Help With Lawns

I've been mowing the front lawns at 6 of the 7 vacant Reich homes. They are in transition: Jim Selden has pulled them off the market and they won't be in the possession of the bank until June 17. Jim said the bank has indicated that they will begin maintaining the lawns but not until June 17.

In the meantime, I don't mind continuing with the mowing and Mark has been applying weed killer. But I wonder if anyone is able to help with edging? Nothing fancy... just enough to clean things up a little.

Also, I haven't had a chance to mow the vacant lot on 230th at all. It's pretty bad. Does anyone want to help with that?

Let me know what you can do! Thank you :)

Update: Neighborhood Watch

Our Neighborhood Watch coordinators will be meeting with members of our HOA board this weekend. This is something we've been trying to put together for some time, and we've got a couple of volunteers who are very eager to get started. I'll post more about the program as soon as I have more details!

Homes Under Construction

I received an email from a concerned neighbor regarding kids playing in homes that are under construction. The neighbor asked that I put out a reminder that construction areas can be dangerous and probably aren't the best place for our kids to play. Be careful! :)

Advertising

If you're a student looking for potential odd jobs, here is a free way to advertise yourself. The following is from Wayne Cooke:

Are there strong and capable young people in Grand Firs looking for a summer job, or even odd jobs? Please let Wayne Cooke know who you are and what you can do so we can get your name into The Mountain News…a free service. Please call 847-4614, and leave your name, age, any special skills, and your phone on the message if no one answers.

Attempted Break-In

Two nights ago, someone attempted to break into a homeowner's garage. The homeowner lives on 77th Ave E in Phase 3, and the incident occurred between 10:30pm-7:00am. A report was filed with Pierce County Sheriff.

The HOA is setting up a meeting with two homeowners who have volunteered to set up our Neighborhood Watch Program. I will pass along more information about this as I receive it.

In the meantime, keep your eyes open for suspicious activity and don't hesitate to call 911 for anything in progress. Turn your porch lights on and make it well-known that your home. Occupied burglaries are very rare.

Park Equipment

We know this might not be a popular idea, but the HOA has decided to have the picnic table at the Phase 1 park permanently removed. Also, from here on out, we don't plan on repairing equipment that is intentionally destroyed. It will be removed and not replaced. Of course, the HOA will see that the equipment is maintained, and normal wear-and-tear items will be taken care of.

For the past 4+ years, several community members have donated hours of their time fixing equipment that has been broken, just to have it damaged again within days. It's a cycle that the HOA is tired of dealing with. It's very unfortunate and we're sad to see that it's come to this.

We're really hoping that this will be an incentive for the kids to take care of their equipment! We're lucky to have all these great parks.

Bus Stop Behavior

This morning, a few of our fellow Grand Firs neighbors might have received a prank call from the gate call box this morning. As I was driving out the gate I spotted 5 or so ELEMENTARY-aged children banging on the buttons and calling people (I'm assuming by scrolling down the directory). As I pulled out the gate, I asked that they "knock it off". Unless we want to start getting early morning prank calls from the kids waiting for their bus in the morning, we should probably inform our kids that playing with anything that involves the call box and gate is never okay. And if you happen to be a parent waiting at the bus stop, and you see this type of behavior, please don't look the other way. I'm well aware that having to correct other people's children is never pleasant, but you could potentially be stopping any future vandalism and unnecessary nuisances in the neighborhood.

If you know your kids ride the bus, it might be a good idea to just remind them of what type of behavior they should be displaying at our bus stop.