Hi Lemmy, My HOA sent out a email saying dogs are no longer allowed on any grass in common areas or front yards including grass between sidewalk and curb which is… everywhere except our own tiny backyards. The reasoning is some dog urine effected dead spots. Honestly I didn’t even notice them, it’s 95° here and all the grass looks sad.
It’s a walking town and we are not a gated community, non-residents walk their dogs here all the time, so this rule can only punish those who live here and has no ability to effect others.
Anyway, this seems like a ‘we have tried nothing and we are all out of ideas!’ moment so I wanted to see if anyone here had any suggestions I can pass on to maintain a “good” curb appeal ground cover-wise while allowing dogs to do normal dog stuff.
I can converse with the HOA board in good faith, but this rule is basically banning dogs from the neighborhood - which I super did not sign up for.
Pertainent info: PA, USA - Town Home style homes - small central common grass - owned for 8y.
Edit: it seems like people may have glossed over the question part and skipped straight to HOA bashing (which is warranted at times!) so I will rephrase:
What ground covering or neighborhood solutions to similar (perceived) issues have other communities employed?
I’m of the opinion that more often than not, dog owners suck for everyone around them. They typically suck so much, that dog owners don’t often even like other dog owners. But the problem is that the individual dog owner can’t see that they themselves probably suck.
So, I personally find strict rules about their impact on a neighborhood agreeable.
Interesting perspective. Other than being mad that dogs exist and inconsistent grass color I can’t imagine other slights dog owners are applying to the neighborhood. Maybe barking? But that has never really been a issue here, to my knowledge.
Constant barking, dog crap on my lawn because the dog owner doesn’t want to deal with it on their lawn, dog running into the middle of the street and nearly getting hit, and my personal favorite, chasing children and trying to bite them.
Sounds like you have a problem with extremely irresponsible people who happen to have dogs.
Sadly many people who own dogs fall into that category.
I think we can just say “many people fall into that category”.
You’re not wrong, but I’d offer a slightly more generalized version: People suck.
There’s a forest near my house that has a public trail network and it’s explicitly marked as an on-leash area at every point of entrance. About 90% of dog owners seem to think they’re the exception to the rule. 20% immediately leash their dog when they come across other people, 30% have aggressive dogs that the owners don’t seem capable of or interested in controlling, and the rest are somewhere between the two.
Maybe it’s a localized phenomenon, but it’s telling that most of them think the rules shouldn’t apply to themselves.
(And before anyone says I’m biased, I like dogs!)