Anyone ever heard of such a thing

[Jacomo Sailor]

I bought a new to me boat today. It wasn't a Catalina 22, but it was a sailboat, an older Sunfish to be exact. I wasn't looking for one, but it showed up on my local Craigslist for $100, how could I pass that up? So after some brief correspondence with the seller, I hitched up my smallest boat trailer and headed off. The boat was located in a gated community that surrounds a very old private lake. I never cared too much for that snooty community, and I think you get scrutinized less in an ATF background check than you do trying to get through their gate. Anyway, even with the resident giving advance notice of my visit (including name, make of vehicle and license plate number), the guard still had a God complex as she looked down her nose at me. Once she approved me to enter and opened the gate, I made it about 50' before she came running out of her shack yelling at me. I thought maybe she forgot to give me a visitor pass or something. No, that wasn't it, she wanted to tell me that I couldn't take my tiny trailer in. I explained that I was there to buy a boat and she said "too bad". When I asked her how exactly I was supposed to get this boat without my trailer, she said the owner would have to bring it out to me. I told her that the owner didn't have a trailer and she said it didn't matter, no outside boats or trailers could be in their lake. I then told her that the boat wasn't even on the water and my trailer wouldn't be near it either. She said she didn't care as she demanded that I turn around and exit. She also said that if I wanted to bring my trailer in it would have to sit through a TWO WEEK QUARANTINE! So I abandoned my trailer in a nearby parking lot and got back in line to sit through the same scrutiny again while I pondered how I was gonna fit a 14' boat into my truck's extra short 5' bed. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I can understand quarantines for foreign vessels arriving in a US port, but a trailer from across town at an 80 year old dump of a lake nestled between a freeway and a landfill, come on!

 

[Love and Luck]

Was this community a private campground?

Here in PA those can get weird. I had a friend with a similar experience trying to buy a camp trailer.

 

[justsomeguy]

Control freaks. Perhaps the seller will find a way.

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

She has an advanced case of "crossing guard syndrome"...also known as "Barney Fife Syndrome." HOA board members and gated community guards of both sexes are especially susceptible to it.

Did you ask the seller to intervene with whomever she takes direction to let you AND the trailer in to pick up the boat?

 

[Jacomo Sailor]

No, not a campground, an 80 year old 200 acre lake where the average home sells for over half a million. So exclusive (in their own minds) that they broke away and became their own city. It's like an HOA on steroids. The seller told me they made her go through the same two week quarantine when she had a brand new pontoon delivered from the factory with motor and trailer still wrapped in bubble wrap. Control freaks for sure. In the end, after the home owner got the guard's supervisor involved, and after he saw that the boat wasn't in the water and it wasn't going to fit in my truck, they made an exception and let me bring it in.

 

[Sacto Dave]

Must be very boring in that guard shack if they have to go through all those gyrations. Sadistic!

 

[kloudie1]

HOA needs to take control of the Gestapo.

 

[BrianRobin]

I'd have told for her to block the trailer wheel with her foot, then kept on driving. By the time the screeming was over you'd be home with your new to you boat.

 

[Kings Gambit]

Somebody's trailer carrying viable quagga or zebra mussel spat going into a lake causing it to become "infected" could ****-up the whole place for the residents, even if it is a dump of a lake. The gate keepers do what they are told; it's not up to them to evaluate appeals for exceptions to the rules, etc. Your "word"--the word of a stranger-- that it's not going into the lake is not good enough. So why get bent?--see it from their point of view. After all, anyone who says anything in his/her own defense about anything, up to and including the POTUS, his cabinet, and all media, etc., should be automatically suspected of lying, according to the evident credibility standard of today.

 

[shemandr]

I think the HOA has a right to protect their lake from invasive species. Zebra does travel interlake on boats and trailers. All the guard was doing was her job. For an exception you need to go up the supervisory chain which is what you did.

 

[Joe]

The seller should have solved this issue before you got there. She knew what would happen.... lake management is just trying to protect their lake... I don't blame them... If I lived there and saw some guy driving around with an unauthorized boat trailer I'd be on the horn to security asap. You could have gone to Harbor Freight and bought a $10 furniture dolly to move the boat out to the gate area.... or strap in on your roof..

 

[RoyS]

I have found that the lower the individual's status is in life, the more tyrannical he is likely to be. Ask a parking lot attendant to vary the rules and expect to be told to take a hike. Ask the CEO of the organization the same question and you will likely be graciously accommodated. In my town we have "rubbish police" disguised as rubbish collectors. Put a handful of leaves in your trash can on top of the trash and the barrel will be left behind with the cover tossed in the driveway for good measure. Your security guard just wanted to tell somebody to take a hike, anybody.

 

[Kings Gambit]

I've found the lower one's station in life as exemplified a job he or she might be holding, the more likely to be treated abusively by a**holes with a sense of entitlement that the rules should not apply to them. Tell one of these people he or she cannot do something b/c it's against the rules, even if the rules are ones that they have agreed to follow, then it's f-bombing time. But if the CEO tells them the same thing, then it's "Sorry sir or ma'am, I forgot."

