Tag Archives: HOA corruption

Why Do HOAs Hate Renters?

      6 Comments on Why Do HOAs Hate Renters?
guest blog by Dave Russell
Most HOAs have long shunned those who rent properties within Homeowners Associations. I’ve heard every disparaging comment ever made, “renters are trashy, uncaring, and simply make for bad neighbors.”  Well I’m here to dispel those myths and misconceptions about renters.
 
Most renters are actually decent, hard working folks, who pay their bills, and follow the HOA rules more often than homeowners do. Let’s take a look at one of the renters in my own homeowners association. Stacey Barker, single mother of three, saw a Facebook post from co-worker, Romona, who she didn’t really know all that well.  Ramona posted a plea on Facebook for prayers, or for someone who would be willing to donate a kidney to save her dying husbands life.
 
Less than ten minutes after Ramona’s desperate Facebook post was published online, Stacey Barker – a woman Ramona hardly knew – replied. “I sent her two messages,” said Barker. “The first time I don’t think she took me seriously, and the second time I said, ‘No really, I will get tested and if I’m a match I will donate.” Stacy did get tested and was a perfect match! Such an uncaring renter, isn’t she?’
 
Stacy, the renter, took two months of unpaid leave from work and donated her kidney to a man she didn’t even really know. Aren’t these renters something else! Ramona’s husbands life was saved thanks to Stacy Barker. Pay close attention all of you HOA board members! Not every renter is a ‘bad neighbor.’

 

The Viciousness Knows No Bounds!

      5 Comments on The Viciousness Knows No Bounds!

What is it about the ‘control’ issues many HOA board members have? And why is it that brand new Ford F-150 pickups are so hated?

The board of the Kimry Moor Homeowners Association in Fayetteville, New York has decided that homeowners David and Arna Orlando are scofflaws because they park their pickup in the driveway instead of in the garage.

Never mind that people all over this HOA park their trucks in their driveways.
No, I strongly suspect the issue isn’t the truck. It’s that somebody on the board thinks the Orlando family are of the wrong race, the wrong income level or because their kid might have smart-mouthed a board member’s kid at school.

I hope the Orlando’s attorney looks at an almost identical case in Texas where the owner of the Ford F-150 got sued for his truck…and he actually won the case against his power-mongering HOA. It’s too bad that HOA homeowners have to pay special assessments to support this kind of insanity.

(link to latest HOA lawsuit against an F-150 owner)

(for the Orlando’s attorney, this might save you a couple minutes of research time)

And yet another!

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/28/florida-man-spends-k-right-park-driveway/

 

HOA Violence

      3 Comments on HOA Violence

Yes, most of us would like to see the Homeowners Association Movement go extinct. But the kind of violence in the story linked below is unacceptable. Anyone who tries to take another’s life and property deserves a life sentence in prison.

This incident happened at the Pointer Ridge HOA in College Park, Georgia. If you can help identify this suspect, please call police.

(arson attempt at HOA president’s home)

 

Interesting WSJ Column on Free Speech

      2 Comments on Interesting WSJ Column on Free Speech

Whether you agree or disagree with the Wall Street Journal columnist linked below, the term ‘hate speech’ is a constantly sliding scale. And it usually slides in ways that benefit the current political power. The first act of dictators is to ban some kinds of speech. Certainly, some speech is in bad taste but if you allow any ruling power to regulate what can and cannot be said in public, then you’re on a decidedly slippery slope.

On the Neighbors At War blog we frequently take note of certain Homeowners Associations where a battered neighbor who tries to run for the board is banned from speaking out, banned from handing out campaign literature, forbidden from expressing opinions to neighbors. That kind of fascism threatens the very homes and neighborhoods in which we live.

At the same time, censorship of any kind is a double-edged sword. On a website like this, the moderator has the power to permit or to edit out language or thoughts that he deems are simply in bad taste. But this website is not a government institution. It’s a place where we share concerns, thoughts, feelings.

Our Republic is unique in that the very first right granted to Americans was the right to express thoughts without government censorship. Are there limits? Of course. And we granted the Supreme Court the power to analyze certain kinds of speech to see if they constituted an endangerment to others. In some cases (yelling fire, libel, slander) the Court ruled that freedom of speech is not absolute.

Although Wall Street Journalist Bret Stephens is being pilloried for writing this column, in my opinion he should be congratulated for his analysis.

Your thoughts?

http://www.wsj.com/article_email/bret-stephens-the-scandal-of-free-speech-1421106813-lMyQjAxMTE1OTE4NDExMTQ5Wj

 

New Ties Between Mob & Las Vegas HOA Scandal

      2 Comments on New Ties Between Mob & Las Vegas HOA Scandal

I’ve give anything to be able to personally report on the upcoming federal HOA trial in Las Vegas. The whole nation should be abuzz with this story about racketeering and Homeowners Associations. But few people outside of Nevada have actually heard of it. The networks simply aren’t covering it.

But reporters and columnists for the Las Vegas Review Journal are doing a great job ferreting out the weasles. The column linked below shows some pretty fascinating ties between a well-known mob drug trafficker and the HOA business.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/columns-blogs/john-l-smith/defense-hoa-scheme-trial-missed-its-mark