Hot Rods Another issue facing us old car buffs

Same here Lou. 20 years I have run my hot rod and drag race operation out of my garage. No real problems with neighbors to speak of. I mind my own business.

 

So far no complaints. I live in an old farm house surrounded by the burbs. Technically you're not allowed to have unlicensed/unregistered cars, and not having a garage makes it kind of hard to hide, but I'm far back enough from the road, and I can situate my projects behind trees, our parking spaces, and the shed that it makes it less obvious. There's a few car guys in my neighborhood, and people around here are pretty cool if you keep it somewhat tidy.

 

I keep my place neat and clean, I work in the driveway at times and drag new junk home all the time. I put it away in a timely manner. No one has a issue with that, I am the guy with the neat old cars.

 

We got annexed into the city a few years ago, but they pretty much leave us alone, I do most of my stuff in the driveway (too much crap in the shops) but it's kinda out of sight. Eventually we'll get complaints with all the junk out back, and to be honest, I wish they'd just bring a big truck/trailer around and load it all up!

 

I am blessed with the nicest neighbors I could ever hope for. I'm sure that they would even let me put clothes on their clotheslines.

 

I live in a community with an HOA we're not allowed to have clothes lines. Glad theres restrictions that prevents dumbasses that don't know any better from having their property look like a junk yard. It keeps your property values up.
Don't get me wrong I love junk yards but just don't want to live next door to one.

 

I rented a place once were you couldn't have unregistered cars so I got plates and stickers for all of them. I had 5 at one time. That was in Ma. but I've since moved to NH. Best thing I ever did. Now I can do as I please.

 

I lived in a subdivision many years ago , I build my 32 in my home garage with the door closed . I would ride my Harley to and from work , 4PM one afternoon , the locals show up and tell me a neighbor called and had been complaining they heard the scooter and it’s too loud . The policeman says “ well I work all different shifts in this city , I have never heard any other complaints about you and , I see nothing sitting around that looks like trash . I’m goin to tell the caller it’s 4 pm in the afternoon , and she is going to hear noise from time to time .” I few years later , I moved away and I’m in the country now . I still try to keep the place clean and orderly as I would expect my neighbors to do for me . Everyone hunts and shoots near me , lots of noise during the daytime , it is what it is . It could be worse , look and see what living in China or Russia is like .

 

Right, but what if you run a junkyard, and some cork sniffer moves next door and starts complaining? Or next to the airport, and start bitching about the noise? What did they expect??

It's easy to slip into silliness about this stuff. Somebody changing the oil in their car, or washing it, light maintenance for a few hours, big deal. 6 inoperable cars on blocks in various states of disassembly ... That's different. It kind of depends. Location location location.

 

Truck64, your right. Had a neighbor recently move near the Louisville, KY airport which is the home of UPS who flies 24 hours a day. Now he's bitching about the aircraft noise.

 

So you've met the asshole behind us. Overbuilt for the neighborhood by 100%, and they have a problem with my lifestyle. Been here since birth. Bob

 

I am from the late 60's early 70's era and have always been fairly anti establishment. But I have 20 acres outside a clean Wi town {they refer to it as a city, but its a town. lol} between my garages , shop and the back of the horse barn I have 20,000 sq feet of storage. There are a few "parts cars"
along a back line fence and a few enclosed storage trailers. But everything that is not pasture land is mowed and trimmed to the tune of 5 acres. The other 15 are either baled for hay or kept trimmed by four hungry horses. I would not be happy if someone tried to tell me what I could or could not do on my land. But I also respect my neighbors by keeping my place clean. I feel sorry for folks I see when I am driving down the road and their doing their best to keep their property neat and cared for only to have some jerk living across the road with 20 piles of rusted ,worthless junk surrounded by over grown weeds and crap sitting in their front yard! All the while screaming they have the RIGHT to have it look like shit! Respect your neighbors and they will respect you! Larry

 

Our place is super clean. With the exception of our two trailers and our daily drivers, everything is in a shed. We have lived out here for 33 years and I couldn’t imagine living in town. I see all these storage places cropping up and it amazes me that people own things that they can’t keep at home. I would be afraid of something happening to stuff in storage.


