I should charge money for psychic readings! It was four or five years ago that I began predicting the advent of drones and that they would eventually be cheap enough for the boards of Homeowners Associations to start using them to inspect the most private part of your property. Your nude sunbathing or hot tub trysts could be played on the TV set at the HOA clubhouse and you probably wouldn’t win a legal case.
Well, so far I’m batting about 90% so far. The drones are here. They cost as little a four hundred bucks. And they’re popping up in thousands and thousands of places. Realtors are using them to advertise homes and neighborhoods. Terrorists are using them to interfere with commercial aircraft. Voyeurs are using them to videotape you and your lover on the backyard blanket. The FAA only controls drones in airspace over 1000 feet.
Privacy? Fugeddaboutit!
There’ve been a number of cases where homeowners have shot drones out of the air. The shooters usually end up being arrested and jailed. But it’s a whole new area of developing law and will probably take a decade or more to resolve. In the meantime even if a jury finds you not guilty you will have expended hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees.
Ah yes, an untold number of people have lost their homes to bully Homeowners Association boards. But there ingenious ways to survive without money. Witness what you can do with an abandoned Walmart cart. With this you can lounge in comfort under a bridge.
Yes, I want to keep all of you entertained and coming back to Neighbors At War. So forgive me if I’m reposting old material but I get a good belly laugh each time I hear this old Pete Seeger song. It’s so true for so many of us!
For a great history on Seeger’s Little Boxeshit, see the following:
It’s been forty years since the last syndicated Pogo comic strip. My headline is a bad re-write of the famous Pogo line. But it happened to me at a gathering of authors and publishers last weekend. A very attractive young lady approached me and said, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about your book, Neighbors At War.” That’s not an extraordinary experience. I’ve been approached by many other authors at such events. But it’s what she said next that stunned me.
“I am C.A.I.”
“Huh? What?”
“I am C.A.I. The Community Associations Institute. I’m their spokesperson. And we all know about your book.”
“Well, you’re the enemy,” I told her. She said she’d only been working with them for the past year and said the organization was working to change it’s image.
“Absolutely not possible,” I said. “The only thing you can do to improve your image is disband, dismantle the entire warped structure of Homeowners Associations and start over with a new organization of communities that respect and honor the U.S. Bill of Rights.
What’s really hilarious is that several other authors/writers gathered around us and began supporting me with their own stories of HOA horrors. One or two of them were former HOA board members and said they quit because of the bullies on the board. How weird is all that?
Anyway, we later exchanged cards. I told her if she and her buddies would actually read my book I’d agree to pay for lunch. I’m not sure if that’ll ever happen but it was an amusing way to spend a Saturday picnic.
Poor George Clooney. The American actor can’t seem to catch a break from his new British neighbors.
Clooney and his wife bought a 16 million dollar property in rural England…a chance to get away from the celebrity stalkers and paparazzi. But his new neighbors are outraged at his presence. More accurately, they’re outraged because he put up an extensive video security system which they say invades their privacy.
Having a video security system of my own I would bet the vast majority of Clooney’s cameras are fakes. Nobody who has security cameras has the time to watch them, even if they are real.
