Tag Archives: Horror Stories

Searching Out Hoarders

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Yes, indeed, certain Homeowners Associations are actually doing unannounced mandatory inspections for hoarding. Among the items not to be hoarded are books! Scary, isn’t it? 

I have to make a confession here. I hoard books. I still own just about every book I ever read. None are piled on the floor, but my shelves are packed.  Somehow, I just thought my grandkids might someday wonder how their old grandpa got the nutty ideas in his head for some of the directions in life he took.

My mother was a wise old bird. She had a ‘secret compartment’ on her shelves that held some books my brothers and I were forbidden from reading. Of course, as soon as I discovered the ‘secret section’ I made a good inventory and went back as often as I dared. So at the age of ten, I started making my way through a number of naughty writers like Ayn Rand, Gore Vidal, D.H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley. I don’t remember many turned down pages, but I do remember that Ape And Essence was kind of titillating,

Among the forbidden books were some by James Madison and Charles Dickens. Ah yes, there was also a book called Fahrenheit 451.

It was about people who hoard such things as books. And the local HOA squad goes out and torches the illegal collections.

In my forty year career as a news reporter, I’ve walked into hundreds, perhaps even thousands of homes. Some were clean. Some were not.  But in all those years I never saw anyone’s book collection that should have been confiscated. 

Hoarding is a problem. But isn’t it the wildest form of arrogance for a private non-profit corporation known as a Homeowners Association to do surprise inspections and make random decisions about what is and isn’t ‘hoarding’?  I don’t like mice. Or termites. But just keep your hands off my books!

 

Dumb and Dumber on Marco Island, Florida

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Homeowners in the South Seas Condominium on Marco Island, Florida, may soon have to pay a hefty special assessment because of a particularly boneheaded decision by their HOA.

The Feds have consistently said that service dogs are covered under the ADA. An HOA doesn’t get to claim they are pets, if the dog is actually performing services for a disabled person. But this particular HOA obviously doesn’t ‘get it.’ They will.

The South Seas Condominium has been harassing 56 year old resident Larry McKay over his 80-pound boxer. In 2008, McKay contracted MRSA, a usually fatal staph infection that’s hit a number of people in the Southeast. McKay is confined to a wheelchair, and he says the service dog does a number of things for him, such as turning on the lights, and helping him get out of bed.

McKay’s dog helps him with other activities like getting on and off airplanes. The airlines recognize it’s a service dog. This HOA board is apparently too stupid to do the same.

In other parts of the country, such as California, Homeower Associations have been hit with huge fines by the ADA because they insist that all service dogs are merely ‘pets,’ prohibited by the HOA.

McKay has lots of supporters in his condominium. Doesn’t matter. When the FDA slams this condo with a massive fine, each and every condo owner is going to have to fork up some bucks to pay for the idiotic decisions by their HOA board.

A dumb waste  of other peoples’ money. But it’s typical. So typical.

By Ward Lucas, author of Neigbors At War! The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

http://www.nbc-2.com/story/19728171/man-in-dispute-with-hoa-over-service-dog?clienttype=printable

What First Amendment?

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I had an odd phone call from a friend late last year, a few weeks before my book came out. I won’t share too many personal details, but this gentleman is retired, a wonderfully decent man who is well-loved in the community.

But he was next to tears as he said, “Do you know anything about Homeowners Associations?” With what I’ve been through over the past few years, I almost had to laugh. But I asked him to continue.

He told me that he’s lived in his suburban home for the past thirty years and it has never had an HOA. There’s nothing in his original real estate documents and he’s never paid dues to anyone. But he was stunned when someone knocked on the door and said the neighborhood was now represented by a Homeowners Association. The visitor noted a couple of things in my friend’s back yard that were not approved by the new board. One was a back fence that was six or so inches taller than nearby ones. The second was a little white gazebo in the back yard. It was unapproved and had to be removed.

“What do I do?” my friend asked.

For many years this gentleman has conducted weekly Bible studies in his home, not many people, probably just as many as you could fit into a small backyard gazebo. But apparently someone had complained and had called a meeting where a majority of those who showed up voted to reinstitute an HOA that’s been absolutely inactive for the past three decades.

I happen to know this neighborhood. It’s very clean, well-groomed with several dozen tidy one-story, mid-to-upper scale homes. But I also learned that this newly formed HOA is now represented by one of the most powerful, most aggressive HOA law firms in the country. At 70 years old, my friend doesn’t have the resources to go to court.

I do know something else. This gentleman’s Bible studies are going to have to come to a close.

A Half Million Dollar Embezzler

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This blogger has repeatedly said that embezzling in American HOAs is almost universal. There are no controls, and where there are no controls human beings universally drop to their lowest ethical level. Another example popped up in Davenport, Florida.

HOA president David Meadows has been arrested for allegedly stealing a half million dollars from his Homeowners Association. One resident, Danielle Groth, says it’s routine for her HOA to charge $100 a day for such things as cigarette butts on the ground to kids’ toys in the yard or the wrong style of window blinds.

The Florida State Attorney Generals office says a lot of that money ended up in David Meadows pocket.

The Bimini Bay Homeowners Association. Such a lovely place to live!

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_polk/davenport/davenport-hoa-president-accused-of-stealing-500k-from-association