Homeowner Tips

Be careful. I think some
Stoners live down there.

There are more than a hundred disclaimers or warnings when you purchase a house. Please consult an attorney before you sign off on that sinkhole waiver for your new home in Sunken Acres.

The warning you will never receive is that there is unbridled competition lying just below the lush Saint Augustine grassed lawns along your new boulevard.

Mowing the lawn is similar to nuclear fusion. Mow your lawn; neighbors will immediately begin mowing their own lawns. Wash your car and all the other cars on the block are suddenly wet and soapy.

Prove my point. Buy an airboat and park it in your carport. Next week your neighbor will have an airboat in his carport and the propeller will be larger than your little prop.

You must join the homeowner’s association. This organization formalizes the Yard of the Month, the Best Halloween decorated yard, and the best Christmas Lights Display competition.

Somehow, you will survive all the subtle competition until that one morning when you put the house on the market. That is the day after you discovered that all the neighborhood wives have breast implants.

You are a single male homeowner who revels in the hunt, the quest, the competition, but you must either move out of the neighborhood or start shopping for a plastic surgeon and a bra.

Here are some tips for the new home owner:

1. Beware of any interior decorator who claims to have a black belt in Feng-Shui.

2. A painted Styrofoam barbecue pit will still impress the next-door neighbors, until you can afford a real brick one.

3. A mailbox painted to look like a doll house is cute. Painting your new home to resemble a massive mailbox is not cute.

4. Your property value is indirectly proportional to the number of aluminum lawn chairs sitting in your carport.

5. Don’t use the public utilities transformer in the front yard as a picnic warming tray.

6. If the roof leaks, you can always find good cheap help at a Shingles Club.

7. You can consider killing crab grass and chinch bugs as an official summer sport.

8. There shouldn’t be any left-over fan blades after you install a ceiling fan.

9. If you want to win “Yard of the Month”, don’t store an airboat in the front yard.

10. Parking more than 3 skateboard ramps in your driveway is just showing off.

Bob Simpson

Bobsimpson1947@yahoo.com