Whoa! This doesn’t happen very often. But apparently there’s so much fraud and embezzlement from Miami condo owners that police are making a tentative attempt at cracking down. The link below shows an arrest by a special police squad formed to combat condo embezzlement.
Still, if Miami dedicated every one of its police officers to fighting fraud by the HOA Lawn Nazis, they’d barely put a dent in the problem. Homeowners Associations and Condo Associations are all fundamentally corrupt, every single one of them. Even if a rare HOA has escaped an embezzlement situation, they’re all just one vote away from disaster. From the very beginning, the rules governing Homeowner Associations were written by the lawyer to the lawyer from the lawyer. Developers were given government permission to build higher density housing as long as they enacted approved covenants and controls. Those controls were never meant to protect homeowners. They were built to protect developers, funnel money to lawyers, and obtain that money from the pockets of gullible home buyers. No homeowner can possible be in 100% compliance with all HOA rules. It’s not humanly possible. That means fines, liens and foreclosures…and lots and lots of lawyers’ kids are collecting their sports cars and their college tuition money.
Follow the money. Always follow the money. if you see a photo of some HOA treasurer getting busted for stealing, just look where the big money’s going. There’s always a cloud of vultures circling over the carrion.
(link to Miami Herald HOA bust!)
The video associated with this news story is actually pretty funny. But the subject matter isn’t funny. Killer mosquitoes actually do exist!
In Smyrna, Tennessee, a homeowner is furious because the town won’t do anything about an outbreak of giant mosquitoes in the retention pond behind his house. With Zika, West Nile, Chikungunya, dengue fever and who knows what other diseases carried by these bugs, the lawsuits are going to be flying.
More amazing is the size of these bugs. The homeowner in the video captured one and said this is the size of the mosquitoes that are biting him and his family. The retention pond is owned by the developer, which means there’s probably a Homeowners Association involved. With a few multi-million dollar verdicts it’s not hard to imagine that massive special assessments will soon start hitting all the homeowners. A situation like this can end up bankrupting an entire neighborhood and the typical HOA homeowner has no access to basic Constitutional rights.
(link to stories about the outbreak of giant mosquitoes)
guest blog by Nila Ridings
Purely by accident Mr. Plumbean changed his neighborhood. I think if he would attend some HOA meetings across the country he could change the mindset in HOA Amerika!
Like many of you, I follow the HOA stories that Judy Thomas has been writing in the Kansas City Star’s HOA Hell series. The comments that people make are very interesting and most are supportive of the homeowners, not the HOA. One comment read something like this: “This story reminds me of a book I read in elementary school.” I was so curious I asked for the name of the book and she wrote back The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater.
The orange splot starts a chain reaction of major change in the neighborhood by Mr. Plumbean. Prior to its appearance every home looked exactly alike and that’s the way everybody wanted it to be. They liked the “neat street” sameness. I will not give away the story line but I think the HOAs of Amerika desperately need Mr. Plumbean! And I feel sure the author was a victim of an HOA at some point in his life.
While this is a children’s book it’s one that HOA homeowners will no doubt relate to and hopefully learn from. The answers we have been seeking can be found in just 32 pages!
Egads! I hate to publish links to CAI press releases. As I do this, just remind yourself that CAI rhymes with lie. The Community Associations Institute just loves to help struggling seniors, right? That’s what they’re trying to pretend right now. They’re going to help pack meals for low-income or struggling old folks.
If CAI really wanted to help seniors, then they’d start advising some of their hundreds of thousands of member Homeowners Associations to quit fining, liening and confiscating the homes of seniors who are too weak to fight the petty dictates of the local lawn Nazis.
Want to really help seniors? Give them back their access to Due Process and the Bill of Rights.
(link to press release on CAI’s amazing lie)
Being an injured veteran, back home from fighting our wars abroad, you’d think Americans might be a little more understanding and compassionate. But the tiny-minded Water Oaks neighborhood on Florida’s Emerald Coast apparently feels like it’s a little too good for a lowly former Army NCO.
Sgt. First Class Shane Jernigan is a first class fellow. His neighbors are acting like a bunch of slimy low-lifes. Jernigan has been in one fight after another as his Homeowners Association tries to make him so miserable he’ll leave. But he’s a fighter. This HOA and its law firm (one of the most notoriously litigious in the whole state) is trying to spend him to death.
It’s a strange irony, the name of the town where all this is going on. Niceville. You can’t make these things up!
(link to Daily News story of Jernigan’s fight)
