A Community Perspective

By Will Bullington, CACM
CC&R Compliance Officer

August 2010

Bark Beetles, High Weeds and Abandoned Properties

Have you noticed that the bark beetles are active in Lake Shastina? We are experiencing groups of trees being infected in various parts of our community and, while we are in no way at an epidemic level, we have noticed an increase in their activity. This continues to be a statewide program and much of what I am writing I learned from an article written by a compliance officer for the Pine Mountain Lakes Home Owner’s Association outside of Yosemite.

There are over 20 invasive species of bark beetles and the and the most prevalent is the engraver beetle which goes after the tops of pine trees and the red turpentine beetle attacks the lower portion of the trunk. Bark beetles have a keen sense to recognize trees that are stressed or weakened in some fashion. Recent years of drought have created stress in many trees. A lack of water adds to a trees inability to produce pitch to stop the beetles. Trees compete for water from shrubs, new ornamental trees for landscaping and of course the Juniper tree drinks up to 150 gallons of water a day!

What can you do? Thin out competing vegetation that is fighting for sunlight and water. Prune and removing dead limbs increases a trees health too. There is some chemical control available to prevent the beetles and I would advise visiting www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7421.html for further information. Needless to say a dead 50 to 100 foot pine tree is a threat to life and property. It is your responsibility to prevent such trees from falling down in a good wind storm. Act quickly to cut down and remove the infected tree and all its limbs and wood.

The other area of concern for fire danger is the extremely high weeds due to the late winter and spring storms. Many of these weeds are seen on properties that are abandoned and “waiting” to be taken over by a bank and sold. Sometimes this happens very quickly but most times the bank does not want the property in their bad debt inventory and the property will sit with the water shut off (yep, they don’t pay their water bill too) and the landscaping dies.

It can be very aggravating for a homeowner that lives here and maintains their own property to look next door at a lot full of weeds. We are working with real estate agents and the Board to address these issues. The Board will send a 30 day courtesy notice and then after that must schedule a hearing with the owner. The Board may rule to hire a contractor to go in and abate the nuisance and charge owner. If it is bank owned and there are already numerous liens for taxes, bad credit and home owner’s dues it may not be a good business decision to do this. Each property has to be researched and then weighed as to what is best for the community. Sometimes the property is listed with a real estate agent and a simple phone call will get the weeds mowed down, the water turned back on and the property made more presentable. (Why we need to explain curb appeal to real estate agents floors me). It seems the further away from Lake Shastina the agent is the less concerned they are for how a property looks. “Looks good from where I’m at….”

Just for information our own fire fuel abatement program of mowing unimproved lots is on hold due to the high fire danger. We do not want the mowers to send a spark and start a fire so all tractor work by LSPOA will have to wait for the fall weather to begin.

(Editor's note; "curb appeal" is a basic concept every Realtor knows, what may not be appreciated is that an owner who is upside down on the home has no motivation whatever to take care of it any more. Agents hate brown lawns as much as neighbors do and we realize more than you might expect what that does to value.

I also do not believe that if an agent's office is out of town they are more likely to ignore the condition of a property. If an agent specializes in REO's for example which are homes repossessed by lenders the banks are even less motivated than an upside down owner. We are struggling with an REO sale right now because the bank won't pay overdue LSPOA dues so we can turn the water on just to inspect the home, not to mention green up the lawn and mow the weeds!

In our property management business we have cajoled owner after owner into spending money on bark, mowing, and watering, all for "curb appeal" __ to attract tenants who in turn are required to maintain landscaping in their lease. Most property managers do this very same thing as well, it's just good business.

We will continue to work with the LSPOA in an effort to make our properties strong and attractive members of the Lake Shastina community.)

Hard Water and Amateur Plumbers

August 2009 CC&R Corner by Will Bullington

Mike and Charlene French have lived in Lake Shastina for over five years and have never drained their water heater. Charlene is on our Environmental Control Committee and was mentioning that they no longer had hot water, only “tepid” water. This is where the conversation got going at our last ECC meeting in which everyone was talking about the hard water. I was telling Charlene that the minerals in our water, which is moderately “hard” such as calcium, settle in the bottom of a water heater and if not drained at least once a year, will cover the lower element. Usually this is followed by the element failing and you now have “tepid” not hot water. I told her she should drain her water heater and put in a new lower element. Mike French is a retired Park Ranger and works the summer season at Castle Crags State Park, and doesn’t have a lot of extra time during the day. This is how I got involved with appliance repair or disrepair. Charlene asks me if I knew how to do the job, and I (stupidly) said sure. She and Mike have been great friends for years and I agreed to do it for steaks and beer. I had a similar issue at my house this spring and I told the French’s to get a new drain valve (hose bib style) and a new heater element.

