Hi, friends! Happy Sunday!
Tonight’s theme is about HOAs and how they can fuck right off. I don’t live in one and it makes me so happy not to.
If you are blissfully unaware, Homeowner’s Associations are these asshole organizations that have all sorts of neighborhood rules and restrictions in addition to whatever your local laws require. Like many fucked up things in America, they developed out of racism and often had racial covenants to make communities whites-only.
Sure, some are fine and you just pay a small annual fee. I had an aunt and uncle that had one and their annual fee was like $25 and the only thing their HOA ever did was update the front sign for the neighborhood. And in some areas, the only new construction happening is in HOA communities so there’s a very real chance that the only housing some folks can get is in HOAs.
Others make their own streets and that can backfire when shit breaks. A few counties away from perdido and myself, a bridge washed out on July 3rd after heavy rains and Franklin County is like “shrug, it’s not a county road, we can’t fix shit,” to the surprise of the residents. Two weeks after it was repaired, it washed out again. It’s just a creek, but I don’t think they have a new bridge yet. If they need help from the fire department or EMS, I guess they’re fucked.
Anyways, here’s a recent news story about how this asshole lady is getting away with fucking over her community and there’s not much the county can do because they’re in an HOA –
tl;dr this woman who moved there in the mid-90s decided to pour concrete into the drain pipe that runs along the easement on her property and now the neighborhood floods badly after average thunderstorms. She sent some bullshit letter to the neighbors saying the HOA installed the pipe without her permission (it was installed over a decade before she bought the house) and that there are erosion issues and the HOA won’t fix them.
If you want a better summary than mine about why HOAs are shit, here’s John Oliver –
Anyways, talk amongst yourselves about HOA bullshit or anything else you’re feeling like.
The nutty thing is the woman may even have a halfway decent claim that the HOA failed to maintain the drainpipe and it’s messing up her property. They cheap out all the time on maintenance because they don’t want to raise fees, and count on their insulated status to protect them from local laws.
Then stuff like this comes along and they find out they lack enforcement powers. It’s a basic problem with the idea that private agreements are better than laws. Laws have history and well-tested standards. Agreements can be really shaky when they get put to the test.
Yep, the HOA might have been fucking around. And completely agree about the enforcement situation.
Of course the real victims are the poor neighbors who had nothing to do with any of this.
I’m kind of surprised the cement company filled in that culvert without permits. That’s a great way to lose any licenses they may have had, and it’s potentially opening themselves up to all kinds of water pollution violations. Maybe Florida is a lot more strict than around here. Contractors won’t pour a garage floor around here without a permit.
I dealt with them (or condo boards where I’m from) when I worked as a lifeguard for a company that managed condo pools.
A couple of folks were cool, but most were petty dickheads.
I found a “comedy” channel on unrequited love (man friend too scared to say they have feelings for their female friend.) It’s so bang on it hurts. Literally hurts me because I was that wimp.
I can laugh about it now… I think.
In a recurring theme from MemeWeaver: people suck.
The pettiness! My neighbors do random stuff just as bad as that neighbor. But they also do things like give us treats for our dog. I shovel their sidewalk when it snows. They talk to us about little issues they think we should know about. Nobody is perfect, there’s give and take on both sides, and it more or less evens out.
I’m in an HOA (the only affordable home for miles). I could go on and on. Especially since I am now on the board and subject to all sorts of insider knowledge. I only ran because they begged me to, they needed an adult in the room. One of the other people running was basically running on a platform of “pizza for lunch and no detentions ever” (a la high school president), outrageous promises with no way to keep them. I ran on a platform of “I hate HOAs and so do all of y’all, I know. Let’s try to make this suck less.”
We currently have no monies because one of our previous board presidents embezzled instead of raising fees, and our last property management co stole about $22k from us and is now holding several boxes of financial info hostage. We would have to sue in order to get it back (both the info and the money), and we don’t have the money. So we also don’t have the money for all the projects that were in the works this time last year. COOL COOL COOL.
We got a new PM this year and they just decided they weren’t going to do anything. Work orders? Black hole. Contractual obligations? PM needs signatures in triplicate before they will process (taking weeks to pay for things like electrical & garbage, which are CONTRACTED SERVICES, YOU DON’T NEED OUR INPUT). Phone & email goes unanswered or we get the runaround. She also makes up answers to questions she doesn’t know the answer to instead of just, yknow, finding out.
So if you do live in an HOA, go to the meetings and be involved. Otherwise, just know that you are aware of about 1-5% of the shenanigans and absurdity going on.