[XBoxBoy]

[quote=Oni Koroshi]public education will benefit greatly which does affect all of us.[/quote]

God it must be great to be young and idealistic still… Man I remember those days…

[XBoxBoy]

You ain’t seen nothing yet. Democrats will have super-majorities in both houses of the California legislature after this election. Let the taxing and spending begin!!!

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=paramount]
Other than repairing the obvious, is there cause for concern from a health perspective (as opposed to a hypochondriac perspective)?[/quote]

Unfortunately yes. However the good news is that if you are not already suffering from mold issues you probably aren’t going to be too badly affected.

Own personal story: My wife and I rented a house in 2007 that had mold. Within a couple weeks my wife was having chronic chest pains and difficulty breathing. (Particularly at night) After a number of trips to the doctor we found she was allergic to mold. The doctor suggested she stay out of the house for a couple weeks see if things improved. Needless to say moving out of your house for a while is a logistics nightmare. She spent several weeks living at friends and hotels, gradually getting better while we broke the lease and found a new place to live. (Who would have known that you would get sick from a house?)

So a couple recommendations I have:
1) When cleaning up this mess, be sure to wear a respirator.
2) Remove all signs of mold. Don’t just get “most of it”
3) Fix any leakage of water from the shower to the floor.
4) Don’t allow anyone who has lots of allergies near this mess, and if you find yourself developing breathing problems, get away!
5) Consider hiring a mold expert to clean, dry out the area and make necessary repairs.

Hopes this helps,

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=no_such_reality]

It depends. If the owner didn’t even present to the jury I’d say yes. [/quote]

Apparently the owners submitted plans but they were not approved. I was not involved in discussions but I understand they were asked to modify the plans and basically refused. They are currently in the process of the remodel.

[quote=no_such_reality]
If the rejection is because he’s blocking views, I’d agree.
[/quote]

This is the issue. The remodel will encroach into the neighbors view. (Fortunately not mine though)

[quote=no_such_reality]
If the rejection is because someone thinks he’s building “too big” I’d say no.

If the rejection is because he isn’t incorporating enough ‘green’ technology I’d say no.

If the rejection was because the house IS too big and he’s encroaching on the sunlight space, air flow space and psychological distance of the neighbors, I’d say yes. But this get’s very subjective.[/quote]

No one is complaining about the size, or lack of green technology, or air flow.

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=SK in CV]

My point is, if this community is old, it’s possible that the CC&R’s have expired anyway. And just like in some condo HOA’s, it could be some old farts that just want to exercise power because they can. If it was me, and I wasn’t making any changes that any reasonable person could object to, i’d say screw em. The uncivilized ones are those making the demands.[/quote]

Just to clarify. CC&R’s are fully in effect, no question there. The current Architectural Jury was voted in about a year and a half ago. (Half of all the homes plus 1, in the neighborhood had to cast a vote in favor of each person who was seated.) This is clearly not a case of just a couple of old farts wanting to exercise power.

[XBoxBoy]

I believe that voting is run by the county, not the city. If you lived outside the county of San Diego but your polling place was in the county of San Diego, I would think that was weird.

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=svelte]We actually considered buying in a development like this – CC&Rs but no HOA. It even had an arch review board.

So before we purchased, I contacted the board and asked a hypothetical question: what would happen if someone built without arch review board permission?

The question was met with a deafening silence.

I took that to mean that, since the review board is staffed with volunteers and there are ZERO funds since there is not an HOA with monthly dues, there is nothing they could do.

An individual homeowner could likely sue the violator, but that homeowner would have to bear all costs associated with the lawsuit.[/quote]

While I threw out the question without much detail, curious to see what people would say, I think this is the situation. The only provision in the CC&R that allows the Architectural Jury to do anything is to record a document with the City Recorder stating that the owners are in violation of the CC&R by building without Jury approval. From what I can make of the wording of this section, (Good grief why do lawyers have to write in this style!) the only thing accomplished by this recorded document is it gives someone some ammo if they want to sue the offending homeowner.

In the end I think the case basically comes down to the homeowner saying, “hey I want to do this, I’ve got money, and if you want to litigate I’ll bury you in costs.” Since it’s unlikely the community will pony up the cash to fight this, my hunch is it’s a done deal.

