I was biking around my neighborhood, and for whatever reason, I started noticing yard signs. I’m talking about the ones that are maybe 3’ wide and 2’ tall - like election signs. I don’t really have strong opinions about not having them. If I made the rules, I’d probably prefer not to have any. But I’m glad to not live in a homeowners’ assoc or someplace that has such stringent rules.
Do you have any thoughts/opinions as to whether there ought to be any limits on what types of signs folk plant in their own yards? Seems like there are more and more. It used to be, they were pretty much limited to campaigns, and would go away after the election. Or house for sale signs or yard/garage sales signs.
-I noticed a number of election signs still up - tho our local elections were a week ago.
-Some, like “Hate has no home here” seem ubiquitous. (The one nearest to my home belongs to the ONLY neighbor I would describe as a complete asshole! :D)
-Then there are a bunch of signs announcing where a kid goes to school, or what sports team they are on. Most are for school teams, but some are for private sports leagues/facilities. Which sorta seems like advertising.
-I noticed a couple saying a resident attends some private tutoring company. I thought that comes close to advertising, which struck me as bordering on not cool.
-Some home builders/remodelers seem to have signs in front of homes w/ no building activity going on. Again, impresses me as advertising, not entirely appropriate in an entirely residential neighborhood.
-Then there are a bunch of “charity” signs, announcing support for some resident with some disease, or announcing a fundraising run or something.
Like I said, I don’t really feel strongly about it, but was wondering what the rest of you think. Is there ANY sign you would want a neighbor to be prohibited from posting.
BTW - took a quick gander at the muni code, and it seems like most of the signs are prohibited, and the ones that ARE allowed, ought only be up for a limited time. Apparently something that is NEVER enforced. Maybe I should try posting larger and larger, and more and more offensive signs to see what it would take?
Interesting. Around here I only see election signs, and only in the weeks (or more) leading up to an election. Even election yard signs are rare in my actual neighborhood. Maybe my neighbors are apathetic.
I wouldn’t like the clutter you describe, but would probably learn to ignore it
Ehh, around here they usually don’t stay up very long.
There’s a family down the street that seems to have a permanent rotating display of Blue Lives Matter/Support The Police/Thank You Police on their front lawn, and the rest of the neighborhood just uses it as a reference (“two house past the Blue Lives Matter sign, on the left.”)
Ehh, they usually don’t stay up very long.
There’s a family down the street that seems to have a permanent rotating display of Blue Lives Matter/Support The Police/Thank You Police on their front lawn, and the rest of the neighborhood just uses it as a reference (“two houses past the Blue Lives Matter sign, on the left.”)
FYI, the Supreme Court ruled in 1994 that governments could not regulate political yard signs, although they left the window open a crack for things like maximum size. A homeowners association in New York tried to sue a couple for displaying a political yard sign. The HOA lost in state court, tried an appeal, lost that, tried to appeal the appeal, and lost that in 2015.
Both those cases involved signs for specific candidates. You could probably get away with something like “Re-elect the Pussy Grabber in 2020” as a yard sign, but you might not want to build a billboard on your roof and put it on there.
My neighborhood is also becoming cluttered with yard signs, much as you describe. The election signs generally go down after the election (except for one gigantic Trump sign that stayed up for months) but we have signs for private schools, for general political sentiments, for contractors (which don’t always go down promptly) for local fundraisers, and probably for other stuff that I haven’t bothered to read carefully.
Most are small, and I suppose I don’t really care. I find the political ones somewhat informative, although I prefer those to go down shortly after the relevant election.
My next door neighbor is really into liberal candidates and their yard signs. I have one just for presidential candidates. Still have my Hillary sign, if that’s ever needed again. Hillary O’Rourke? Hillary Harris? Hillary Buttigieg?
Yeah, the political candidate signs generally disappear pretty quickly. But several others seem to be essentially permanent.
-Two “Hate has no home here” signs on our block have been there for at least a year.
-And it seems there is always a set of signs (or ribbon around trees) to support someone with an injury or disease or something. The most recent ones seem to have been up for months - if not a year. I think they are “in support of” a youth who got burned when another kid poured gas on a bonfire. :rolleyes:
-But the most prevalent seem to advertise when a kid is in school, or on a team. This a.m. I happened to notice one for a swim team - a private organization.
-The schools have a weird practice around here. We have a single “unit” district, for all schools from kindergarten thru HS. My impression is that when a kid starts kindergarten, they put up a sign that says something like “Welcome, class of 32” (or something along those lines. Always strikes me as odd, referring to a HS year that far in the future.
Driving to work this a.m., I noticed they are probly less common than I had thought - but probly at least 2 or so per block. I think when walking or biking they SEEM more prevalent, simply because you see them for a longer time as you approach more slowly… My house is right between 2 “Hate has no home here” signs, so I guess everyone knows where hate DOES have a home!
