Guest Post by Gayle
I moved to my community in Southern California in 1999. I wasn’t here very long before I recognized the high quality of life the citizens enjoyed; in fact, I was heard to murmur that I would be content here until I died. There is a lot of money (much of it medical) in our fair town, which is generously shared with the community in a number of ways, especially the arts, youth programs, and charities serving the poor. Generally speaking it is a peaceable and beautiful place despite the recent bomb factory that was uncovered here.
There have been a lot of changes in the past ten years. A chunk of land of several thousand acres next to our city but owned by the county was unavailable for development of any kind. That changed about ten years ago, and now the area is filled with unimaginative shopping centers, many large concrete warehouses (including Amazon’s two), large apartment complexes, and lots of traffic. This was preceded by the ripping out of productive orange groves. I am fortunate to live on the old side of town, so I can avoid this area unless I need my Target fix.
In the older neighborhoods, there are many mature and beautiful trees shading lovely lawns and flower beds. These make life much cooler and more pleasant in our very long and hot and dry summers. They also require a fair amount of water to maintain, and the drought has put pressure on our water supply. Last year most of us tried to reduce our water usage. I started doing laundry every other week and tried to significantly reduce my lawn and garden watering. Some people just let their lawns dry up and left them. Others paid landscapers to rip out lawns and put in desertscapes, some of which are quite attractive, especially if brown is your favorite color. Others tried the do-it-yourself route and they are not so attractive.
Whatever I and others did was not enough. We did not meet the state’s demanded reduction of 36% in water use, and cities which did not do so were threatened with $10,000 per day fines. Despite more rain this winter, el nino has not come through and we still have less than normal rainfall this year. (Thankfully, rain and snow have fallen generously in the north, so water storage for the whole state may approach adequate for this year.)
I have not watered my yard since October. The rain that has fallen has been enough to keep everything going. This week it was starting to look pretty dry and no rain is in the forecast for the next ten days, so I decided to water my front lawn. I have a sprinkler system but it puts out such a fine spray that I have to run it a long time to get the job done. I have switched to a sprinkler attached to the hose and it is quite efficient although I have to move it around.
Around 5:00 o’clock I was just about finished watering, and I was watching the news. I observed a white SUV pull up across the street, a man carrying a camera getting out, and then coming to the front of my house to take a picture. I immediately confronted him about why he was taking a picture of my house. He explained that he was documenting that I was violating the city’s watering schedule and would be giving the picture to the city. He explained that first of all, I’m an even-numbered address so I can only water on Mondays and Thursdays, and today was Wednesday, and in fact no one is allowed to water on Wednesdays, Saturdays or Sundays.
Furthermore, I was not allowed to use the type of sprinkler I was using. He said the best way to water my lawn on Mondays and Thursdays is by using a nozzle on the end of a hose, which I stand around and point in the preferred direction. Furthermore, I was in violation of the prohibited hours for watering, which are from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm. I engaged this gentleman in a friendly discussion about why I was fairly enraged by this situation. He was basically sympathetic but was hired to do this job and so he was doing it.
The regulations are not really that unreasonable. Here’s what is so maddening: The city has never informed me that enforcers would be circulating to spy on and report my criminal watering, nor have they really publicized the new rules. This would be fairly easy to do by putting an insert in the water bill. Citizens have just been told to check the city website. Second, the City Council announced a month ago that it was going to have to raise water rates by 50% over the next four years because people were using less water, as they requested, so now revenues are insufficient.
Third, three new large housing developments have just been approved. Although these are not within our city limits, they will draw from the same water sources that our city does. They are also going to add tremendous traffic congestion in the area. In addition, there are plans on the books for new high-density housing to be built around town. They have already managed to overbuild the stock of commercial property, with lots of Space Available signs decorating the landscape. Do you smell a rat? I do, and it stinks to high heaven.
The lack of water will not be allowed to hinder the county’s need for additional property taxes, the developers’ need for big-bucks projects, and Obama’s insistence that no city has a right to have too many expensive neighborhoods, thus the high-density housing projects. Yes, I said projects.