The interesting thing is that for 50 some years no one has ever done this. They moved in knowing the rules and they worked with the Architectural Jury to find a solution. Now, this is all going to get thrown out the window. While I don’t really care too much about these things, it does seem to me as well… how do I put this…. uncivilized? What happened to old fashioned decorum? Does one really just tell your neighbors, “oh piss off.” I guess so.

XBoxBoy

[XBoxBoy]

This is a neighborhood in La Jolla. There is no HOA, only a set of CC&R’s that authorize the election of an Architectural Jury. (The main purpose of which is to keep people from building and blocking other people’s views) It is an older neighborhood, 1950s with mostly ramblers.

edit: I should mention that this is the first time anyone has flagrantly ignored the Architectural Jury. Many people have had to redo their plans and curb their expansion in order to get approval for their remodels. Now we’ve hit a point where basically the homeowner is say, “heck with you, sue me if you want.”

[XBoxBoy]

One of our neighbors was having some remodeling done, and since they only live at the house part time they had cameras install. Sure enough about a month after the cameras were installed, they had a bunch of flagstone stolen from their driveway one night. Guess who was on the camera? One of the neighbors! They approached the woman who was the thief and she denied it. But when they threatened to call the police and file charges she brought the stones back. People… what can you say!

[XBoxBoy]

I predict this law will have zero impact on the health of New Yorkers. Rates of obesity will not decline, nor will other health issues go away.

This will be no more effective than banning large bundles of toilet paper would be at stopping a cholera outbreak.

[XBoxBoy]

Mostly fiction.

Recently finished Hunger Games, and despite it being marketed as young adult, it was really good. Looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Liked Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke a lot.

Currently reading Steven King’s 11/22/63 which I like a good bit. First Steven King I’ve liked to be honest. It’s a lot like The Time Travel’s Wife, which was also very good.

I haven’t read it yet, but really looking forward to David Liss’ book A Conspiracy of Paper.

In the non-fiction dept. I recently read Backstage Wall Street and Steve Jobs. They were okay but not page turners.

Last but not least, recently read Thinking Fast and Slow. One of the best non-fiction reads I’ve had in several years.

XBoxBoy

[XBoxBoy]

Matt,

Depends partly on how much cash you have. If I were you, I’d try to keep six months worth of living expenses in cash. That way if you lose your job or the renter stops paying rent, you’ve got a cushion. After that, I’d go ahead and pay down the loan as much as possible. Like you, I can’t think of any reasonably safe investment that pays more than you’re going to pay to borrow the money. So, why pay to borrow money when you’ve got cash?

XBoxBoy

[XBoxBoy]

Standards of Excellence carries a lot of top end stuff. Never dealt with them though.

[XBoxBoy]

Wondering what insurance issues you have had with being your own general contractor? (If any) Did you have to get a policy to cover workers (subs) that you hire? Or are they responsible for their workers comp insurance?

Have you gotten the permits yourself? Did you have to hire an architect or just a draftsman to do the drawings. (Or maybe you did them yourself)

Congrats and thanks for sharing

XBoxBoy

[XBoxBoy]

For about 8 years I owned an old Spanish style house in Kensington. It was built in 1929, and was typical of the houses built in that era. My personal experience was that maintenance was no worse for this house. I did need to replace the roof on the back of the house. (The front had Spanish tiles but the back had tar which is very common in older houses. The tar needs repair/replacement about every 10-15 years)

The biggest issue I think is what kind of shape is the house in when you buy it. (Or what’s it gonna cost to put it into good shape) Once in good shape, they are as durable as any other house. Perhaps even more so.

One issue that may or may not be an issue is that most of these older houses are not secured to their foundations. As long as there isn’t a big earthquake it’s not a big deal.

Most of these older houses also don’t have much insulation. Not a big deal in San Diego, and you can easily get insulation blown into the attic.

Obviously if the appliances are old you can expect repairs for them, and if the plumbing is not up to date that can be a problem. Likewise, electrical might not be properly grounded. But your home inspector should be able to tell you about most of these. Then decide to either fix or live with it.

One last thing, not related to maintenance but important. Most of these homes have small closets and small baths. It was always okay for me, but you might need to think about where you’re going to store things. If people in your family have lots of clothes or stuff, then you’ll need to think about where you’re going to put it all.

Good luck

[Author]

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