Bought my first Park!!! Need Advice...

[Shweta Patel]

I started my quest for a park back in December. I am so excited to share that 3 months later, thanks to BP and all the support and confidence and education I have found here, I was able to lock down my first park! 

My question: 

The park is occupied by all tenant owned homes. SOme of these folks have a LOT of "stuff" in their yards. One even has a wardrome with the drawers pulled out to make for a make **** kitten condo with 3 kittens that were directly visible from a drive by. For the most part, the tenants keep their homes ship shape. But there are a few who look like they could qualify for the Hoarders show. 

Given that the clutter is outside of the home, how can I implement a community spring cleaning? 

I intended to send out a notice reminding the community of the rules and regs, but I also dont want my first play as the new land lady to be calling in the ASPCA for what seems to be unauthorized pets on the premises. 

Thoughts? 

[Frank Rolfe]

Every property has its own character, and you have to work around that so as to make the community a pleasant place to live without it becoming a police state. You need to focus on what hurts the neighborhood and will cause your property to fail to attract new residents or retain the old.  Initially things that nobody can dispute, such as missing skirting, or the home needing to be painted one color, or non-running cars and appliances in the yard. Your Spring Clean Up should focus on these type of community-builders and just the general spirit of making it a nice place to live.

On the "kitten hotel",  some residents are really into unusual yard art. We have a resident in Kansas that has over 100 broken concrete statues in their yard that are painted in bright colors. It may be artistic genius, for all I know. I would go to the resident and -- if the wardrobe is their idea of cool yard art -- see if there's a substitute that you could buy and swap at Walmart, or at least paint is a "park-service green" so that it's less offensive. If you work with the residents, they are pretty friendly about making changes, but if you scold them, they become defensive. 

Just maintain a theme of "let's make this the nicest property that it can be" and do so in a respectful way and you'll have no problems.