I'm siding with the Roses

Please tell me that the article in this week's Columbia Flyer about a local couple, living in Columbia for 30 years, is fighting to keep the vinyl siding they installed 16 years ago because someone just now decided to report the violation isn't true.

Really?

Is this what our community has come to?

Isn't there some kind of statute of limitations that could apply here? According to the article:

(Susan Rose)said she and her husband just wanted to install a higher-quality, lower-maintenance siding. They found the original vertical siding made of “pressed cardboard” to be problematic, because the vertical design, paired with the lack of an overhanging roof, meant that rain water would pool along the baseboard, rotting the siding and fostering the growth of unsightly green fungus.

Weary of the amount of time and money it took to clean the siding and have it repainted every few years, the Roses decided to switch to horizontal wood-textured vinyl siding.

Seems to me, the covenants need to be updated if they require residents to maintain a flawed design in the first place.

Form should follow function. Siding should protect our homes, not provide a breeding ground for mold, mildew, and rot.

It may be true that the Roses didn't follow the procedure. But is a 16 year gap in the process worthy of all this energy? Are we really going to ask these people to spend $10K+ to fix a problem that shouldn't even be a problem?

I hope not.

Our residents will be better served if the bad rules are changed.

Just my opinion.