To top it off, Trump had the audacity today to say that Muslim neighborhoods should be regularly checked out to see what’s going on. Oh the outcry! On the other hand, I’ve got to put up with the watering police. This situation is but a microcosm of the kinds of changes going on in the US of A. The Big Boys still play, the Little People better watch their p’s and q’s or a camera will tell on them.
Power and revenue, toxic combination.
Great read, thanks for the account.
Appears that your slice of heaven is being turned into hell – when will you move?
Typical city mentality…not enough revenue so they’re raising the water prices, but plenty of money to hire a water nazi to drive around and harass citizens. It makes my head explode.
Gayle, are you familiar with the UN Agenda 21 (or whatever they’re calling it these days)? Lots of high density housing projects are part of that plan. My city is all on board with it. High density housing going up everywhere.
While we’re all obsessed with the presidential election, we should instead be watching local officials. They’re quietly destroying our lives and property. If my city officials get too much opposition, they just do everything behind closed doors. And I’m not kidding.
The people in Flint, Michigan have to pay a monthly water bill – even though they can’t use the water.
Teri
Yes I am well aware of Agenda 21 and am confident that is what is driving the high-density housing plans. Bucolic communities are representative of White Privilege, despite the fact our community is quite diverse. Besides, all the Syrian refugees will need housing.
Kokoda
I’m looking at a couple of years.
This article reminds me of all the people who get their car’s towed with a snow emergency (Minneapolis) – it’s all over the radio / TV / they make auto calls / you can see people moving their cars. Yet there’s always that single car in the middle of the block.
All this info must be common knowledge. The author must have her head in the sand.
Gayle –
“He explained that he was documenting that I was violating the city’s watering schedule and would be giving the picture to the city. He explained that first of all, I’m an even-numbered address so I can only water on Mondays and Thursdays, and today was Wednesday, and in fact no one is allowed to water on Wednesdays, Saturdays or Sundays.
Furthermore, I was not allowed to use the type of sprinkler I was using. He said the best way to water my lawn on Mondays and Thursdays is by using a nozzle on the end of a hose, which I stand around and point in the preferred direction. Furthermore, I was in violation of the prohibited hours for watering, which are from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm. I engaged this gentleman in a friendly discussion about why I was fairly enraged by this situation. He was basically sympathetic but was hired to do this job and so he was doing it.”
——————————————
Socialist California strikes again.
In the 1970’s California had a sever drought and San Francisco implemented all kinds of water saving plans that were so successful water consumptions was cut in half. Expresses remained the same so the rates were doubled, History repeats. Something similar is happening in the Silicon Valley, infrastructure is being neglected because the legal tender is being used to pay Public Employee’s retirements. The future is arriving.
The El Nino is dissipating and being replaced by an El Nina which will bring droughts. This will speed up the process of everything west of the Continental Divide eventually returning to the Sonoma Desert.
Dutchman……………”The author must have her head in the sand.”
If Gayle is a working stiff (tax slave), yada, yada, yada, life doesn’t leave much time for investigation.
If you don’t like the rules move away or work to change them. It really makes no difference whether the rules make any sense or not, you are expected to follow them.
Until one of those happens you really don’t have much choice other than to follow them or pay the price for not doing so.
But advice: If you’re gonna ignore the rules for whatever reason, at least figure out how to do it secretly with no one noticing it so you don’t get hammered for it.
FWIW – every rule, or almost every rule, has some loophole in it somewhere that you can usually exploit to get around it. It doesn’t hurt to look for that loophole before you decide to just violate it.
I moved to my community in Southern California in 1999.
Found your problem.
Well, problems…
1. It’s Southern California.
Us toothless yokels on this side of the Big Muddy have known for decades to stay as far away from SoCal as physically possible. Mocked relentlessly by the Coastal Elites because we’d rather see it slide into the Pacific – along with everyone who lives there – rather than have it be part of the Continental US.
