and lightweight so lining them up isn't terrible. I'm getting it ready to sell.
 
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I wouldn't live in an HOA neighborhood if it were the last thing on the planet. S=(MC)^2 - Supidity equals Mindless Conformity to Meaningless Convention. HOAs come in two flavors, and two flavors ONLY: 1) Either they're a group of Nazis running little Germany, or 2) Completely ineffectual, won't enforce even the most basic of the rules - so why do they exist? I've dealt with both - moved out of the former, and had to threaten to sue the latter!
 
I wouldn't live in an HOA neighborhood if it were the last thing on the planet. S=(MC)^2 - Supidity equals Mindless Conformity to Meaningless Convention. HOAs come in two flavors, and two flavors ONLY: 1) Either they're a group of Nazis running little Germany, or 2) Completely ineffectual, won't enforce even the most basic of the rules - so why do they exist? I've dealt with both - moved out of the former, and had to threaten to sue the latter!

I've also dealt with both kinds. First was a cheaper home in a "community" with an extremely costly HOA. We figured it wasn't going to be our "forever home" so we'd save on the house and pay the monthly HOA until we were ready to move elsewhere. BIG MISTAKE. Every week we got a notice for some bullshit. Just old batshit crazy people with nothing but time on their hands to measure the length of my grass and watch when I put out my trash cans.

I currently live in your second flavor of HOA. It's $10/month and maintains the sign and bushes at the front of the street. I've lived here almost 2 years and literally never heard from them outside of monthly dues... and I'm totally fine with that.
 
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Would you say this post was motivated more by self right righteous judgement or by a humble compassion for your fellow human beings?

I think Nazi’s were fascists. I don’t think anything I place value on coincides with fascism.

I also find “if you don’t love it leave” one of the laziest talking points a person can use that offers no substance to a conversation and only furthers the polarization that is at the root of so many of our issues today.

Fun Fact... Nazis were Social Nats'.
Mussolini was the fascist.

Ya...Symantics.... but accurate.
 
I've also dealt with both kinds. First was a cheaper home in a "community" with an extremely costly HOA. We figured it wasn't going to be our "forever home" so we'd save on the house and pay the monthly HOA until we were ready to move elsewhere. BIG MISTAKE. Every week we got a notice for some bullshit. Just old batshit crazy people with nothing but time on their hands to measure the length of my grass and watch when I put out my trash cans.

I currently live in your second flavor of HOA. It's $10/month and maintains the sign and bushes at the front of the street. I've lived here almost 2 years and literally never heard from them outside of monthly dues... and I'm totally fine with that.
If that's all they're there to do, that's fine. We lived in a large condo complex. Our building was the ONLY one that didn't back onto a greenbelt, there was a parking lot behind us. There was a certain battered old truck that parked there, and its owner would come out and start it and let it warm up. On nice days, that meant it was filling our unit with noxious fumes.

I had words with the property manager, told her to enforce the rules and get this nonsense stopped (I'd already "discussed" it with the owner). She told me that "You can't control other people's behavior, all you're going to do is escalate the problem..."

That's when I went off on her. "I may look like a Santa Cruz Liberal, but let me assure you that I am not. We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way because I'm going 'ESCALATE' this until it stops. Now, if you're not going to enforce the rules, I'm going to the board. If they won't do anything about it, then I'm going to the police. You and I both know the police won't do anything about this, so then I'm going to consult an attorney - and I'm going to follow his advice. Which will probably mean suing both you and the board for non enforcement of the CC&Rs of this complex. What's it gonna be?".

It NEVER happened again.
 
I dealt with a HOA in my first home, bought a condo. I was 22 and did t know any better.

Lived second with n the end, next to a few guys that were retired and had nothing better to do than bitch about things. I became their target cause I worked shifts and came home at weird hours. This apparently pissed them off cause they could hear me come home, take a shower and eat and go to bed and try and sleep during the day.

anyway, we got a dog and my wife would take her out and let her do her thing. They took pics (before my wife cleaned up) and went to the board saying were leaving dog shit all over, which was a lie.