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I’m old enough to know I don’t want to be friends with my neighbours - but I am always friendly . Does that make sense? My place looks nice and tidy.

 

That sounds like me, the more I know about people, the more I love my dog!

I own my 8.5 acres, I pay the taxes on it, I live outside the city limits, I am surrounded on three sides by wife's family, other side is a recently widowed lady, our properties are separated by a wooded area. I try to keep the front highway viewable area neat and clean, but you can see my Lincoln under the carport where I do my work. The area behind the house, well, could use some better organization, but it looks better now than it did a few years ago when I and my son had several parts cars back there. We hauled all that stuff off after we had gotten what we wanted off them back when scrap prices were high.

One mile from the city limits of a small town, all privately owned property, no HOA's or silly things like that, no one to bitch about stupid rules. The county doesn't bother us as long as they get their property tax every year, no permits to build required, only have to have sewer approved by health dept if you put in a new system, I have no problem with that. I don't want to smell anybodies sewage.

When I was younger, I would work until the wee hours of the morning sometimes out in the carport, nobody ever complained, especially if it was their car I was working on! Now, it's a few hours on the weekend at most, those late nights are reserved for sleep!

 

Thats funny BamaMav your quote about dogs is the same one I have used before here on the H.A.M.B. . A dog will never let you down and is the most dependable friend you will ever have. But I guess you already know that.

 

35 acres of posted wooded bliss. Nearest neighbor is in a different county. Eighth mile winding driveway. If you're not invited you're not wanted. Trespassers are met with a shotgun. Had a guy see me in town and told me he passed by my place, and I thanked him for not stopping. Hell, google can't even get a good shot of my place. If you are invited you see a neat, well maintained living/working area. I am a firm believer in 'if they don't know what you have, you stand a better chance of keeping it'. UPS man has probably seen my place the most, and he's smart enough to forget where it is when he leaves the driveway.

 

No laws or ordinances like that around here, but there are sub divisions with HOA's, and they can make all the restrictions they want to, nothing you can do about it. Screw that. The worst thing we have is a no overnight parking on the street ordinance. The police enforce it selectively. They ignore the law unless somebody complains, then they'll send parking enforcement officer out at 3 a.m. to cite the vehicle. Some neighborhoods have old farts that can't sleep who get up and drive around looking for cars to complain about.

 

I live in CT.. A small town that we love. I have enough land that gives me plenty of privacy. I can fire my gun and no one cares. I still keep my place neat. I do it for myself. My neighbors are far enough away and can do what they please. I have lived in Connecticut all my life and yes the government sucks. But my property taxes in this town are low. If not for this town I would move but have no idea where. I think I will go fire my gun now.


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We’ve got a mile shoot set up on our place. That’s crazy to watch! I don’t do it a friend of ours does.
That’s one of the reasons I live in Oklahoma!






Bones

 

Wow you guys live in shitty places.
My house is on the poker run route for all the local runs.
The neighbors regularly water down the road for burnouts.
Every fifth house has flag pole.
Damn near every house has a boat, trailer, or project car.
Half the neighbours have an old car or a Harley.

It's a block off the ocean so a clothesline might not work well.

 

Damn you have some pretty crazy restrictions in some places. Nothing like that where I live however in some places the house isn't complete without a few old cars in various states of disrepair on display, albeit out in the yard or in a garage. 2 x cars in my front [Attached] garage and the other 'work in progress' out in the back [Dedetached] garage that I've hidden by location and a front garden blocking the view. In suburbia I respect my neighbours and don't draw attention to myself whenever I work on anything, never at night when noise is involved, I have to live here as well and wouldn't like any similar after-hours noise! Respectable hours during the day and on weekends. It's a different thing if you operate a home based business or neighbours think that you do, then the local council well be around with the decibel meter and camera.

 

i have a standing rule. if you want to get along with people, don't live anywhere near them!

