Taking Umbrage - and packing it away again

 

          I sat down this afternoon all fired up to sent a huffy note to the property manager of our condo complex. I have nothing against him, and in fact am very glad he’s ours, but My Guy and I had received a letter yesterday regarding “Home Owner Plant Bed Maintenance.”

          As I’ve written before, the various units here are anything but uniform when it comes to flower beds. The ones in front are maintained by our landscaping company, but many units have areas where we can plant at our own discretion – up to a point.

The previous owners of our unit were gardeners, so I have a big side bed, and two others in the back. Over the past seven years I’ve enjoyed putting my own stamp on them.

          But then came this letter. The problem is I don’t know what the problem is.

Which of the rules am I playing fast and loose with? The letter never specified.

·         Plant beds must not extend more than 6 feet from foundation.

·         Plantings can’t exceed 6 feet in height.

·         Beds must be at least 6 inches from foundation

·         Plants cannot obscure windows

I think I’m okay on the distance from foundation rule, but I’ve got this big guy:

And yes, in the summer the black-eyed Susans are in front of the basement window.

And yes, some things are a bit close to the foundation. (That's our property to the left of the drain spout; the neighbors' area could use a little tidying.)

          I decided to skip the huffy note since, as you can see, I’ve already done much of my fall clearing-out, so anything too close to the foundation or in front of the window are gone. And maybe I’ll give the tall skinny guy a haircut to be on the safe side.

          I wonder if they’d sent out these letters at this time of year knowing that when the compliance deadline of October 31 rolls around everything will likely be gone anyway.