Which brings us to:
2. You moved there. On purpose.
I like ya Gayle… I really do. But, you were expecting what, really? For them to not be all up in your shit? About literally everything? Even going as far as to tell you what kind of sprinkler you can use?
If you are not allowed to use The Sprinkler of Doom – then why do they fucking still sell it… IN THE TOWN YOU LIVE IN? Like someone said – they got no money and have to jack up water rates, but somehow scratched up the coin to pay a fucking Water Nazi to go around narking people out. Awful nice of you to pay the salary of the guy who goes around narking you out so you can get fined and possibly jailed (and/or killed… try NOT paying those “fines” and see what happens…)
“Sorry. I’m just following orders…”
Yeah. Befehl ist befehl… We hung a bunch of evil fucks about 70 years ago when they said the same thing… and I would have told that shit weasel with the camera the same thing, too… tell him to relay the message to his paymasters.
Billy: California – the big warm and easy.
“He was basically sympathetic but was hired to do this job and so he was doing it.”
Adolf Eichmann was hired to do his job and so he was doing it. Those people of the alphabet soup agencies are all Eichmann!
I would say when you live in a desert, act like it. I am quite sure the Anasazi’s thought they could expand forever too.
The weather and surroundings, mountains, coast etc. are so nice in SoCal that people will put up with a lot to live there. And they are then plagued by the rabid socialists voted in by everyone outside of Orange County.
Billy is right. People laugh at us hayseeds for hanging on in areas that are deemed flyover country, too unsophisticated and decrepit for their high falutin’ tastebuds, but we are a lot freer for it.
Someday the land around the Great Lakes will be the most valuable in America. Rich farmland suitable for row crops, orchards, forage or livestock, good hunting, not much severe weather (other than blizzards, which are 10x easier to live with than earthquakes, volcanoes or hurricanes) abundant water, and enough winter to kill off a lot of pathogens (human and otherwise). You can live a very nice lifestyle (if you manage your money well and live simply in a modest home) here for about 50K a year, including a stay at home parent. And outside of the cities, we are remarkably un-vibrant (not enough free stuff, too much hard work).
Both coasts could slid off into the ocean and we’d be just fine without them. Actually, life would be infinitely improved if they did.
Yup, Agenda 21 under the guise of sustainability. Remove local control in favor of unelected “regional” planning boards. Hold pre-determined outcome Delphi meetings to fake a consensus. Push bike paths and rail. For a good read, try
Scary shit.
re Rose’s comment about good land in the flyover zones, enjoy while you can, once big brother wants the land, they will take it.
Surly: Good luck to them with that.
Every night that isn’t raining (and some that are) you can hear target practice going on down every road you drive down out here. Kids here get their first gun before they start school, girls too.
Things everywhere go to shit really quickly when farmers decide they’d rather fight than farm.
Trucking arteries that supply the dindu cities run through our areas, a determined person sure could fuck that up quickly if they chose to. Rail lines too. Urban life could get VERY interesting if JIT got trashed.
This is the last bastion of decent life in America, and it will not fall easily. A sifting and winnowing is going on in America, and those that crave freedom are fleeing the disintegrating burbs and cities for areas like ours. They KNOW that this is the Place of Last Stand and will act accordingly.
Life without land is life without freedom. I’d rather be dead than be a slave.
It sure would be a shame if you kept a pet bear – a grizzly maybe – because it was part of your own personal gender-species identity, and if that pet grizzly was hungry one day when the inspector wandered past. What a shame. But a grizzly must grizzly, and you can’t blame it. Can’t blame the owner, because it’s hyrm’s gender-species identity.
Gayle , you are guilty. You admitted your guilt. Now you come here trying to rationalize your sinful , godless behavior.Shame on you for stealing from your neighborhood .Think about all the dying children that would be saved if they only had water but YOU waste it on the grass . Shame on you again. They should have put you in jail.,
Billy ,glad you are back ,I thought you had gotten drunk and drove off the side of a mountain.
