Living in Highlands Ranch means living in a busy neighborhood.
Houses are build close together. Neighborhoods are developing or
have developed over time. Neighbors turn into friends or co-workers.
Having 70,000+ people living so close together requires everyone
to give up a small piece of personal freedom to keep the neighborhood
what it is. Most people have no problems doing this and life in
a good neighborhood is great.
However - a small percentage of
residents of Highlands Ranch do not think the same way. They cannot
understand that their behavior causes issues for their neighbors.
Noise is one of the biggest problems when living so close together.
Starting a diesel truck in an early winter morning to warm up the
engine is good for the driver but if it happens at 5.00 AM it will
wake up every neighbor. Starting a fireworks display with rockets
and firecrackers looks great. If you do it over and over again
a neighborhood turns easily into a battle field. Other than on
4th of July fireworks are just not suited for a neighborhood like
Highlands Ranch. Dogs are scared, babies wake up and overall it
is a noise disturbance that is just not needed when people are
living so close together.
Keeping a property looking good is not hard. Water frequently,
mow the grass every 2-3 weeks and a few other minor things and
a property looks good. But even those basic things seem hard to
do for some people. Driving through the neighborhood streets shows
a horrible picture in some areas. Dead grass, foot high lawns full
of weed and other issues are highly visible. Why is it so hard
to do some basic maintenance and to keep a neighborhood looking
neat? Do those people hate their neighbors? Are they trying to
fight the latest tax hike in property taxes that way?
We think that Highlands Ranch high level of appearance has slipped
in the last 2 years in some areas. Hopefully the HRCA (Highlands
Ranch Community Association) will get these things back under control.
In the mean time residents can only hope that the new neighbor
moving into the house next door is not a neighbor from hell.
