One of these things is not like the other
When I first moved to Thayer Avenue, I heard a couple of people mutter under their breath about about an unkept house down the street. Not until I started walking back and forth to the park did I realize exactly what they were talking about.
Case in point: Unfortunately I didn’t see most of this while they were doing the God-awful things they were doing, but let’s see if we can break it down for the neighborhood.
1. The “nice” part of the fence is supposed to face the street: I started with this one because it’s the most obvious, but I’m not sure where to begin. Did they know they were doing it wrong? Do they just want to see the smooth side of the fence for themselves? Do they not care? Are they idiots? Perhaps all of the above. It’d be sort of amusing to go in the middle of the night and turn the fence around if it wasn’t so much work that I didn’t want to do for someone else. A quick search on the interweb reveals a cadre of cities and counties that mandate the “aesthetically pleasing” side of the fence face outward, including places like: Westfield, NJ; St. Clair Shores, MI; and Lower Providence Township, PA. I can’t seem to find anything online about MoCo restrictions, but I will continue to look.
2. If it’s dead, bury it: Planting shrubbery is nice and all for landscaping, but if it dies, for the love of God, chop it down with a herring or something. Perhaps they don’t quite understand the meaning of the word “evergreen.”
3. Beware of dog: I’ve never seen a dog there, but I’d wager that would he bite me in the arse if I tried to sneak in and turn their fence around one night. And that “shrubbery” you see there under the sign? Waist-high weeds. Just like the rest of the yard.
And the complaints certainly don’t stop there. Peeling paint that is sure to be lead-based (which is illegal if you’re renting it out, I believe), pieces of plywood to fill in the gaps in the fence, broken downspouts, multicolored siding… did I mention the fence is backwards?
If anyone has any insight into MoCo property laws and statutes, please holler. In the meantime, I may take the long way to the park. And for those who want to go heckle or gawk, it would be rude of me to tell you which intersection it’s at. You’ll have to figure that one out for yourselves.
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Maybe the fence is because they were tired of looking at the Marine Corps flag across the street.
These folks are so gonna egg the pimp sled.
I agree, the property is tacky, especially since the house itself has a lot of charm but has been marred by all of the god-awful trappings.
On the other hand, I prefer to live on a street where property owners are free to make bad aesthetic choices (in my judgement) than in one of those communities where eveeryone has to abide by these silly codes for what shade of color you can paint the exterior of your house and what shape your mail box can be. I’ll take tacky over little boxes made of ticky-tacky, and I don’t think that these type of aesthetic blemishes are bringing down neighborhood property values.
What I do consider worth fighting over is infill development that is out of character with the surrounding properties (ie, owners that tear down older houses and build enormous new ones that tower over the neighboring houses). There is a widespread debate over this type of development and I think the county is considering some added restrictions for the height and footprint of these new houses, but I don’t know the details.
Whenever I hear about neighborhood restrictions, I think of the X-Files episode where Mulder and Scully posed as a couple in a neighborhood with a Nazi-like homeowners association rules. And that’s never any good.
I suppose you’re right. There were houses in our old neighborhood near Dennis Ave that defied the laws of physics (and the County) with what they were building. I think part of my issue is that it’s difficult to foster a community atmosphere when people cordon themselves off like that.
As for new monster houses that blot out the sun, I have a bad feeling that one of those is brewing near me, down near the end of Easley St. Go take a look sometime at the newly laid foundation. That thing’s going to be HUGE.
I know this is bad and I don’t have to gaze at it unless I come to visit my children and grandchildren. You should see what I have to put up with in the upper middle class neighborhood that I live in. There is a PINK house! I have seen a backwards fence before but not in the city limits of any city. There’s got to be a rule against tacky!
Little pink houses for you and me…
There’s dark purple house on Carrol Avenue in Takoma.
If anyone’s looking for an example of a completely god-awful fill-in house project, check out the ongoing project at McMillan and Holman, near Forest Glen. I’ve been meaning to take a picture and circulate it for quite some time.
And I may be wrong, but doesn’t the house on the southwest corner of 16th St and Second Ave also have a bass-ackwards fence with a “Beware of Dog” sign?
Is that the one that’s been under construction forever and used to have the high pointy roof? I used to live on Dennis and we’d see one as we went through the neighborhood. I’d have slapped an injunction on them.
Must investigate the rampant fence abuse in the neighborhood…
I am so glad to find this blog! That house on the corner of Thayer and Houston aggrivates me daily! I have been living here long enough to remember when the house was nice. I watched it go up for sale a few years ago, and then I remember watching that tacky backward fence go up… all the while thinking “What are these people DOING?” I have also seen the NUMEROUS people that seem to live or frequent that house. The other day, I noticed some of the siding falling off from the windows upstairs, and the windows borded up downstairs. What are they doing in there that they have that fence AND they’ve boarded up the windows? geeze.
Did you also notice the “driveway” in the back (when the fence is open, next to the “beware of dog” sign) that goes the entire length of the yard?
It’s all very shady.
I often wonder what the previous owner would think if he/she were to see what’s become of their old home. What a shame. It is a true eyesore.
p.s. Excellent X-Files reference! However, I’ll take a set of spookey rules over spookey-looking houses! (haha! Joking).
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