Instead of coming to investigate or even talk to me, I get a letter from the board saying they will issue me a fine if I don’t clean up after my dog.

I went to a board meeting which consists of older retired folks and confronted them. I had pictures of my own and demanded to see the pics they had as proof. They showed me and I saw pics of my wife in her robe with the dog.
I told them that I had HUGE issues with a couple of guys taking pictures of wife and this is not acceptable. Now I know the laws and they didn’t break them but I kindly informed them of what I do for a living and having perverts living next door will end poorly for the board and the idiots.

They didn’t send any fines.

I then realized that this would not end here. So, it came time for elections and I put my name in for president. I won.

The next door neighbors were so pissed they sold their unit the next month and moved.
That job sucked and I understand why nobody wanted to do it.

sold our place a year later at a nice profit and vowed to never live in one again. It’s not my thing.
 
Here’s one. I don’t have a computer. Wife has a few iPads but I hate holding them. I use my phone.

The damn autocorrect and my huge fingers make me sound like a illiterate moron. And that’s after I edit three times. 🧐

Sooo....fuck these little devices although I’d much rather have it then a laptop or desktop like the old days.
 
I think one source of issues with HOA's is when they're operated by a management company. People can complain about BS and be anonymous about it which, much like social media, lowers the threshold of what people will bitch about. I did live in one of those once and got a letter about some weeds being in this small patch of gravel that was separated from the rest of our lot by a sidewalk. I had assumed it wasn't our responsibility because the other pieces that were across the fence or sidewalk were maintained by the HOA.

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Apparently I was wrong. I took care of the weeds and never heard another thing about it.

On the other hand, the other 3 I've been a part of were locally run and managed by residents. There was of course some stupid politics and some issues like builders telling people they could get away with skirting the rules and then trouble arose when the committee made any attempt at enforcing it. But, knock on wood, I've never had a situation where I really wanted to do something that I couldn't do or was forced into something I didn't want to do. (I also carefully read the covenants of any house I'm considering purchasing to make sure i'll be able to do what I want to do, and if not, I just keep shopping.) I brought up HOA's about digging post holes but in reality, a t-post wire or a 6' stockade fence would look completely out of place in the neighborhood (my lot backs up to the 11th tee box...) and the HOA is what has made sure that after 40 years, this development is a place I wanted to buy a house in and property values are such that despite being low on a percentage basis, there is enough property tax revenue to adequately fund a state top-5 school district. Building my fence made me a bit extra sore for a couple of days, but in the end, I could probably sell in a year or two and walk away with a 6 figure profit whereas the places around here that are a complete free-for-all are going to stay flat until urban sprawl reaches far enough that a developer wants to buy up all the larger pieces to cram in 5 houses per acre.
 
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Not exactly HOA but city ordinance related.

Had a coworker who had 8 kids. The kids were in 4H and they had chickens as 4H projects and for eggs since 8 kids.

One day he gets a letter from the city saying he needed to get rid of said chickens as he was in violation of city ordinance. He had them well before the ordinance existed.

I told him to put a sign in his yard saying “You snitch, they die at 10am Saturday. Thanks asshole!!!”

Told him I’d come over we’d chop their heads off let them flop, dunk em, pluck em, singe them and butcher them in his front yard for all to see.

He wouldn’t do it and went to the city council instead, he got to keep a couple of them.
 
I just built a desktop for myself since my school year is looking to be mostly remote. I'm also using it for a lot of my larger data science projects and other random programming. Definitely can't beat a desktop for productivity. This one I just built is blazing fast due to the new hard drives you can buy for fairly cheap. If you do end up getting a desktop, building one yourself is way nicer than buying one from the store. Very easy afternoon project.

I haven't dealt with an HOA but I have dealt with apartment buildings. I just moved out of a luxury building in town. It was sure nice living there with a gym, pool deck, and other amenities, but dealing with the office was a pain in the neck. The first few months they just put random fees on my bill and refused to take them off, meaning my rent was more than I agreed too in the first place by a noticeable percentage. After I moved out, they sent me a bill for $9000 for "not notifying them 60 days in advance of moving out" even though they had leased my apartment to the next tenant 6 months before I moved out. I sent one strongly worded email and boom, $80 is my new bill. At least they didn't argue with me, but I wonder how many idiots would pay that without thinking.
 