After work I head over the French’s and the first thing that I try to do is drain out the water heater. It’s in a closet in the laundry room and is sitting on their floor instead of raised up on a platform. So that makes the drain valve almost flush with the floor. Now you have to picture this: the water heaters made in the last 10 years have this really cheesy plastic “drain valve” that a garden hose should hook up to, you open it and the closest hot water tap, and it should drain out. So, not only is the valve cheap plastic, it is way undersized for the task, especially with all the minerals that have to come out with it. You can’t take off the valve because there is no room to put a bucket under it.

O.K. so now you are seeing the excuses lining up. We take out the valve and without opening any hot water taps, we hope to quickly put in the new valve. Not a drop. Reach in with a screw driver and see that it is packed with calcium and gook. We finally get enough of the gook out of the way and put a short pipe in and then a rubber hose that we clamped onto the pipe with a “water thief.” We do this because the new hose bib valve keeps getting clogged. We manage to fill up a 50 foot garden hose and plug it, where we have to go get another one. So, let’s refigure this, we’ll put the clean hose on, and turn on the cold water coming into the tank to increase pressure to flush out the gunk. (Oh, yea, you have to turn off the water coming into the tank and turn off the electrical to the tank, which we did do). I’m on my hands and knees listening to hear if the gunk is flowing out of the garden hose. Just as I turn my head to yell at Mike “do you see anything yet?” The pressure blows the water hose off the drain pipe (which was held on with a clamp, that I swear I tightened up). Now you have to picture 50 gallons of water and gunk trying to shoot out of a ¾ inch pipe that is level with the floor and pointing right at my knees. The gunk (which looks like oatmeal and wet frosted flakes cereal) hits my knees, launches up my chest, into my face and hair, and then shoots out sideways into the kitchen and all over the laundry room. Now, saying really filthy words at a drain pipe does not activate it to close, like a clap on clap off switch. About the time the pressure was released and the hose was put back on, the French’s had about 5 gallons of gunk (Charlene will swear it was more like 10) splattered everywhere: on the ceiling, on the hardwood floors, on the cabinets, into the clean clothes, etc. At this point Mike yells from outside “it’s flowing now!”

Mike comes back in and points out how holy things are, holy this, and holy that, etc. I am holding onto the clamped hose and apologizing as best I can through calcium in my teeth, contact lenses, etc. The end result was the tank drained; we flushed out all the minerals, and put in a new element which gave them hot water. Charlene is still finding chunks of minerals in drawers and clothes and I know she was gritting her teeth when she thanked me for the hot water.

Lessons learned: plumbers get paid a lot because the job sucks and it takes a lot of training and experience. If you build a house or put in a new hot water heater have them put up it on a raised platform, even a couple of 4” x 6” boards. Before you install it throw away the cheap plastic drain valve and put in a good ¾ inch gang valve. Flush out your hot water twice a year. Don’t ask me to help you with any plumbing problems……. P.S. the steaks were great and I haven’t taken any calcium supplements in two weeks.

CC&R Corner for July 2009

July 2009 by Will Bullington

You Called 911 but They Can’t Find You

Its four o’clock in the morning and a 911 call goes out for a person needing help with excessive bleeding. The fire rescue and ambulance are dispatched to an address in Lake Shastina. The units drive onto the street looking for the address in the dark. Volunteer fire fighters and medical personnel using spotlights can’t find the address. Finally, someone sees a porch light come on and a door open. As everyone runs up to the home you can now see the house numbers next to the garage doors. A brown house with lighter tan house numbers, which match the trim. Looks nice in the day time but you can’t see them in low light.

Living in a community with no street lights, homes with earth tone paint colors, long driveways, and lots of trees, compounds the problem with finding addresses. The County requires the house numbers are posted prior to an occupancy permit being issued, and many cities have ordinances requiring house numbers be “visible” from the street. Drive past your own home some night and look and see if a stranger not knowing where the numbers are posted, could find your home. Now think about a loved one needing a rapid response by emergency services. You know a heart attack or someone trying to kick in your back door to rob your family. Think how much adrenaline is pumping through a emergency responders body driving fast with lights and sirens on. Compounding the issue is the fact our addresses are so long: 15118, etc. “What was that address again? Was that 1511? Was it 15119. All I can see is a white reflective sign on the side of the road for a neighbor: 15116. Should be next door, but there is no numbers on the house.” The clock is ticking and those first critical minutes in a heart attack are gone. The chances of survival are destroyed by an aesthetically pleasing color scheme for house numbers.