 

HOA's can change the rules too, so if you're in an HOA you better keep a close eye on the board/committee.
The HOA board of a huge local subdivision, (where a friend lives) just made a drastic change to their rules.
You MUST park your vehicles in your garage-to full capacity. No parking on your driveway. So if you have 2 cars and a 2 car garage, they both go in. If you have a 3 car garage and 4 cars, 3 of them go in. This effectively has made everyone's garage strictly a parking stall. It kills off project cars, using your garage as a storage shed, exercise room, kids playroom, hobbyist wood shop, rec room (pool table), etc. It also kills using it for storage of your ATV's, boat, trailers, etc. so a lot of people are now faced with paying for off site storage of their toys.

They also outlawed parking any type of commercial or Co. vehicle on site, so tradesmen such as my friend that took their vehicles home are no longer "home start" techs that start and end their work/route from home. He has to leave his van at the shop and commute to and from in his personal vehicle, which adds up to longer days and fuel & vehicle costs.

I don't live in an HOA and never will.

 

Short version of a long story;

After years of having to deal with an "Asshat" of a Code Enforcement Officer, I sued my town over another bogus code violation they tried to hit me with..."A shed in view of a public highway"... a RES1&2 ordinance and I'm zoned Ag2. It took a while but the Town Attorney decided it best to settled out of court for $8001..(my legal fees of $8000 and $1 for me...out of principle).

THEN the town tried to retaliate by arbitrarily and illegaly trying to change the zoning. Myself an 12 of my neighbors then threatened the town with a class action lawsuit. They backed down and the Town Supervisor & Code Officer were forced to resign. The Town no longer messes with us.

MORAL; Know your rights...and don't be afraid to defend them. You CAN beat "city hall"

 

Why do car folks live in areas with HOAs?

 

FUNNY STORY: I applied for a Privacy Fence Permit which stipulated that it could not be erected past the building line. Building was defined as having roof and foundation. My front porch had a roof supported by pillars on concrete foundation. So I stretched things a little further than the town probably intended. I came out one morning to find the mayor, the town council and a crowd of citizens that were only missing their torches and pitchforks. Of course they claimed that the porch wasn't part of the building. I ask why I had to pay taxes on it then. They said that was irrelevant and insisted the fence be moved. I then ask if there as a town code that stipulated what color I could paint the fence. The answer was "No". I said "In that case, if I move the fence, I plan to paint each and every picket a different color". The anti fence Mayor told the crowd "I think we better leave this man alone" and ushered the crowd away. I now have 174 acre farm and have no neighbors to worry about. Open headers at 3AM, no problem.

 

My dad was a hoarder and far too cheap to build a garage. He'd go on night excursions behind shopping centers and scrounge anything that wasn't bolted down. With no place to store it and being in a residential neighborhood he became an expert at landscaping and topiary design to hide his junk. What might look like a decorative row of hedges was a four foot high stack of 20'X2" pipe. His chain link fence was covered with flowering vines that covered all the old rebar he had wired to the top rail.

 

Haha, guy next door has a Ducati 900 that he occasionally starts up and gives a bit of a rev while he tweaks his carburetors. And it rattles my windows. No complaints though he is a good guy.
I have an in ground rolling road chassis dyno in my garage that I installed about twenty years ago and never used. I think I would probably get about one and a half full throttle runs before the cops arrived and arrested me.

Forty years ago there were lots of young couples in the street, working guys mostly some with hot cars, and it was a pretty interesting neighborhood. Now most of the houses have been rebuilt, its all wealthy snobby retired yuppie people that look down on anyone that does real work for a living.
So if you want to raise hell by hanging out the washing, or pot a few targets from your bedroom window, you may need to move right out in the middle of nowhere.

 

All these stories remind me many years ago, I was at one of our major miIitary bases in Valcartier, Quebec, just outside Quebec City. Originally the base was located far from any development, but over time houses and subdivisions gradually grew closer and closer. Of course, what did these people then do - complain of all the noise coming from the tanks, helicopters, etc. Lol
Similarly, close to where I live, tbere was a dirt track speedway, (Edelweiss Speedway) only one of a few left in the Northeastern part of Canada/ USA.

http://www.dirttrackdigest.com/DTD/index.php?/topic/36546-edelwiss-speedway-rip/

Again, it was in the middle of nowhere, next to a large gravel pit operation that did blasting into the adjacent mountain. What happened? They started building homes closer and people again complained of the noise, and the place had to close down. Damn shame.