We have a homeowners' association here where I live, there are 92 houses in the development, my house was built in 1974 during the second of four phases of construction, we bought the house about 20 years ago.  When we moved in, the monthly dues for the homeowners' association were about $150, they slowly creep up every so often and are now over $260 a month.  One of the rules is that abandoned vehicles on a homeowner's private property cannot be visible from the street, such as in the driveway, they are supposed to be behind closed garage doors.  So the county is supposed to take care of the problem on the public streets in front of houses and on side roads, alleys, common areas, etc.  The  homeowners' association "fines" anyone who has an abandoned vehicle visible on his/her property, but that's obviously ineffective or not done, because there are more than a dozen homes where it has been continuously violated for weeks or months (this is not new, it's been going on since I first moved in).  At the monthly meetings, I used to bring it up, the lip-service answer I got was that many homes are owned by people who live elsewhere, such as a few miles away, states away, some in foreign countries, and they rent out their homes to tenants.  Being absentee owners, they cannot be expected to compel their renters to follow CC&Rs that they (the renters) did not sign and have no legal responsibility to follow.  The association has no legally binding jurisdiction over renters.

  I have a philosophy as to how slums and ghettos are created; it starts with litter that never gets picked up, step two is the accumulation of several abandoned cars piling up for weeks on end, then it's graffiti on public property, when it's not addressed it then begins covering private property, the next step is burglaries and break-ins, and the last step is violent crime on residents, visitors, workers, etc.  Ignoring the smaller problems sends a message to the world: we don't care about this place, so you don't have to either, and that's how the problems increase, expand, and overcome.  Opportunists look for opportunities just like these that I've delineated here.  My intent when I bought this property was not to live in a slum or a ghetto, and I can't stand it that people around me seem comfortable with letting it happen.

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