Hi, friends!
Normally I have no real advance theme planning for NOTs. It’s something that I was thinking about earlier in the day, or some variation of “I am eating something neat” etc. Sometimes you may notice an unpopular opinions post or a whine with me, this is a variation of that.
Sunday nights is dinner night with my parents. Bless their dumb hearts, they’re white boomers who love Reagan and Trump. There’s just a bunch of shit I don’t talk about with them. Sometimes they still bring shit up and normally I’m good about not engaging, but once in a while I leave their house a stressed out angry mess.
Tonight (I’m writing this Sunday night to post as Monday’s NOT) I was a complete fucking wreck at their house, but for absolutely nothing to do with them. Rant ahead.
They live in a pretty standard early 1950s subdivision in a house my grandparents bought around 1950. Houses are typically 3 bed/1 or 2 bath, some are slab, some have basements. Nothing big, lots are pretty small but the houses are smaller so it fits. Behind their subdivision was a decent area of woods, and behind that is a big, Catholic cemetery. Because of those woods, there have always been deer and owls and hawks and coyotes and it’s just really nice to have that much green space. My dad has so many stories about running and playing in those woods as a kid.
Welp, the archdiocese sold that wooded land to a property developer. They were supposed to keep a 100 foot buffer of woods between their new development and my parents’ subdivision. Goddamned motherfuckers basically stripped out all the woods in 1 day this week. No 100 foot barrier. All that’s basically left is a section around a cell tower that they couldn’t buy. Driving over today when I saw what they did, I fucking just started crying in my car and it was a rough bit when I got to my parents’ house. I am still so angry and it’s been almost 6 hours. I’m getting upset just typing about it. Those woods were there when my grandparents moved it. I know it wasn’t old growth forest, but probably 75+ years old. For what? For fucking what?
The property developers are building 3 different styles of houses with fancy ones for like 600k, midgrade ones for 400k, and “affordable” ones starting at like 250k. I know many of you live in areas with high property costs, but for reference, nearby 3 bedroom houses sell for 190-230k. And these new 200 houses… will back up to a fucking cemetery and an industrial court. Oh, and there’s train tracks nearby so several times a day don’t forget about the train noises (which the woods help muffle the sound of…oh, wait, nevermind). No one in their right mind would spend that kind of money to move to Affton. It’s not a trendy suburb. The schools are okayish, but not great. There’s nothing really nice nearby to attract people. People who can afford those houses are gonna be like “huh, where do I want to raise my family? Hmmm, not here.” They fucking tore down perfectly lovely woods for nothing. Assholes.
Anyways, thanks for letting me rant. Feel free to chat about whatever has you annoyed lately in the comments.
Remember, there is a massive shortage of housing stock for sale pretty much everywhere. People are not only over bidding for houses, but they’re also waiving all of the contingencies, which means you’ve got shitloads of people paying way more than a house is worth on a basically as-is basis. I have a feeling those overpriced McMansions will sell.
There is wooded area on two sides of where we live, and both are going to get leveled within the next few years. One of which is just a half step short of being a swamp so I’m sure the people who will eventually be moving in there will just love tacking federal flood insurance onto their monthly payments. The other wooded area getting leveled means that the low-traffic road which is adjacent to our street will get overwhelmed with cars coming and going. The best part is that all those assholes will probably get town sewer with their shiny new homes, while I get to fork over a minimum of 30k for a tight tank.
Anyway, our quiet neighborhood is going to get a LOT noisier over the next several years. The lake itself has been completely overrun in the past few years with out of control lilly pad growth due to all of the nitrogen runoff from the newly built subdivision on the other side. They try to treat the lake but ultimately it’s a losing battle. I really don’t care to have swamp-front property, but that’s probably what we have to look forward to.
I will rage along with you, we just had a big chunk of the forest near us leveled for another fucking warehouse or some shit! What really pisses me off is they do it during nesting season! You had all fucking winter to do this and you choose now? We are super lucky my city bought the majority of this forest, we fought like hell to do it, but some of the land was in the neighboring city’s zoning and they are fucking idiots! They care about nothing but money.
