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Understory is a record of what it actually takes to live in Timberwood, kept by the people who live here. It is not run by the city and there is no homeowners association behind it. Nothing on it is for sale.

Why it exists

The same questions come up in the neighborhood Facebook group two or three times a year. Does a fence need a permit. Who does roofs around here. What day does the trash come. Answers get posted, some of them wrong, and by the following week the thread has scrolled away. Six months later somebody asks again.

A record works the other way around. When a question gets a real answer, that answer becomes a page, and the page is still here next year with the date it was last checked on it.

What is on it

The Record holds the facts: permits, deed restrictions, utilities, schools, flooding, taxes. Every page cites where it came from. Anyone can read it without an account.

Services is the contractor list. Not stars out of five, but receipts: what the job was, roughly when, roughly what it cost, and whether the neighbor would hire them again. When two people have used the same company, both experiences sit on that company's page.

Notices is for the short-lived things. Garage sales, lost pets, a heads up that the water is off. Each notice is filed under a type and drops off the board on its own, into an archive that stays searchable.

How it grows

Reading takes no account. Adding takes one, because a contribution should come from somebody who lives here.

Pages marked needs a neighbor are the ones where no public source settles the question and only somebody living on the street knows the answer. They stay open until one does.

See also

• House rules, the three subjects that do not belong here
• About Timberwood, the basics of the neighborhood
• How Services works