You can have a beautifully maintained property and community without the bureaucratic nonsense. Here's a picture of my house I took just last week. Note, no HOA. BTW, we are homesteaders. You don't see the stuff in the backyard in this picture like the chicken coop and raised garden beds. We're soon to have 4 peach trees on the right side of the front lawn in this picture. My property appraised at $285,000 last year, over $30,000 higher than the average HOA 2-story house in my county on their little 0.25 acre lots. (central South Carolina)
If my house was in my MIL's HOA, there would be 3 violations from this picture alone.
1. Flagpole >15 ft tall.
2. Hedges partially blocking windows.
3. Political sign in front yard.
My property extends a little into the woodline behind the house. I'm inquiring about buying the 3 acres of woods behind there to build a shooting range.
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What is the big deal with someone keeping their RV on their property? Seriously? I do not understand the upset over that, whatsoever. So long as it's not a 40 year old broke down Winnebago that hasn't moved in 10 years, has 2 flat tires, bunch of visible rust, windows broken out, etc... you know, trashy... why do people care? Serious question there. A few people in my neck of the woods have RVs in their driveway, not blocking their garage or any part of their house, and not harming anyone else. It doesn't even cross my mind of it being a bad thing somehow.
Same goes for a boat. If it's a decent shape and not just a rusting hunk of scrap, why do people care?
My little community is 28 houses spread out a bit along 3 criss-crossing roads. We also have a community pool that stays clean and maintained.
We have a mutual respect for each other in the neighborhood. We post in the community Facebook group weekly. We have community gatherings about once every 3 months with a potluck dinner, trivia, drinking around a fire, live music, etc... very informal. We rotate who hosts it.
Everybody respects and supports everybody else. We provide eggs, someone else sells goat milk and soaps from their homestead, we have a woodworker, a plumber, and an electrician who help anybody out when issues arise. One elderly couple lost a part of their roof in a storm last year, and several of us from the neighborhood lifted a hand in off-time to repair it for them. Again, no HOA. Just decent people being decent people without the overzealous dictatorship.
I also frequently smoke meats in my driveway. It's a big wood fire smoker that I don't like using on my wooden back porch or grass so I roll it out to the driveway on the asphalt. On those days, I will usually be messing around in my shop with the bay door open, music playing, dogs running around, etc... nobody cares.