While we are at it, I have some rage for Xfinity too. I spent at least 3 hours today trying to lower my cable/internet bill. I hate they make me play this game all the time just to fucking lower my bill and get rid of all the shit you added I don’t need.
I got lots of other things that grinds my gears right now but I’ll save that rage for the next Myo post and the rabbits eating our plants!
The rabbits are driving me nuts! The back garden is all stuff that they aren’t supposed to like, and those little assholes keep eating my plants. 6 feet away is a lovely grassy yard chock full of clover and new growth grass and I even have some sunflowers growing from where the birds and squirrels missed some seeds from the feeder. Sprouted sunflowers!! And yet they still are going for the stuff they aren’t supposed to like.
affordable is 250k
*dies*
anyways…ixnay on the rage here
my nose hurts
im more in the mood for self pity
also im watching this movie
oh….fuck me what a mess
i think someone here warned me about that….i should have listened
its kinda fun tho…just not good
…I don’t want to say I told you so…but technically that was me…you can’t get that time back but I did try to stop you burning it on that incoherent mess of a movie?
I feel you brighterside – I suffer from severe “development rage” myself. I mentioned some time recently about the tearing down of a nice big wooded lot to build a new school building for a school that already existed. They could’ve torn down the other school and rebuilt right on top of the already cleared land – not to mention an abandoned Sears warehouse on the lot right next door – that is still empty. Here in Atlanta it seems that there is a race to tear down every single wooded lot that exists to put a Racetrack or Quik trip on it.
Trees are for commies. Real ‘Murcans love concrete.
Especially with the drought risks in large parts of the southeast, I really don’t understand this strategy. Leave the wooded areas to help with soil control and water retention, not to mention that when you do get heavy rains, concrete/asphalt makes it flash flood worse.
Trees don’t make profits.
Have you not heard of the lumber shortage? Trees make huge profits just not for the right reasons!
Just the good, big, old trees. You know, the ones out in the not-yet-profit-making world (what you commies call the “wilderness). Nobody cares about those overgrown toothpicks in suburbia. Show me a 1,000 year old Redwood and I’ll show you a sweet bump in my stock portfolio.
My camp neighbors who are in their 80’s think it’s still okay in 2021 to have a black dog named “Toby.” Drives me batshit bananas to hear them call to him all day. I’ve taken to calling him “Kunta Kinte.”
Wow. I didn’t know that reference before now. Thanks!
…and do you think they do?
I doubt it, because they’re fucking ignorant. But it was a stereotypical “black” name back in the day and I have no doubt that’s what they were going for. Flavor Flav even referenced it in “I Don’t Wanna Be Called Yo Nigga.”
They could have named him after their favorite singer, Toby Keith.
I just realized that I have a neighbor who named their black dog Tobias… giving them major side eye now.
huh. I had no idea, so thanks for making me aware of that…
Count me amongst the ignorant. I have also never listened to Mr. Flav.
I’m having sorta the same problem. Our house is next to a vacant lot that consists of a bunch of trees and an environmentally critical slope. Most of the trees are huge and healthy but some of them are dead and completely canopied in vines and one is growing sideways which means there was a land slide at some point. The slope was used as a dump for years by my neighbor who owns it. That neighbor sold his house this spring and the lot between us didn’t sell… which makes sense because they were asking for nearly half a million for what turns out to be land that you cannot build on. Seattle being what it is, I’m sure some developer will snatch it up, grease some city permitting palms, cut down all the trees, destabilize the land and cause my house to slowly fall into the ravine.
They passed laws a ways back in WA to prevent dumping and waste over embankments because it causes serious erosion. Our neighbor used to do it & now their private road is falling into a gulch. This idiot builder in our area claimed to be a specialist in building on those kind of hills & several of his houses slid down the hills onto the railroad tracks. He eventually moved on to restaurant fraud after he lost his contractors license & has bankrupted 4 or 5 & working on 2 more. Fucking asshole!
