HOA neighborhoods are sometimes so sterile they look like Army Basic Training barracks. I’ve been there. I went to Basic. And I can just see military trainees in khaki walking through these bland neighborhoods picking up cigarette butts. Sometimes the best way to describe the actions of HOA lawn Nazis is the old Disney tune for the Mickey Mouse Club TV show. Here’s a case where it’s more than appropriate.
Timber Creek Homeowners Association, Yulee, Florida. When Rachael Dennis moved into her new home five years ago she started getting hammered with violation notices and fines by the board. Damaged mailbox. Trash cans in the wrong place.
I should charge money for psychic readings! It was four or five years ago that I began predicting the advent of drones and that they would eventually be cheap enough for the boards of Homeowners Associations to start using them to inspect the most private part of your property. Your nude sunbathing or hot tub trysts could be played on the TV set at the HOA clubhouse and you probably wouldn’t win a legal case.
This one is huge, and it’s developing right now in Colorado.
A Homeowners Association in Vail is being sued because one of the supervisors in the management company was a jerk who was mistreating female Mexican workers. The Feds are now suing both the management company and the condo association.
I’ve owned two ski condos in that same area and I never had a clue who the management company was. I did get dinged a couple of times when I tried to change the locks on my doors. The management company bored through the locks, changed the door handle and charged me for their work. Yes, I was p.o.’d about that and it was one of the reasons I finally dumped the condos when the market improved.
Ah yes, an untold number of people have lost their homes to bully Homeowners Association boards. But there ingenious ways to survive without money. Witness what you can do with an abandoned Walmart cart. With this you can lounge in comfort under a bridge.
