GATES: Who are you fencing out?

Today I drove around Post Falls and saw a wonderful development north of Seltice. I naturally assumed that anyone living in these houses would have a wonderful view of the prairie for miles. However, when I looked closer I saw that the view from their windows was of a 4 feet plastic fence! I am sure these people paid plenty of money for the view, just to have it cut off by a cheap looking fence. Why would anyone stand for it?

A friend of mind gushed that she had bought a house in a "gated community." I asked her what the advantages of the "gates" was? She couldn't come up with an answer, but the Realtor had assured her that a gated community was better than an ungated community.

As Robert Frost might say, what are they gating in or gating out? The gated community I saw today, was gated on the view side, not the street side. If it had been gated on the street side that might make some sense, but on the view side?

Why the gates? I saw gated communities in Florida, in high crime areas, that had serious gates with barbed wire and glass embedded in the 12 foot high concrete "gate." But none of us lives in a high crime area. If they are gating out deer or moose, a four foot gate won't do the trick. And if the front yard isn't gated, then dogs can still wander in, if that's what they are worried about.

I have seen other developments whose views are ruined by these gates. Who really moves to Idaho to look at a four foot plastic fence rather than the prairie and the mountains, the rivers and lakes? Where is the logic here?

DONNA HARVEY

Hayden Lake