Just a 46-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). You might think this is another rant about our HOA.
No, now it's the CITY!
I am from San Jose which was in drought for most of the 20 years I lived there.
Likewise, people are very conservative with water there, and the city rewards you for low water usage. We never paid much of any water bills when we lived there. We owned a condo and I rented a fairly large home, with roommates, for many years. The biggest water bill I ever paid was like $10.
We water the lawns sparingly (Which is fine in the mild weather - they don't need much water usually). We bathe every other day. We of course jumped on water saving appliances. In restaurants they never serve you water unless you ask. Etc., etc.
So we moved to Sacramento in 2001.
I think one of the few things that has shocked me here is the whole water thing.
For one, we started getting $100 water/sewer bills. These were FLAT RATE bills. There were no meters.
It struck me as very odd.
How do you go from $10 to $100??? The average household uses that much water???
Ugh.
Likewise, our neighbors seemed pleased enough to uphold their emerald green lawns, even in the 100-degree heat.
I just thought our HOA was crazy, and ranted about this a few days ago. We keep getting notices not to let fertilizer run off our SLOPED lawns into the gutter and lake.
Not to protect the wildlife or anything, but because of the unsightly algae!!!
So the more notices I get about fertilizer and algae, the more I think, "You have got to be kidding me."
"If you could live with a slightly brown lawn in the summer, maybe it wouldn't be an issue!"
I have little idea how to meet all the HOA demands without a magic wand.
& with the new metered water (mandated to be put in by 2010 or something - we jumped on it last year because it lowered our bills on average $15/month). We had been talking about re-landscaping our backyard and just getting rid of the lawn. IT's just a water waster. At the rest of the landscaping (which we put in) is thoughtful - not a lot of water hungry trees, plants or flowers.
I am afraid we have little choice in the front yard, but to waster water.
Anyway, so there was a very interesting article - front page - paper today.
Sacramento couple who let lawn die to save water face $746 fine
What I gathered from the story is that desert landscaping is not even allowed in the city (what in the hell?).
I thought our HOA was bad - I didn't realize the city was even worse.
Just, WOW!
I never realized there was a double whammy there.
I think Sacramento has to wake up and realize it doesn't make a lot of sense for it to stay green in the summer. IF they want green green green in the fall or winter, that's fine because then we have rain. But yeah, I hope this is a wake up call for the city.
I am starting to wonder if drought is normal here too, just no one ever really cared.
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:40 am 1215085252