life in a subdivision (rolling eyes)

we pay a homeowner's association fee every quarter. for what? apparently the rate increase has provided the necessary funds for someone from the management company to patrol the neighborhood and make sure all the petty rules are being followed. then they proceed to waste money by sending not just one letter, but two letters which state the same thing informing us that we'll be fined if we don't take down our christmas lights (our sole strand of icicle lights, at that) by the 16th.

i took down our lighted snowman earlier this week. hubby was planning on taking down the lights this weekend. in fact, we were talking about it on our ride home from shopping.
we were greeted by two letters in the mailbox, written on the the 10th, reminding us that our lights were not down and according to neighborhood ordinances, should have been. the letters were mailed on the 11th. today is the 12th.

really, people. the builder/developer is advertising street lights and sidewalks in the new phase of their neighborhood where it took us FOUR YEARS to get a retaining wall put in when they screwed up our lot, and 1/5 of the neighborhood has working streetlights, and another 1/5th (including our street) has lamp posts without electricity. not to mention the entryway lights which are currently not working, the trees/medians in need of care. they have the nerve to tell us that our lights were still up on the day they were suppose to be removed, when we have been waiting years for REAL problems to be addressed. oh, they must have patrolled the hood at midnight, they weren't really jumping the gun.

anyway, just a little vent on life in suburbia. guess we signed up for this when we bought an almost-all brick house, or something.