Tag Archives: Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

Wife Wanted: No Sex, No Cleaning, No Car Required!

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By Guest Blogger, Nila Ridings 

A 90 year old French man who found himself suddenly widowed has turned to some novel advertising for a new “dame.”  He’s posted a plywood sign in his garden asking for volunteers. I’ve heard of internet dating and mail order brides, but if this works it could turn into an interesting trend.

It wouldn’t work in this country, though, since American Homeowner Associations ban advertising of any kind.

On second thought, maybe this fellow should consider moving to my sister’s HOA in California?  She tells me that every time a woman in the neighborhood passes away the local “casserole ladies” swoop in like buzzards on road kill. The “casserole ladies” obviously have to keep their freezers well-stocked, but no plywood signs would be needed.

Of course, in America putting up a lonely hearts sign would probably get this poor widower fined, liened and foreclosed upon before he had a ghost of a chance of meeting anyone new.

Maybe the French actually do have an easier life than those of us on this side of the pond?

http://tinyurl.com/d73bhwc

(original source)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/roger-marc-grenier-widower-sign-france_n_3141182.html?utm_hp_ref=fifty&ir=Fifty&icid=maing-grid7%7cmain5%7cdl13%7csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D304249

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!

 

Words of Great Wisdom

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These words were once penned by one of the mightiest men in our movement. Understand, of course, there are still miles to go before we sleep. But read, Dear Friend, and take heart.

And the  Land Shall Be Made Good Again

George K. Staropoli

copyright 2006 George K.  Staropoli

 In the  beginning

There was  the land,

And the  land was good

And the  people were happy.

 

Soon upon  the land

Came the  moneychangers

In the  guise of builders

Of the  community.

 

And the  moneychangers said

Behold,  the covenants, conditions and restrictions

Were  sacred and holy works,

And the  people shall flourish and prosper.

 

And the  legislature looked upon these CC&Rs

And said  they were sacred and holy,

And that land values shall multiply ten-fold,

And the  people shall flourish and prosper.

 

But the  moneychangers were not content,

Seeking  laws that forced the people

Against  their judgment and wishes

Into mandated planned communities.

 

Soon, the  multitude became angry at their plight,

Yet the  moneychangers and legislature

Cast the  people into involuntary servitudes

With  continued tithes while disputes went unresolved.

 

The  child-like people, seeking paradise

on earth and the gates of heaven,

Were not permitted audiences

With the  magistrates.

 

And so  the multitude suffered

A long  and terrible time,

Praying  for a savior one day

To  deliver them from their existence.

 

One sect  sought the accommodation

With the  ruling powers and moneychangers.

Another  sought a cleansing

Of an  unworkable oppression upon the people.

 

Those  seeking accommodation held fast to their desires

To see  their fortunes on earth multiply ten-fold,

And that  all such plans were good and just,

For the  land values increased for all the community.

 

But many  saw the desecration of the beliefs, values and ideals

Of the  founders of the Great Nation that covered the land,

Saying  behold the society that thou hast created,

Where Me First has replaced Love Thy Neighbor.

 

A babble  of communities arose

By the  followers of the moneychangers,

With  beliefs, values and ideals of the Old Ways,

Once  rejected by the Founders of the Great Nation.

 

Woe unto the followers of the  moneychangers

For the  sins of the fathers shall be cast upon the sons.

Repent  now and restore the beliefs, values and ideals

Of the  Great Nation and make the land good once again.

 

The Dearth of Common Sense!

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An ancient police axiom says, “Bad police work makes for bad case law.” A parallel in journalism is, “Careless writing makes for bad libel law.”

Somehow, you’d think some semblance of that wisdom would get through to some of the 335,000 Homeowners Associations in our country, especially those who’ve been well-described as “the lawn nazis” or the “condo commandos”. In many such neighborhoods people don’t talk to each other or have folks over for dinner.

Maybe that’s why so many state legislators are beginning to pay attention and talk about enacting laws to tap down the “little hitlers’ who seem to enjoy causing pain and distress among their neighbors.

Parking on the street overnight can bring such fines as $650, or for a fellow in Buckeye, “$1600”! Yes, there’s a madness afoot in this country, but at least one state, Arizona, has passed new parking legislation that says, “You can’t fine somebody for parking on a city-owned street.

Gosh, you’d think some bits of wisdom would be second nature!

But they’re not.

Thus, the law.

http://tinyurl.com/btsmotw

(original source)

http://www.azcentral.com/community/glendale/articles/20130424law-limits-future-hoas-control-parking.html 

 

Kind Of Funny, When The News Media Begin To ‘Get It!’

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Yep, nobody’s guiltier than this long-time reporter. So many times over the past four decades the real import of a story has just  sailed over my stupid fuzzy head.

But it’s fun to be a witness when a reporter suddenly has that head-thunking moment when he or she realizes that they’re actually reporting on a story that has real national significance!

Today’s ‘head-thunker’ is Jodie Fleischer of “Channel 2 Action News” in Forsyth County, Georgia. She’s just discovered that private HOA security guards are embued with the same powers as police officers in making traffic stops inside Homeowners Associations. Now try to understand this: Homeowners Associations are private non-profit corporations which have ZERO government powers, ZERO government enforcement abilities. Yet these sleazy little white-bastion gated communities are acting like they have all the Constitutional Powers customarily reserved for trained police officers. Every trained cop in the country should be mightily offended.

We’ve already had the Trayvon Martin disaster where an untrained ‘HOA security cop’ killed a kid who was walking through the neighborhood. Again, I have no opinion as to whether the fault was Trayvon’s or George Zimmerman’s. But this is like a ticking time bomb in every one of the nation’s carefully coiffed gated communities.

Trial lawyers are broke right now. Their phones have stopped ringing. The recession has eaten deeply into their personal savings. They are birds-of-prey at this moment, floating and circling over the countryside looking for any available carrion in these HOA communities. Every single time a private security guard pulls his lights, siren, badge and ticket writing stunt on a detained motorist, there’s a lawsuit in the making.

Every time a lusty young private HOA security guard takes a sideways glance at a low-cut blouse on the most recently detained motorist, there’s gonna be Hell to pay.

And it ain’t Hell that’s going to be paying the legal bills. It’s each and every member of that private gated Homeowners Association.

Jodie Fleischer, take it from a long-time fellow reporter. You’re hanging onto the threads of a donkey’s tail. This story will kick you into the mud, or into the Big Leagues.

http://tinyurl.com/c3fbb7k

(original source)

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/do-security-guards-issuing-traffic-tickets-overste/nXXbD/