Reminds me of what I read in a book entitled: The Fall of the House of Hutton. The flag pole system of management. The hierarchy of corporate management is represented by a flag pole with the chief at the top, and the lowliest clerks at the bottom. When the guy at the top looks down--all he sees is smiling faces. When the guy at the bottom looks up, all he sees is a**holes!! If you are told that you cannot bring a trailer onto private property by the person attending it, don't try to make yourself an exception by arguing w/that person. The Management of the property is speaking directly to you through its employee. You want a waiver--talk to the management--and don't forget to "smile."

 

[Jacomo Sailor]

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't upset with them, just taken aback. I get them trying to prevent a zebra infestation, but when your lake sits yards from the biggest river in the state and there are several smaller lakes on the two tributaries feeding your lake, it seems an outside trailer isn't your biggest threat. Now had I traveled in from several hours away with a rented trailer to pick up a C22 that was on the water to get blindsided with this, then I would have been pissed.

 

[Kings Gambit]

All threats to mussel infestation need to be met; a.k.a, the proverbial chain is only as strong as its weakest link, etc. I doubt the general public even knows much where the threats are and how serious they might be.

 

[Jacomo Sailor]

BTW Kings, I am in no way an a-hole with a sense of entitlement. If anything, I'm they guy who is always looking up from the bottom. I didn't even know they had a rule, and no expalnaition was even offered to me, just NO! The guy behind me pulling a small U-Haul trailer also got turned around. Now just how was he gonna spread zebras? Must have had a rule about looking too ghetto in their exclusive city.

 

[Joe]

Must have had a rule about looking too ghetto in their exclusive city.

Dude..... that statement reveals your lack of understanding of real estate and the PUD world. (Planned Unit Development)
You're RIGHT!!! They will absolutely have a rule about looking "too ghetto".... that's the way PUD's protect their home values and community quality. They're called "CC&R's" .....

Definition of Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions (CC&Rs) Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions (CC&Rs) Limits and rules placed on a group of homes by a builder, developer, neighborhood association or Homeowners Association

For instance, it will keep residents from filling their front yard with disabled cars and boats.

Next time you score a $100 boat located in a private, gated community... this experience will serve you well. Either have the resident seller make arrangements, or call the HOA yourself and explain.... don't go beating up on some employee who has no authority to make an exception, because you didn't think ahead.

 

[T_Cat]

Picture of the boat??

 

[Leeward Rail]

Lord knows why anyone would want to live in a gated community or a place with excessive CC&Rs.

My sister lived in a snooty s-hole neighbourhood, halfway up a mtn in Colorado, were they deemed children's bicycles, temporarily in the front yard, an unacceptable eyesore. The neighbourhood higher uphill, which was even more restrictive, had a rule requiring cedar shingles. The "justice" was when a fire went through and burned all the cedar roofed houses and left a single house without cedar shakes unharmed (the owner was bucking the rule).
The cedar roofed houses sure looked attractive when smoke was pouring out of them.
Nothing like a HOA code that defies common sense. Especially when it increases fire risk.

 

[greg_m]

As a complete outsider here - literally, I must say there is some very strong opinion in both directions.

Outside of Johannesburg/Pretoria is a dam called "Hartebeespoort" dam. That was where we used to sail/race our L26 keel boat. Unfortunately someone somewhere decided to discard plants they did not like growing in the fish pond at home (water hyacinth) into the completely hyacinth free dam. Zero consideration given to fish species, plant species or users of the dam by said individual. Eventually, over a couple of seasons, more than three quarters of the dam was covered by the invasive species and actually all but stopped water sports as a result. Never mind the near total destruction of the well established ecosystem of the dam as a result.

Don't even get me started about people who decide they don't want there fancy fish ponds anymore and dump fish down the drains or into the lakes or rivers!

I fully agree on rules and restrictions. Before I can even launch at my local dam the boat and trailer have to be power washed at a special washing facility before you even go through the controlled entrances. And then the water is divided into no-go areas as well. No free for all. Conservation and consideration.

I must say though that the experience of the OP was unpleasant. I mean why let someone through the security gate only to call them back and turn around. Said security was obviously not completely on top of their game.

Anyways, from my experience it's all about education or lack thereof.

We have very strict pollution prevention routines aboard our foreign going cargo vessels. It is very sad for me to sail into a port somewhere, see the natural beauty of the place and then focus on the humans living there creating the pollution. The joke of it all, our ships get inspected for pollution control by local authorities and either legal observations for transgressions are made or fines issued to the ship but walk ashore and go into local areas and boy... this is ALL over the world. Some places are of course way cleaner then others but pollution is a world wide increasing problem.

Don't even get me started on the floating garbage to be found in all the oceans of the world these days!