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Not exactly HOA but city ordinance related.

Had a coworker who had 8 kids. The kids were in 4H and they had chickens as 4H projects and for eggs since 8 kids.

One day he gets a letter from the city saying he needed to get rid of said chickens as he was in violation of city ordinance. He had them well before the ordinance existed.

I told him to put a sign in his yard saying “You snitch, they die at 10am Saturday. Thanks asshole!!!”

Told him I’d come over we’d chop their heads off let them flop, dunk em, pluck em, singe them and butcher them in his front yard for all to see.

He wouldn’t do it and went to the city council instead, he got to keep a couple of them.

funny you bring up chickens. That's actually the example I was thinking of about builders closing deals by telling people they didn't have to follow the rules. Ours in particular was telling customers, including us, that we could have chickens as long as we kept them up next to the house or an outbuilding and didn't get a rooster.
 
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funny you bring up chickens. That's actually the example I was thinking of about builders closing deals by telling people they didn't have to follow the rules. Ours in particular was telling customers, including us, that we could have chickens as long as we kept them up next to the house or an outbuilding and didn't get a rooster.
Seems most places around me you can as long as you get permission first and yep, no roosters. Some places can be strict on coop design though.
 
I wouldn't live in an HOA neighborhood if it were the last thing on the planet. S=(MC)^2 - Supidity equals Mindless Conformity to Meaningless Convention. HOAs come in two flavors, and two flavors ONLY: 1) Either they're a group of Nazis running little Germany, or 2) Completely ineffectual, won't enforce even the most basic of the rules - so why do they exist? I've dealt with both - moved out of the former, and had to threaten to sue the latter!

man that's about as well said as something can be, said :ROFLMAO:. We live in a world where one wrong neighbor with literally zero contractual/political authority or power over you can make your life a living hell, I cannot fathom ceding even one scintilla of actual authority over to other people in the form of an HOA. We’ve got enough to contend with from real governing bodies like the fed, the state, the county, & the townships & so forth – provided we live where we want to live we can do little to nothing about those things, we can however choose to avoid adding another batch of micro managing douche nozzles to the list.
 
Then there's the flip side. Neighbors from Hell that lived behind me who played their damn music WAAAAY too loud day and nite. I was finally doing attorney research (attorneys do NOT like to take these kinds of cases) when the assholes moved out. I had talked to their landlord multiple times, and just called the cops every time it got above a certain level on the db meter I bought or went past 10 O'Clock.
 
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Then there's the flip side. Neighbors from Hell that lived behind me who played their damn music WAAAAY too loud day and nite. I was finally doing attorney research (attorneys do NOT like to take these kinds of cases) when the assholes moved out. I had talked to their landlord multiple times, and just called the cops every time it got above a certain level on the db meter I bought or went past 10 O'Clock.

The only perfect solution:

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Fricken, Fraken, Dipity, Doo, Dag, Nabit.

I found out what's causing the odd noise I heard the last day or so. A shock rubbing on my exhaust.

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But why would it do that? Found that out. I'm at work so I have no idea if the bolts backed out or broke or what, but it's sure not attached at the top anymore.

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I'll go out at lunch and look closer if I get time.
 
Stupid bolt head broke off. So either the bolt on the left wasn't tight and the right failed. Or the one on the right failed and it slipped out of the left, or some combination.

It definately broke just the head so I should be able to grab on to it and back out the treaded part. I put the shock on last month. It looks like a crack formed and got about 20% through the bolt. You can see it in the discoloration.

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Dick move on the shock bolt's part.
 
Thank all that's good and holy in life. Because today is supposed to be 98 F with a heat index slighly higher than hell's fireplace. So i did not need to fight the broken bolt. Just got enough grip.

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There's a cold front coming through. We're going from 98-100F today to 50-60F by Wednesday.

Scottsbluff out west is going from 103F to 28F with a chance of snow.

I'm moving when I retire.