I lived in a neighborhood that did not have CC&R's it was interesting. The house on the corner belonged to Mrs Owens, she was 70 and a sure source of a dollar or two when you needed it, her lawn always needed mowing. She also made awesome cookies, well worth sitting thru a story. When us kids had no economic incentive, one of her 2 neighbors would take care of it (it seemed about 2 feet was the limit). Then there was the engineering students house 4 doors up from us. You could tell the status of their current project by what was in the front yard. New pallets of lumber or steel stock at the start, and neat scraps and left over boxes of nails later on. They had no problem letting us have scraps to build treehouses or club houses, just ask first. One of their projects started with 2 pickups and a rusted out mustang. They started on friday night by yanking 2 engines. ! came out of a pick up and was replaced by the mustang engine. The next day 1 guy did "Clyde" duty on the mustang, making neat piles of the undented body panels, and using a torch (oxy/acetylene) chopped the rest of it into chunks in another stack. He didn't pay any attention to the fact the plastic on the dash burned either aside from asking me to refill the bucket of water he used to put it out. The other 2 put the mustang engine in the "good" pick up. About this time the police turned up, asking questions. apparently someone saw the dash fire, which was out. It was just a check up sort of thing, I was asked where home was I told them "the orange house over there" which satisfyed them, and the students answers were also ok, so the police left. The next task seemed to be a "Mustang" fate for the other pickup, an old dodge. They pulled the seats and gastank from the cab, and undid a bunch of other bolts, then looked around- no more light. I went home and got chewed out for missing lunch (heck watching how real cars were put toghether was interesting, food could wait) mom had seen me watching the students, and since one of them had helped with the blown down pine last winter ...... The next day I watched them cut the bed of the back of the truck and weld a couple of the mustang chassis rails to the raw ends of truck chasis rails on the bed to form a triangle. they then attached a new trailer hitch to this with an attached jack. Another guy poked at some wires with a tester and figured out which wire was for which tail light and extened the wires out to a plug by the trailer hitch. one guy started loading good parts into the back of the pick up, and they attached the trailer to the good pick up which Ted now had running. (he was the mechanic and owned the chainsaw-the pine tree, remember) they checked the new trailer out as far as turn signals and stuff, and told me good bye, since they were heading out to the dump and junk yard. No, I couldn't go along, my mom wouldn't let them do that. I went home upset, I wanted to see what a junkyard looked like.
The point about all of this is a good neighborhood does not take CC&R's. It just takes knowing your neighbors. during that weekend I learned how to take an old pickup and make a trailer out of it, I also learned that if you do it right it is cheap, and better than a new one. Body panels are valuable if you can find a junk dealer or bodyshop that needs them, and scrap can be used to make other useful things. I was 6 years old, fascination is a good teacher.
I also meet Officers Jones and Wilbaugh. Willbaugh bought the Orange house from us when we moved south after mom finished her retraining after dad died. The town size was about 35,000 people, I learned that on monday at school, the next day.
CAN YOU IMAGINE what would happen today in a similar situation?! I would have been hauled off as a deserted child, the 3 student would have been arrested for polluting ands creating a fire hazard. Willbaugh would not have gotten our house, because mom would refuse the offer because....... among other things.
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Topic: Mole job with local gov - opportunity for monkeywrenching? (Read 30031 times)