Sunday, April 3, 2011

Next HOA Meeting - April 26

Last year the HOA board voted to go from holding meetings quarterly to monthly so that more people could attend. They are open to any owner in the community. And there is an open forum for owners to raise any issues or concerns they have.

The next meeting is 7 p.m. April 26 at the usual location.

River of Life Christian Center
6605 Krycul Avenue
Riverview, FL 33569



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Tree Line Approved

At the most recent HOA meeting, the board approved planting a hedge along two roads to increase the community's privacy, and to prepare for the day that developers destroy the trees and green space on the property between US-301 and Dartmouth Hill Road.

The first will be on the eastern side of Dartmouth Hill. When mature, the plants will provide a solid hedge line that will help block light — and some of the noise — from businesses and US-301.

We don't know when that property between Dartmouth Hill and US-301 will be developed, and when those trees that buffer us from US-301 will come down. But the land is zoned commercial and plans are already on file with Hillsborough County for a bank and a gas station to go in there.

It's going to happen; it's a matter of when.

By planting a hedge line now, when development appears to be years away, we buy plants when they're small and easy to install, and give them time to grow into a green privacy wall.

The other location is behind the units on Dartmouth Hill north of Johanna that back up directly onto US-301. Their homes are exposed to anyone driving by as well as noise and light from both the highway and the shopping center across the street.

As with the other hedge line, its benefits will not come immediately. But the board believed that making an investment now would pay much bigger dividends in the future.

Lift Station Repaired

On a ship, the toilet is called the head. When you sail, they warn you not to flush anything down the head that did not go through your head.

The plumbing systems in our homes can handle more than that, but not as much as people use them for, warns the man who services our lift station.

What's the lift station, you ask?

When you flush the toilet, the contents eventually go to a county waste water treatment center. But first, it goes to a big tank with a couple of pumps called a lift station.

Ours is located in a fenced-in area at the corner of Hawthorne Trace and Johanna. Plumbing from our units leads to it, where it collects until our pumps send it into the county lines on its way to the treatment plant.

February 17th, a circuit breaker tripped and shut off both of the pumps. Sewage backed up until it pooled on one of our streets.

One pump came back on as soon as electricity began flowing to it again. The other needed major repairs. Robert Spicher, the man who services our lift station, says we can get by with one pump for short durations but long-term it won't be enough to do the job.

Spicher completed the repair job on the second pump last week. Both of our pumps are working normally now.

He warns that we risk damage to the pumps — and expensive repair jobs for the HOA — by flushing things down our toilets that we should not. Things like napkins, paper towels, tampons, hair, pieces of clothing routinely turn up during repair jobs, Spicher says. The things he finds astonish him.

Yeah, I know. The tampon label says it's flushable. But Tampax doesn't have to pay the $5,800 repair bill for a broken pump. Or $12,000-14,000 to replace one that can't be fixed.

When you flush the toilet, it looks like whatever you put into it simply disappears. But it doesn't. The easier you make it on your community's plumbing system, the better it will work and the cheaper it will be to maintain.

Please put some thought into what you put in your toilets and wash down your drains.