” … but was hired to do this job and so he was doing it.” ———- Gayle
Ahhh …. the clarion call of Gestapo-types since the beginning of time.
“Reduce watering!”. “Hey, we gotta raise your rates 50% …. because you reduced watering!”. Wow. I suddenly realize the meaning of ‘getting fucked coming and going”.
Nice article … even if it pissed me off.
Rose,
“Surly: Good luck to them with that.
Every night that isn’t raining (and some that are) you can hear target practice going on down every road you drive down out here. Kids here get their first gun before they start school, girls too. ……….”
A Rancher named Bundy could probably give you some advice about that. Or his supporters, one named Finicum in particular.
When they want it, they take it. They have absolutely no problem imprisoning or killing you and anyone else in the way if you don’t want to go along with it.
Greg..the Anasazi coveted their neighbors…unfortunately for the neighbors it manifested itself in them roasting over an open flame.
California is a bowl of granola…full of fruits,nuts and flakes .
I lived in Cali for a few years. Thousand Oaks….an upscale place in many areas . The weather is great…the rest of Cali is crap .
I knew we were screwed as a society when there is the farm police making sure you can’t drink milk straight from a cow,you can’t grow your own food or build a pond without permission from the EPA because the water dropped from the sky doesn’t belong to you .
Like Rose I see more and more “Country Folks ” here in S.C. buying guns,practicing every week-end and making preparations .
Stucky
There’s a fullish moon tonight. I need to water my backyard, too. It’s Thursday. I will use that illegal sprinkler to drench my lawn after 10:00 p.m.
Gayle
My parents save ALL the water that comes out of the kitchen and bathroom faucets … and often, even in the bathtub. They dump it all over the back yard. It’s unbelievably green all summer. I swear this is true.
Well … they’re nuts. There may not be another family in America who saves their bathwater.
But, the kitchen sink thing is doable. There’s a dish washing container in the sink, and when they’re done with that water they just pour it in a 5 gallon plastic container next to the sink, and when that’s full it goes in the garden. And, no, the soapy water (they use very little soap) has never adversely affected the grass. You’d be surprised how much water goes down the kitchen sink over the course of a year … hundreds and hundreds of gallons.
On the positive side they do NOT save the toilet water. At least I don’t think so.
Stucky
My laundry water drains through a hose to the back corner of my yard (long story). Last year I got diligent about letting it drain into a couple of areas where citrus trees are growing. I couldn’t believe this winter’s crop! Many large and sweet and lovely lemons, grapefruit, and oranges appeared, better than I have ever had. Who knew what soapy water could do?
Anon: If they want to try, let them. There comes a time when fear of death or imprisonment is trumped by rage at unbridled abuse. We aren’t there yet but its coming. It only takes so many sparks before you get yourself an all consuming fire.
You give “them” a lot more credit than they deserve. Public pensions are in the red (and how many of their goons will support them if the gravy stops flowing?). Infrastructure is crumbling and vulnerable to sabotage. The cities are vibrant powder kegs ready to explode. “They” are hardly the invincible force that you paint. “They” are wholly vulnerable to disruptions in JIT. It is their Achilles heel. Sever a few major trucking arteries and the cities will BURN. It is a lot easier to bring a big city to its knees than it is to go from house to house, down every dirt road and up every holler to round up pissed off as hell farmers and rednecks with nothing to lose. Especially when said people are armed to the teeth and have their own well stocked sources of food, water and heat.
You also forget that they have purged the military of decent commanders, that many of the best military personnel are from flyover country, and that a huge number of vets well versed in guerilla tactics live rural. Who exactly will be leading the charge against us flyover folks, the SJW Kumbaya Rainbow Brigade of retarded vibrant goons and gender uncertain Special Snowflakes?
And if they do succeed in uprooting us, who exactly will grow the food to feed their sorry asses and fight their wars for them? Midget Mexican illegals with no loyalty to anybody but EBT? Laquisha the twerking tractor driver? Hadji and his hundred wives? Trigger word and safe space iPhone junkies? Have to ever seen a farm run by SJW Gaia worshippers? I have, and it wouldn’t raise enough food to feed a squirrel (but it will have a very noble PC mission statement and a nice mural or two).
