This states explicitly the error that is implicit in many posts on this thread. In reality, there are intermediate points on this spectrum. E.g., I may buy a house in an association that limits my (and everybody else's) choices about the color of paint, what I can have in my yard, etc. This is a freely bargained contractual relationship that balances my freedom and my neighbors' in a way I think best for me. Or, I may decide to move to a town with voter-approved restrictive zoning rather than one without, because I do not wish to have a strip mall spring up next door. Property values in the two towns reflect these conditions. This is not so much a direct contractual bargain as an implicit one, but binding all the same.
I guess the lady in this case lives in a town that has some rules. We can all empathize with her plight, but her neighbors who chose to live in a town with rules and paid the market price to do so are entitled to have the rules followed.
When I moved to Mahwah 25 years ago these "rules" did not exist in our town. I agree that if people want to do the "ultra rigid" anal retentive thing that they should buy into communities that have restrictive deeds and covenants.
We moved to Mahwah largely because it was the only "non-yuppie" town in the area. As a matter of fact the realtor referred to it as the "chicken farmer" town.
The property at the time was heavily wooded but also extremely overgrown with trumpet vines- neither the garage nor the shed could even be seen under the vines. It took a great deal of work, but we hacked them all away, and I continue to have to do so every single year because they are extremely invasive.I have planted dozens of fruit trees, bulbs, flowers, shrubs, etc. we painted the house, and have been slowly but steadily making improvements.
They people who are in power now run the town like Nazis- they laugh at you if you talk about your rights. As far as they are concerned- only they have the power to "confer" rights. They have been getting away with abusing people for so long that they no longer have any sense of decency- if they in fact ever did.
Once I find someone to help me set up a web site I will get the truth out there. I am not alone in this- it breaks my heart when I think of the poor elderly widows that they harass continously. You see they want to grab the land for their cronies- the developers.
How did I manage to live peacefully-zero problems in this town for twenty years, and as soon as my husband leaves I can do no right???