Posted on 02/24/2009 4:31:17 AM PST by Kaslin
Actually, I live next door to the HOA president and his wife says if things get real bad, the chicken rules are GONE. Most of the other rules are already unenforced.
There are subdivisions like that around here, but mine is not one of them. Of course, if the homeowners voted to raise livestock, then the bylaws could be amended.
Our bylaws are written so that the vote has to be 3/4 of the homeowners plus one to change anything. There are 360 houses. Ninety of them are owned by one man, and he rents it out as subsidized housing for a tax break. Even if we could get every other homeowner on board for anything, that ONE MAN has veto power. This makes the houses virtually unsaleable and the neighborhood is becoming rental property. Those ninety houses were not there when I bought in - the grading was just starting, and the realtor showed me the plat with the tennis courts, community center and swimming pool clearly marked. Those amenities never materialized, we got the SH instead and all the problems that go with it. NOT a happy camper.
Well, that stinks. Although it won’t seem like much if you have to start raising chickens and turnips in the yard. We have about 275 houses, and a preponderance of resident owners.
bttt
Add this to your list: people didn’t feel as poor because everyone around them was poor. My mother (born in the 1940s) talks about this. They had nothing, but no one else did either, so they didn’t really feel bad.
Never in all of history do we have visions of ‘wealth’ thrown at us constantly via the media. Many people feel poor, even if we are not.
Count me in there. I wouldn't have a clue, and I live in a suburb.
I live in a suburb, too. We have lots of Boy Scouts camp equipment, so we could at least cook what’s in our freezer, but if we woke up tomorrow in 1920’s conditions, it would get difficult very quickly.
My grandmother went from wealth to pennies during the last go round. The adjustment was hard (running water and power to an outhouse), but they did it and recouped.
First trick is to decide to survive. Most people in such situations collapse mentally, and then perish. My grandpa lived in a rail road car, my other grandparents as hired labor on local farms.
As to taxes and such, good luck enforcing them.
That's really a key - and that's what seems to be missing when people say, "Oh, you can't get a job, $10 an hour isn't enough, etc." $10 an hour wouldn't support my family (11 people), but if it put one's days food on the table, as opposed to having nothing, you bet we'd take it. A family in my Girl Scout troop has been unemployed for three months, and the father is collecting scrap metal and selling it to dealers all over the area.
One of my friends at church was very rich in Spain before the socialist government took over: she was a professional musician, and her husband was a surgeon. They ended up with nothing, living in a one-bedroom apartment in suburban Charlotte, where our pastor had paid the deposit and given them a used car. She told me, "I've had everything, and now I have nothing but my faith and my family and friends. Every day I wake up alive (she's in her late 70s) is a gift."
Come to KY.
After the last ice storm and 600K without power we have a couple of decades of free firewood waiting for someone to cut and haul.
My mother (born in 1921) did feel poor, because she said that they were surrounded by images of wealth in the movies and newspapers. Hollywood stars were very glamorous and their lives were often photographed, just as they are today. Movies showed Great Gatsby-like mansions of unbelievable opulence, beautiful cars, women wearing satin, pearls, and furs.
The difference is that no one they saw regularly in their own lives was like this. It just seemed as much of a fantasy as Star Wars is to us. So there was little resentment among ordinary working Americans. All they aspired to during the Depression was food, clothing, a place to live, and maybe someday a radio. A young couple newly married would try to rent a room rather than buy a $500,000 house.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.