Dear Sir or Madam,
We have received your letter regarding the build up of algae on the exterior of our home. We appreciate the diligence of our homeowner’s association in regard to protecting the aesthetics of our neighborhood.
The algae was uncovered during routine pruning of shrubbery in an attempt to clear that side for better access by powerwashing. This clearing should have been done by the previous homeowner and was not. The shrubbery was overgrown and in most cases dead as a result of a lack of maintenance by the previous owner. Apparently, the association did not seek to notify the prior owner regarding either the shubbery or the algae; otherwise we would not now be laden with the need for such remediation.
We had every intention of addressing these concerns even before receiving your request for “dirt and mildew removal” within the next thirty days. We own our own powerwasher, and since licensed contractors are not required to perform this maintenance, we will attempt it at our disgression as the seasonal weather permits. Your suggestions of contractors for this service are welcome, and although they may be unnecessary in our case, you might find it useful to suggest them to other neighbors on our street, who appear to have never performed any siding maintenance.
In the future, we request that you indicate the inspector who brought these issues to your attention. Please include their contact details and qualifications, since we may need them to point out their findings personally in the future, so that we may become fully compliant with HOA policy.
Please be assured that we intend to abide by the covenants to which we agreed when we joined the association. This is the second request that we have received from the association management since we’ve moved in - a scant 4 months. We expect equal treatment within that agreement, and hope that this situation was not brought to your attention by a neighbor who did not have the forethought to consider asking us about our plans for the algae first.
As part of the community that the assiciation would foster, we would expect that neighborly contact would be the first course of action, rather than reporting an “infraction” to the association while it is obvious we are still in the process of performing maintenance. We understand the necessity for the association’s guidelines, but are very willing to deal with these issues in a neighborly way before such serious action is taken as sending deadline notices by mail.
In this case, a simple question about the algae would have led to our explanation above, and obviated any need for the management company to be involved, reducing costs and bad feelings. Now we’re left wondering what neighbor reported us without talking to us, and whether we have become a target because we are new on the block. I would have hoped to have avoided that.
We thank you for this opportunity to clear up the situation regarding your recent letter, and assure you once again that we are already in the process of taking care of the mentioned issues.
Sincerely,
HOA Member