A neighbor has a sign in his yard for the company that just built a deck onto the house. I complimented him on the deck the other day and asked why the sign is still up as the construction was finished a week ago. Turns out the bid had several options; no sign for price $A, sign during construction only for price $B, and sign for two months beyond construction for price $C.
Naturally, he went for the cheapest price. The odd thing is that we are on a private road. The only people that will ever see the sign are me, him, and a third neighbor.
Interesting. That is the kind of advertising that I think inappropriate in most residential neighborhoods. And I believe it is expressly prohibited under our muni code (tho never enforced).
I don’t much care; it’s not an issue in my neighborhood for the most part. Most signs stay up near people’s houses, usually in the flowerbeds / landscaping.
This time of year, we see a lot of religious Easter signs up in people’s flower beds near their houses. There are a lot of school spirit type signs in people’s flowerbeds- usually proclaiming what school their kids go to, or sometimes their sport and number if they play for one of the school’s teams.
For the most part, any signs out in the yard near the street fall into four categories- political signs for contested elections, signs that tell people not to drive so fast because there are kids playing, signs advertising the company doing renovations at a particular house, or realtor signs. In the past few years, our area’s been super-hot real-estate wise, so there haven’t been many realtor signs, as the houses get bought prior to signs being put up. Lots of renovation signs though. Surprisingly few political signs up lately, considering it’s city council and mayoral elections coming up next month.
On your own property I couldn’t care less how many you have or how out of date they are. I do very much object when they are on public property around major intersections and the various candidates just abandon them. For that I think there should be fines and really stiff ones. And fines for businesses (we buy ugly homes/earn big money with us) that post signs at such places if said signs are current or not. You want to do something like that pay a fee and/or at least get permission from the appropriate governmental body. Just post and run and I would like to see you not just prosecuted but persecuted as well.
There is a sign promoting motorcycle awareness that says, “Motorcycles Are Everywhere”. The first time I saw such a sign, my first thought was some paranoid nutter posted it.
I just put up my two signs for the Stanley Cup playoffs – the one I always put in my bedroom window, and then my dad brought home two yard signs from Dicks. (We gave one to my neighbor)
He said there were hardly any left, because people were taking like, arm loads of them. You’d think they’d limit two per customer.
So, to extend this - do you think there should be ANY limits as to what people put in their front yards? Again, I’m talking about whatever you consider to be a middle-class residential neighborhood. Walking the dog yesterday, I saw one house that has some big colorful plastic climbing thing for kids in their front yard. My initial impression was that it looked kinda crappy, and would be more appropriate in a backyard. But as w/ the signs, I really don’t care too much. When I first saw it, I imagined it was temporary - for a party or something, but it has been there for a couple of weeks now.
Should someone be able to put up a swingset in their front yard? Statuary? Cars on blocks?
Just looking for opinions.
I don’t have any really strong views. I guess I prefer that the fronts of homes look “nice” - by which I mean in decent repair, sufficiently maintained. So the accumulation of junk or non-working cars would not fit in. But I do appreciate individuality and do not favor a cookie-cutter HOA look. Gotta admit it would makes a big difference to me whether it were right next door or across the street where I see it every time I look out my window or pull in/out of my garage…
One HOA went bankrupt as a result of enforcement of a sign rule that got out of hand.
I think this are idiotic. Someone said, “There is terrible injustice in the world. I need to solve it. I know! I’ll put up a sign…There! I’ve done my part! Next I’ll send out a tweet!”
HOAs are not for everybody. I would agree with this if I didn’t have 5 other front yards within 100 feet of my driveway. But with closely spaced homes, what other people do affects you much more, and I don’t want to look at a bunch of signs, or cars up on blocks, or hot pink front doors. And neither do the people who are looking at houses to buy.
The only law I want to see is one that says you can only put the signs on your own lawn. I live on a private road with three houses, and my mom and a neighbor used to take turns kicking down signs some asshole kept putting by the mailboxes. Eventually they got the hint.
Tree swings in front yards are really common around here. Some are obviously functional–they are the plastic bucket swings. I assume they are in the front yard because the back yard doesn’t have an appropriate tree. Others are more clearly decorative as much as anything–distressed wood, antique-finished chains. It’s not a bad look.
My neighborhood was red when we moved in, and is growing increasingly purple. I enjoy seeing the yard signs evolve.
My favorite is when they have contradictory signs, like a florid “all are welcome” sign right next to a sign demanding that the city ban the building of new homes to “protect the neighborhood.” And I don’t think these are meant to express a difference of opinion within the household.
I think there is a law in my area that protects the rights of candidates, et al, to put their signs in parks and highway medians and shoulders and other public land. Not sure what the law says about people who dislike useless visual clutter removing them.