We are the seed corn of America, wipe us out and there isn’t anybody to take our place. Even if they defeat us, they defeat themselves too, having killed off the host that (literally) feeds and defends their parasitic hides. Mutually assured destruction.
They got away with Bundy and Oregon because anger isn’t widespread enough yet, and because the Oregon people were tactical fools. Timing is everything, and it isn’t time yet. It will be, if they don’t change course.
For those reusing gray wastewater in the garden or on the lawn, be sure to eliminate all Triclosan-containing soaps (ie., antibacterial), as it will kill the essential bacteria in the dirt that enables plants to feed!
@Gayle: As a fellow Socal resident, I’ve been flummoxed by the amount of “new” housing construction while we’re in a severe drought. I expect a moratorium on ANY new residential construction, but as you and I both know the developers have way too much influence here.
@Westcoaster and Gayle
Ditto that. As the third Socal resident, it makes no sense to me. One thing that many of the commenters here probably do not realize is that with such a large immigrant population and being the absolute center for creative talent, we’ve figured out ways to pretty much ignore all this foolishness. A full 1/3’rd of our economy is now underground and alternative ways to transact and avoid paying silly taxes is as common as sunshine.
Because we lead the way in socialist retardedness, we also lead the way in avoidance and refusal. Cash is king and many of my vendors refuse everything else.
“I will use that illegal sprinkler to drench my lawn after 10:00 p.m.”
There you go. Enforcers like the one who harassed you are 9-5 types, strictly.
Water availability and quality appear to be pressing for the next generation. Socal, AZ, NV, NM & Utah are all candidates to return to desert. The Colorado river doesn’t even make it all the way to the Pacific anymore!
Rose makes a good point — live where the water already is, if you have a choice!
Maybe if they quit chemtrailing it would rain.
“We are the seed corn of America, wipe us out and there isn’t anybody to take our place. Even if they defeat us, they defeat themselves too, having killed off the host that (literally) feeds and defends their parasitic hides. Mutually assured destruction.”
Unfortunately it seems that is the plan, those few at the very top believe there will be enough left to keep them, tier minions and slaves going.
Should be “THEIR minions”
Nice article Gayle. You just need to move out of Kommiefornia. No govt ever becomes kinder and more benevolent over time. Add in the fact that they are cash strapped and you have a recipe for even more draconian bullshit.
If you’re going to water you can have your sprinkler heads or even nozzles changed to put out a heavier spray/droplets. Install a timer to water in the wee hours between 2am and 4am. The wind is usually calm, temps are lower and evaporation is less of an issue allowing the water to soak in. Plus watering at that time of the morning requires the water nazis to earn their keep!
Did I mention that you need to move out of Kommiefornia. The inmates are running the asylum there.
I have to wonder. At some point, somewhere, the gloves will have to come off and any pretense (because most of it is pretense at this point) at freedom, law and order, or even basic civilization will fall. Will they dare tangle with us, I don’t know. It will be costly if they do.
The deck is not stacked in their favor. They’ve chosen to ally with a rabble of ne’er do wells, lunatics and retards (of both the ghetto and the ivory tower varieties). Useful idiots to stir shit and start a war, but not to win one. And they are choosing to crack down at the end of empire, when they are already weak and overextended, and not at their zenith.
I don’t think they’ll be able to maintain their accustomed standard of living if they ditch us.
They might end up as kings of a banana republic, but that ain’t saying much. Even the current banana republic leaders rely on money and goods from western nations to keep them afloat and in comfort. Third world troglodytes don’t produce much but babies and disease, that’s why they are the third world. Allow them to overrun all of western civ and you can kiss decent healthcare, educations, even basics like sewage treatment systems and garbage collection goodbye.