We were too chicken shit to make a formal complaint about said neighbor. He was literally using the lot as a junk yard for years. They only cleaned it up before selling and the land has severely eroded in the 6 years that we have lived here… I hope your guy didn’t build my house…
Not unless you live on a cliff between Everett & Richmond Beach.
People who take tents to the beach…
I’ll spare you the angry rant.
…it’s the dumbest fucking thing…if they already think they can get 600k for some of the things they aim to build leaving the screen of 100ft of woodland would have worked out better for all concerned
…I’m assuming by losing it they think they can squeeze a few extra buildings in the space…but if the plans had the woods as a border is there any chance they’ve now exceeded the shit they had planning permission for (I forget the term used in the states but that’s what I think of it as) or is it just a case of “zoned for x-type construction” & anything goes after that?
…I only ask because if there is anything like that involved it might be possible to make life difficult for the developers…doubt you could get them forced to replant…& even if you could that wouldn’t be the same for many years…but all the same it seems like they deserve to get fucked?
Splinter, I’m guessing they probably followed the letter of the law somehow. Like “well we aren’t building anything on that 100 ft easement, what’s the big deal?”
Also the contact person for the neighborhood has been in the hospital for a while, so there’s also a strong chance that those assholes can be like “well we emailed _____ and said we were going to tear down those trees, and to let us know by 6/1 if that was a problem and if not that was okay.”
My dad is going to call the county about it, which is good. He’s got the time and is quite the asshole, so there’s that.
…well, here’s hoping some part of it blows back on them, anyway
…would that there were a way to make them pay…& to have to replant some damn trees
All the elected officials have been thoroughly bribed, so they’re not going to do a thing. They might feign outrage but they’re counting on:
1. People forgetting, moving, or dying (more common in Florida) before the next election.
2. New voters in the new development who are happy they got houses and weren’t there to get screwed and so will vote for the current office holders.
Generally the municipality staff isn’t in on the bribing (though sometimes they are) but they have zero ability to affect the decision process — that’s typically voted on by the municipality’s elected body. And they’ve got their money so they give no fucks.
Now I feel like Rodney Dangerfield explaining real estate development in Back to School.
I’ve dealt w/ a bunch of builders & they always say it is cheaper & easier for them to plow everything than to leave a border or any old trees. They also don’t want liability of trees falling that have never been exposed to wind before but now are because of them cutting all their protection. They say it’s cheaper to re-landscape afterwards.
No liability and cheap – that’s the true American way.
Late to the party but I was gonna point this out too. Here in Florida development wars are everywhere, so pretty much everybody has a story to tell. Flattening everything and then “re-landscaping” is very common. It’s actually unusual here for any developer to preserve any trees. They’ll put up a bunch of saplings after everything is built.
It also allows them more “access” which means driving trucks and heavy machinery through the flattened forest. In some cases the wood is sent to pulp mills, but here it’s often just piled up in the middle of the giant dirt lot and set on fire. I wish I was joking.
…wow…& I thought the first story pissed me off
…felled & burned rather than give any thought to the possibility that decades-old trees might be some sort of asset…that is definitely a kind of thinking pretty much guaranteed to wind me right up…it may be for the best that I don’t live in florida…I’m pretty sure if you act out some of the more creative means to visit retribution upon such people detailed in those carl hiaasen books…there’s a good chance of ending up in jail?
Jesus fucking Christ, Florida, can you get any worse?
I wish you were joking too. Here in Atlanta -where we are supposedly proud of our tree canopy – developers can be fined per tree they take down. They don’t care – they just destroy the trees and pay the fine. I guess it’s good population growth is declining but the damage is already done.
Cutting down healthy trees pisses me off, let alone clear cutting for development.
My city’s answer to the affordable housing question is an apartment complex on a busy intersection, 490 sq ft units, $1400 ea. So, if you need affordable housing to begin with, you still can’t live there because you can’t get more than one human in each one. No roommate, no families. Fucking boggling.