Southwood Neighbors

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Survey Results

Percentage of respondants that included this issue in their TOP THREE complaints/ improvements

1. litter 7%
2. weeds/overgrown front yards 33%
3. garbage cans in front of homes 7%
4. graffiti 30%
5. loud music/late night noise 11%
6. pets (amount, noise, loose, droppings) 18%

7. junk cars 33%

8. front yards used as storage space 11%

9. litter in the woods 3%

10. speeding cars 55%

11. speeding/noisy off-road vehicles 48%

12. structural issues like peeling paint, roofs, etc. 11%

13. more than one family in a house 0%

14. other: kids in road/out of control kids 7%

Prefer a neighborhood association with a fee 15%

Perfer a free neighborhood organization 65%

Perfer neither - neighborhood is perfect 19%

(from Summer 2007 newsletter based on a paper survey that was delivered with the Spring newsletter)

News for 48th Ave Ct E

The county says your road has a homeowner's association. As you can guess, it is very inactive. The county will never do any work on your road or your road signs. Some want to find a way to end the association so the county will take responsibility. Others want to get the association active again and handle things.

(from the Summer 2007 newsletter)

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Litter

Did you know??

Most of the litter in our neighborhood comes from our unbagged trash that flies downwind when the garbage trucks turn our cans upside down in the air! Notice that the more windy a trash day is the more litter we have! Try bagging all light and paper items.

(from the Spring 2007 newsletter)

Dandilions

REMEMBER

If you have dandilions in your yard try to pick them when they are yellow because when they are white they'll fly to your neighbor's yard and seed! Or try Weed & Feed. Or mow on a regular basis so they can't grow their flowers!

(from the Spring 2007 newsletter)

Neighborhood Challenge

The Challenge

We have a wonderful neighborhood with lots of long time residents and now is the time to act to make sure it stays that way. Once neighborhoods get to a certain age they begin to sweeten or sour so now is a perfect time to actively improve it so that we age gracefully.

How to Improve?

First, we can stay in communication with each other via this blog, email, and neighborhood meetings. Secondly we can have neighborhood projects and potlucks.

Why Make an Effort?

Our homes are selling notably below the average for Pierce County ($220,000 vs $260,000) and we can change this one house sale at a time. This is a sure and steady way to increase everyone's net worth. Also, as we increase our property values we will be improving the quality of life in our neighborhood by getting to know our neighbors and physically improving the area.

(from the Spring 2007 newsletter)

History of Southwood

The fire department considers a huge area (from 38th Ave to 50th Ave Ct E) to be Southwood but the police department divides Southwood into three sections like the developer did. Southwood division I and II are reached by turning on power line road (45th Ave). Southwood division III is larger and is reached by several streets and avenues. There are about 358 houses in Southwood division III. The official entry (with neighborhood signs) to division III is at 48th Ave and 224th. Before 1980 all our neighborhood land was a dairy farm! The developer went bankrupt towards the end of the project and one way they saved money was to bury their construction trash in certain places around the neighborhood! Anyone have any ideas where? or the name of the developer? What other history is know about Southwood?
(From the Spring 2007 newsletter)