[PPRAANet] RE: Joel Hefley Strikes Again!

[Roller, Rob]

What I wish I could do was to find out how or where these idiots that write
covenants get their information from!  Part of the problem is that most
covenants get written long before anyone considers buying a home in a
development, so it's practically impossible to negotiate a change by that
time, and the dingbats have absolutely no clue why they put things in their
covenants anyway.

There's no doubt that Dan is right - people agree to covenants when they buy
a house.  The problem is, how to get the people to write the covenants to be
reasonable and practical in what they put in them in the first place.

Most of the covenant authors have no idea what they put in, or what it
means.  One covenant I agreed to in the past was to "no transmitters, except
for garage door openers."  Now, you know that the dingbat that wrote that
only added in garage door openers because someone pointed out that a garage
door opener is a transmitter, and how was the dingbat going to get into his
garage.  I did operate VHF/UHF/HF radios at that house, put an antenna in
the attic, and a G5RV in the back yard, and got no objections.

They're gradually getting around to identifying by name other transmitters,
such as baby monitors.  But in my neighborhood, cell phones are still
against covenants, and I don't think they intended that at all.

Convenants were intended to prevent people from doing things that are
offensive to your senses, typically.  Sight (no pink homes), sound (no loud
music), smell (put your trash out once in a while), taste and touch.  Things
that you can't see, hear, smell, touch, or taste should have no business in
any restrictive covenant.  Radio waves don't fall into any of these "sense"
categories, and should not be prohibited.

RFI, or TVI, is a different matter, and I can certainly see why these
dingbats put in "transmitters" in an effort to minimize RFI.  But in my
opinion, RFI should be against covenants, not transmitters.

Prohibiting transmitters as a solution to stopping RFI/TVI is as ridiculous
as prohibiting driving in an effort to eliminate stop-sign runners!

And of course, that evolved into towers and antennas as an approach to
eliminate RFI/TVI, as well as some people thinking they are unsightly.  But
towers are something visual, and should be dealt with differently than
transmitters.  Some of this likely goes back to the days of CB, when big
antennas, illegal linears and horrendous TVI were a problem.

What could the covenant author possibly be thinking of when these things
were written?  The answer:  Nothing!  They're not thinking at all!  They're
all boiler plate, and growing with each new development!

So if there is a way to get to the dingbats that write these things before
they start up a development, and get it straightened out then, that would be
the best.  But I have no way of knowing who the dingbats are, where I'm
going to live next, etc.  Maybe there could be some sort of city code
written which defines things that can't legally be put into covenants, such
as prohibiting transmitters (prohibiting TVI I'd go along with).  Somewhere,
somehow, the dingbats that write covenants need to be reined in to prevent
nonsensical restrictions.

So if HR 4270 can do something to start to point these dingbat covenant
authors in the right direction, that may be the way to go.  Sometimes you
gotta stir the pot the wrong way to get things moving, at least!

Maybe since some folks are starting to wake up and fight some of the more
ridiculous legislation, it might be possible to eventually change what can
and can't go into CC&Rs.

73
Rob