One of the nicer things about our subdivision in northeast Tucson is that our streets are private. We pay for our own road maintenance with HOA funds and the occasional special assessment. In contrast to neighborhoods and subdivisions around us, where the city and county maintain streets and roads, ours are smooth, pothole-free, freshly black-topped, nice to look at.
Turns out there’s a downside. Two weeks back a driver who doesn’t live here broke down in the middle of the neighborhood and left her car on the side of our main street. A neighbor talked to her but didn’t get her contact information. The next day a couple of guys, presumably friends of the car’s owner, came by and worked on it, but didn’t get it running. Neither they nor the owner have been seen since. A neighbor who’s a retired county policeman talked friends in the department into contacting the registered owner, who claims she recently sold the car to someone via Facebook Marketplace and knows only the buyer’s Facebook handle. Since AZ DMV has yet to update the car’s registration & title, we don’t know who the woman is who abandoned the car.
As president of the HOA, I initially recommended we give the owner a few days to resolve matters. I was guessing the owner might be strapped for cash … god knows, our daughter Polly has been in similar situations before, and we know what a catastrophe it can be to have your POS car break down when you’re poor. But it’s been two weeks now and that’s enough. It’s time to have the car towed away.
Well, guess what? If you own the road someone abandons a car on, it’s on you to do something about it. Not the cops. Not the county. Not the city. We’re working towing possibilities, but in the end any money we spend getting the car removed is going to come out of our collective hide, a totally-unanticipated expense. I actually hope, at the next general membership meeting, I get blamed for it and voted out of office … and maybe, if that happens, it’ll show there’s a silver lining to what looks like, right now, a shitty situation.
Update: it’s rare I’m able to post an update to a post before it’s even finished, but somehow or other one of the other HOA board members got a commercial towing company to haul it away with no financial ding on us, so hooray!
From the Pictures Worth a Thousand Words files:
This will never not confuse and annoy me:
I’m talking about tweets and other social media posts with embedded videos — videos that begin with ads bearing no relation to the promised content. You see a tweet saying “here’s a video about synchronized springboard diving,” you expect to see a video showing synchronized springboard diving, not models promoting Subway sandwiches or the latest pickup truck combo tailgate/stair gimmick. Millions of people pay, and pay well, for ad-free streaming TV. Many of us would be willing to pay for an ad-free social media experience. So how about it, social media billionaires? Wanna make even more billions by launching subscription versions of your platforms?
Yesterday, with great-goddaughter Giorgianna’s help, I managed to walk all three dogs at once.
Even though Fritzi & Lulu are Arizona dogs, they apparently haven’t been around cholla cactus, which leave little balls of spines everywhere. Each of the new girls, within seconds of one another, managed to step on cholla balls. Fortunately I was packing a pocket comb and was able to help them get unstuck. Mr. B, an old hand when it comes to cholla, must have felt a little smug.
Meanwhile, the dogs continue to work out office bed arrangements. Photos from Wednesday, Thursday, and today (Friday). So far negotiations have been amicable.
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Of course, were Fritzi to join Lulu and Mr. B in the office this morning, who knows who’d be napping where? Updates as the situation evolves.