I dunno. I vacillate as to what I think they are up to. Some days it seems as though there is a grand scheme afoot. Other times (most of the time, really) it seems more like they are evil but hapless idiots letting this thing play out, flying by the seat of their pants and totally clueless as to what effects their actions will have and therefore no idea as to what their next move to counter such actions will be. They sure do a lot of things that seem pointlessly self sabotaging, if not outright suicidal. It’s almost like they are big kids with a powerful toy that they don’t understand but that they insist on playing with anyways, to disastrous ends.
Interesting times, indeed.
Rose, I am so with you on your rant at 1:19 and your comment immediately above at 8:13! You are so right and there’s a bunch of us down south.
Gayle, thanks for the behind-enemy-lines reportage. Sorry for your hassle. Living in the USA just ain’t what it used to be, is it?
Rose
Your 8:47 post: I am reminded that evil can’t help but destroy itself in the end. I guess it’s always a question of how many good guys have to be sacrificed in the process.
Mike in GA-
It seems like the Xers are the last generation to have any inkling of our former way of life. Apparently those coming after prefer another kind of society. And the beat goes on.
I_S
Thanks for the advice about the sprinkler heads. I’ll get on that.
Gayle, thanks for sharing. I live in Northern California and did the lawn conversion myself. It took so many hours over many months and thousands of dollars in plants and materials. The upkeep never ends as weeds that never existed before pop up. It looks sad. It still needs watering. Half of the drought tolerant plants died when they became waterlogged in December and January rains. I appreciate your warning about the watchers. I now know why some houses in California have eight feet high perimeter fence boards around their entire lots.
I can’t help but point out that California, like most Western states, is reliant upon steeply subsidized water, and that most Californians pay water rates far below what it costs to store and transport the water to them.
But it’s useless to point out to Westerners that a Free Market approach, which would mean raising the rates to the level necessary to pay down the costs of the dams and aquaducts that are steeply subsidized by American taxpayers at large, would do more to reduce water consumption there, especially in agriculture, than nanny-state laws regulating watering and sprinkling, and punish individual consumers whose use is a drop in the bucket next to agricultural concerns growing low-value, water-guzzling crops such as rice and alfalfa. I’m willing to bet that if water rates reflected costs, that the rich people in Rancho Mirage would not have their 4-acre lots landcaped to resemble tropical rainforests.
But perhaps those of us who live east of the 100th Meridian should be careful what we wish for. Do we really want three quarters of the population of CA and other parched southwestern states coming back here?
First sentence Gayle says she moved to CA. Of her own volition. I stopped reading there. Doing something that damn stupid deserves to be punished. The comments suggest it was.
Gayle – you screwed up. You knew what CA was, yet there you went. Please, buyers remorse is a terrible thing, so just stop it.
Llpoh, I heard an expression once, it was, I do not find myself here. It meant the person had a preference. Almost all folks prefer to live where they can find themselves. Just as folks from Indiana love Kentucky, folks all over the USA love California, they keep coming and coming, and these are WHITE people.
Nobody comes for the politics, they come for the sunshine and the segregated neighborhoods. They come for the open spaces and the free parking. They come for houses instead of apartments. They come for the cool ocean air and the open personal space. Even in the crowded theme parks like Disneyland and Universal, white folks and brown folks can stand two feet apart and it is as good as if they were miles apart. Back east, if a white person and a black person stand miles apart, they feel as if they are breathing each other’s foul breath.
Over here, if anybody gets mad at you, they will flip you off as they drive by or if they are having a bad day, they will shoot at you as they drive by. They are polite enough not to get in your face and go into a wild rant about what you did to piss them off. That simply is not done In Southern California.
Anyone I see taking pictures of my property gets THEIR picture taken, and their vehicle if possible, and whatever other identifying marks possible. If they ask, I just say “For the future” and leave it at that.
Gestapo bastards. When the Crunch comes, “hired to do this job and so he was doing it” won’t fly any better than “I was just following orders”!
They call it paradise
I don’t know why
You call someplace paradise,
kiss it goodbye
eagles last resort