Mellow dramatic? Talk to your local police officers and ambulance crews. Happens ALL THE TIME. “We can’t help you if we can’t find you.” The local fire department is so motivated to fix this problem that they make the white signs with reflective letters on them. They cost $12.00 and they install them for free. Do they look as nice as an earth tone wood sign? No, but who cares, it might save you or someone you loves life. All you have to do is call 938-2226, leave a message and someone will call you back to order the sign. You can also find illuminated house numbers on line or at home improvement stores. Some run on batteries, solar or low voltage.

On a lighter note, get out there and enjoy the new park during the safety day event on August 1st, jump house, games, fire engines, helicopter, bicycle safety events, etc.

CC&R Corner for May 2008

By Will Bullington, CC&R Compliance Officer

May 2008

Up Coming Vote on Changes to the CC&Rs

Our current Environmental Control Committee (ECC), in cooperation with the current Board, has developed some proposed rule changes to the CC&Rs. In 2000, the membership of the LSPOA adopted our current CC&Rs. It has been eight years and we have seen some need for changes. The ECC met in 2007 with realtors and contractors, and then in May held a town hall meeting on fences. Through these meetings and literally hundreds of comments, complaints and requests for variances from the rules, developed the proposed CC&R changes.

First you must understand that the CC&Rs are developed by a committee, staff input and association attorneys. It took four years and $40,000.00 just to get enough of the membership (50% plus one) to approve the new CC&Rs. Each unit of the subdivision had to approve at this ratio. These new adopted CC&Rs differed from the original rules in which the old rules said you could have no fences, no restrictions on overhangs and roof pitches. Now the total membership not based on each unit, must vote 50% plus one. Now that we have a much higher population of people who actually live here and over 1,000 homes, I believe the vote will be easier to achieve to pass these changes.

Now, the current CC&Rs have Sections that lay down the restrictions and rules, how assessments are collected, how the Board is elected, etc. There are By Laws that also do much of the administrative part of the Association. For instance Article V of the CC&Rs tells you how an improvement is approved, by whom, and what an improvement is: house, deck, pool, etc. Article VI tells you what the minimum construction standards are: roof pitch, overhangs, minimum size of a garage, etc. The ECC must only approve those improvements that meet the minimum construction standards (MCS). The MCS are very important to planned unit developments like Lake Shastina because they help maintain higher property values than other communities.

Even small sub-divisions have CC&Rs when you build a house because an 800 square foot home is not as valuable as a 2,000 square foot home (duh). O.K. so we have a class act going on here. The original developers had enough forethought to put the power lines and all utilities underground, prohibited fences for a more open “rural” looking community, used a designer from Disneyland to put in ponds and waterfalls, and had engineers develop a master plan for drainage, etc. Once you realize this you really take a harder look at other communities when you are out and about: the solid fences jump out at you like a stockade, and the power lines blot out the skyline, or you see a neon bright yellow house.

As you drive back into Lake Shastina, especially if you have been gone for a while, you smile when you turn off of Big Springs Road and onto our streets. You can’t even find a pot hole in our roads (never noticed that till you are in some of our neighbor cities, huh?)

As we are filling in our empty lots with homes, minimum construction standards and CC&R enforcement are going to become more important. What one person got away with for 20 years all changes when they share a back yard with their neighbor. The ECC recognizes the fact that most new homes require new improvements after people have lived in them for awhile: a new fence for the kids and the dog or a storage shed for tools and lawn furniture because they won’t fit in the garage. The ECC has proposed changes to the CC&Rs in three sections at this time: new rules for storage sheds, fences and for overhangs.

The proposal is to have these three sections of the CC&Rs be regulated by architectural rules that may be changed by the Board. Rule changes would be posted to the membership for 30 days advising the members that the Board is considering a rule change. The Board then holds a hearing and decides on whether to change a rule. Currently, the Board may not create a rule that conflicts with the CC&Rs. Past rules that allowed for 2 x 4 inch mesh wire fences conflict with the CC&R that states the maximum size of wire fencing is 2 ½ inches. The proposal of the ECC is that the membership vote on the following changes to the CC&Rs:

1. Article 6.4: Change “No Temporary Structures” to “Temporary Structures and Outbuildings.” Add: “Outbuildings and sheds shall be built in accordance with the architectural rules adopted by the Governing Board.”
2. Article 6.12: Change section to read: “Eaves and Overhangs. All eaves and overhangs to be built in accordance with the architectural rules adopted by the Governing Board.”
3. Article 6.15: In first paragraph delete “under the following conditions:” and insert “in accordance with the architectural rules adopted by the Governing Board.” Also delete 6.15 (b) and (c). 6.15(d) to become (b) by default.

Please look for your ballot about voting on these important CC&R changes. If you would like to view the CC&Rs go to our web site at: lakeshastina.com. You may also contact staff through this web site for any question you may have.