The Power of the POA

I grew up in a quiet little neighborhood called “Cedarcroft”, which is an Indian word for “where the forest meets the shore”. (Note to readers: after this ran in the paper today, I received an email from some dope who told me that Cedarcroft is not an Indian word. Well, the sign had a big Indian on it and all of our street names were Indian - Shawnee, Lenape, Apache, Chocktaw, etc... forgive me for trying to use a childhood memory.) Ahem. In our little slice of heaven the roads were built around the trees – one road was split right down the middle by a tree that was easily over 100 years old. Many of the properties were right on the river where we had our own little (and I mean teeny) beach club, club house and slips for twenty or so boats.

As I think back to our neighborhood, most people kept their yards and homes looking pretty nice with the exception of one. Enter: The “Junk Man” who lived a few houses away from us. The Junk Man earned his name for sure. I can’t pinpoint one specific contributing factor but maybe it was the newspapers that were piled high in the back seat of his 1977 Impala, maybe it was the boxes and newspapers piled high and visible through each window of his house, maybe it was the dirt yard, or the lawn ornaments (i.e. garbage). Either way – he was the Junk Man. To this day I still don’t know his real name. In fact, I called my Mom while I was writing this and she couldn’t recall his name either, she said, “I don’t know, he was just the Junk Man.” Then she tried to soften it by saying, “actually Cour, he could be called the original recycler.” That was nice of her, but I know the truth … even the adults talked about the Junk Man. Today he would be a POA’s nightmare.

Anywho, my point (that I always get to eventually) is that until we moved here the concept of the Property Owners Association was foreign to me. And, I am still getting used to it. We just went through the pains of installing a wood picket fence. Well, we had someone install it, but we did the painting - white (three excruciating coats in the 90 degree heat) – the only color allowed by our POA.

POA’s are, by design, intended to provide community maintenance and in many cases they exist to ensure that everyone keeps their property just so. They keep the grass green, the pink flamingos at a minimum, plastic pools obsolete, lawn furniture fashionable, on-street parking in check (well, not in our neighborhood), and satellite dishes out of sight.

I don’t want to debate the value of a POA. Actually, yes I do. I understand their purpose and I am certainly the first person to make a comment about a dead lawn or a Sponge Bob Square Pants flag flying high, but maybe it needs to be said … is the power of the POA taking it too far?

If we all live in neighborhoods that look exactly the same, with the same houses, same landscapes, same fences, same patios, same flags, and same color combinations – we might as well be living on the set of the Truman Show or Pleasantville.

Pretty soon we’ll all be dressing alike, mowing our lawns in synch on Saturday mornings, flipping burgers on the grill in red checked aprons on Sunday afternoons, and frolicking in
dog-doo-free backyards. Ah, what a life!