Category Archives: chickens

HOA Sticks It To Pet Lovers!

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guest blog by Nila Ridings
 
Sandra Thomas bought a condo at the Wyckford Mews in 1997 and agreed to the by-laws, which include a pet clause. Only two pets per unit. But this board is fining her, claiming she was given the wrong CC&Rs SIXTEEN years ago and only one pet is allowed! 
 
Sandra pleaded her case for grandfathering. Oh no! They don’t do that at Wyckford Mews. So, pick your favorite; dog or cat, and take the other to a shelter or wherever…Wyckford Mews could care less!  Until you comply, the fines are $100 each.
 
Forget about calling your board members, Gerald Rowan or Josh Quinn. They don’t return calls.  (Since every HOA story seems to have board members who don’t answer phone calls or knocks at the door, I am wondering if that instruction is written in the CAI HOA-101 class syllabus?).
 
Running to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office won’t do you much good. You’ll no doubt get the same response as homeowners get in the other 49 states.  Expect to hear, “This is a civil matter! Go hire a lawyer!”
 
Some Wyckford Mews condo owners are fearful, but think they have figured this HOA scam out.  Absurd fines for things like parking your bicycle over time, (Have I been out to lunch? Do they have meters for that now, too?) leaving your shoes in the hallway, or for no reason at all, place the condo owner into the “not in good standing” classification.  Therefore, they cannot run for the board or vote in the board election. 
 
Sandra, vote with your feet and paws!  Pack up your dog and cat, and GET OUT while you still can!  The torture by the rogue HOA board members has just begun!  And it won’t get better with time!
 
P.S. With Halloween just around the corner, DO NOT BUY A PUMPKIN to display.  You could end up with another $100 fine.  Of course, in the language of HOAs that would be considered a “treat.” Compliments of your HOA board goblins!
 
 
 

Live, Love, and Laugh In HOA-Free Housing

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guest blog by Nila Ridings

Many people have been made homeless after HOA foreclosures. A degree in one hand, school loan in another, and living in a nightmare HOA with their parents has yet another age group seeking housing with no debt and no CC&R’s. Others find it’s time to downsize, keep only what’s necessary, and find a way to live without an HOA. Still others want to live in cooler summer and warmer winter climates…taking their house-on-wheels along with them.
Housing is achievable for all of the above.

The Tiny House Movement is rapidly growing. The designs have gotten very creative. For some, the economic factors are thought-provoking for working less and living more. The obvious reduction in the carbon footprint tiny houses is also appealing.

Needless to say you can’t park one of these in the backyard of your HOA-restricted Granny’s house. But there are current efforts to start developing Tiny House Communities. Hopefully, they’ll keep the HOA concept out of their plans!

How about it, would you live in a custom-built Tiny House?

 
 
 
 

Nila Ridings on National Radio Show

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My frequent guest blogger, Nila Ridings, is going to be a guest of HOA expert Shu Bartholomew this Saturday. Many of you know Shu as one of the most stalwart Homeowners Rights advocates in the country. Her weekly radio show airs in and around Fairfax, Virginia, but better yet, she broadcasts on the Internet so she has a national and even international audience. Shu interviews the top figures in the fight against abuse by rogue Homeowners Associations. And, indeed, Nila Ridings is one of the nation’s top fighters against this disingenuous, tyrannical and corrupt movement. 

Nila is famous in Kansas as the leader of a group of about twenty people who fought for a new law in Kansas that reigns in some of the monstrous actions of rogue HOA boards. During that time, Nila was nicknamed ‘The General’ by her associates. Her story is a great one. 

Shu Bartholomew’s show is called “On The Commons” and it can be heard live or through a downloaded podcast where you can listen at your convenience.

One warrior interviewing another warrior. It promises to be another great show!

http://onthecommons.net/

Be there or be square!

 

Resurrection of the Third Reich?

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Did that headline get your attention? Well, a Homeowners Association in Kissimmee, Florida sure got mine!

Turnberry Reserve Homeowners Association looks so peaceful when you see its entrance sign. But apparently, people inside this tyrannical regime are seething. In this HOA’s own newsletter they list a lengthy set of requirements on how and when trash is to be set out for the trash collectors.

But that’s not the half of it. Anyone whose trash cans remain visible after the deadline faces a novel punishment. The HOA bullies collect those trash cans and transport them to the county dump for destruction!

Seems that a number of homeowners have complained to WKMG TV-News in Orlando. Reporters interviewed those homeowners for a central Florida story.

Wait, it gets better. The same wench who wrote the community newsletter saying that board members were intentionally destroying trash cans of rule breakers has even more in that newsletter. She’s obviously intent on further humiliating these families by preparing to spread their names far and wide in her (now national) newsletter as well as by word-of-mouth. 

As long as this monstrosity of an HOA has a national platform, here’s a suggestion to those homeowners being bashed. Now that you don’t have a trash can take advantage of it.

Remove all personal identification from your garbage and liberally spread all that refuse from one end of the neighborhood to the other.

And finally, since Turnberry Reserve posts its mailing address and phone number on the web, I’ll publish it here, as well.

Sherry Raposo (HOA president who ordered the cans taken)
Turnberry Reserve
4051 Fox Bend Lane
Kissimmee, Florida 34744
(407) 483-1456

Ah yes, their nationally published HOA newsletter is at the following link:

(click here for Turnberry website)

http://www.turnberryreserve.net/

 

How Many Conservatives ‘Get It’?

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Historically, many Republicans and indeed many conservative Republicans have strongly supported the idea of Homeowners Associations. They falsely believe that the smaller a governmental entity gets the closer it is to the people. Many conservatives AND liberals have discovered over the past few years this is an empty-headed belief.

An old-time outdoorsman’s axiom is that if three people get into trouble in the wilderness two will always turn against the one. You can’t get any closer to true democracy than three people. And as John Adams and Toqueville warned us eons ago, we all need to beware of the “tyranny of the majority.”

Democracy is an ugly word unless it’s accompanied by guaranteed restraints like a Bill of Rights, due process, and an orderly court system. Always remember that a mob running down the street breaking windows and burning buildings is a true democracy.

If there is no set of checks and balances, it’s basic human instinct to try to dominate all those around you. And right there is the fulcrum around which the national Homeowners Association scandal spins. Without checks and balances there are no human rights. Believe it!

The article linked below is a couple of years old, but it’s fantastic when a columnist for the conservative Townhall.com begins to understand that the Homeowners Association Movement has the potential of being downright dangerous to the finances and freedom of individual homeowners. The real tragedy is that we don’t hear a constant drumbeat from both the Townhall crowd and the ACLU crowd. Anger at this national scandal is not conservative or liberal. Every political faction should be screaming at the outrages going on in every state in the union.

All that being said, the attached column is worth reading again.

(click here for Townhall column)

http://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2011/06/22/homeowners%E2%80%99_associations_becoming_unavoidable_and_quasi-governmental/page/full