Who lives in a gated community?

[Peaches]

Right before I moved here, they stopped having a 24/7 guard at our gate and installed bars that go up and down and we have passcards in our cars and there's a box to call residents if you're a visitor. When I moved here there was a guard there until 11 PM 7 days a week.

Now they have a guard there until 8 on the weekdays, 6 on Saturday and no one there on Sunday.

The bar stays up for, they say, 30 seconds and it's AT LEAST that long. If you're LEAVING the subdivision, the bar goes up, so anyone who's been waiting can zip right in. 3 cars, including a truck with a trailer (and NONE of them lived here) got in when I was leaving today and it made me realize we really need something different.

Yes, I live in the boondocks, but only about 1/3 of the houses are full timers and there have been some burglaries and vandalism - two that I know of just in the past couple of weeks.

I want to take a proposal to the HOA for something more secure, but I'm not sure what to ask for. We're set up weird because we straddle a county road with 4 entrances (2 on each side) which makes it even a bigger pain to have to deal with.

Any suggestions? I thought about offering up the kid with a gun for $5 an hour, but I'm afraid he might get trigger happy and start shooting at all the minivans he doesn't think deserve to be on the road.