Category Archives: Horror Stories

Judge Rules Against Famous Aviator in HOA Case

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Two or three months ago, I told you about Chuck Yeager, the famous Air Force test pilot who was the first human being to cross the sound barrier. I also told you how the now-retired Brigadier General was being sued by a Homeowners Association, which Yeager claimed did not include his two units in Fresno. The 91 year old pilot says the HOA simply doesn’t have jurisdiction over his property, and he had the records to prove it.

Well, a Fresno judge has ruled that Yeager has to pay the HOA $43,000 in fees. The HOA’s original lawsuit demanded $270,000. The HOA feigns success. But it looks like Yeager comes out the big winner despite not having a total victory. From outward appearances it looks like the HOA’s demand was excessive and the judge probably saw through that.

HOA officials are talking about how satisfied they are with getting a judgment. Funny thing is, Yeager cut short his losses because he won’t have to pay legal expenses while these out-of-control HOA lawyers try to run up Yeager’s legal costs.

Besides, says Yeager, “I’m very pleased with the agreement. What’s best is that the judge did not order me to join the HOA!”

(link to Sacramento Bee story)

The Straight Poop

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The Gates of Allen Station, shame, shame on you.

Yes, folks, another Texas Homeowners Association is taking the idiotic and pathetic step of DNA testing all dogs in the neighborhood. Swab your doggie’s cheeks, submit the DNA sample to your HOA. That swab goes to the lab and your pooch is branded for life. Now, if your dog brands the lawn of the HOA president or a board member, the feces fits the crime, the owner gets the fine. The thought of HOA officials dropping to their hands and knees and probing poops with thermometers and scoops just defies the imagination. The HOA claims it’s a way of stopping canine terrorists from messing up the neighborhood.

Well, frankly folks, it’s just another way of wrecking a nice neighborhood by turning neighbor against neighbor. First of all, who’s motivated to institute such a practice? It costs a couple hundred bucks per pooch per swab. And the owner of each defiling dog is fined hundreds of dollars. That money is going into someone’s pocket. It’s a real revenue generator.

But second, it won’t work. Once homeowners start getting angry at being fined, they’re going to start collecting poop from all over and tossing it onto the board president’s lawn. He’s going to get innundated. Of course, he’ll submit hundreds of different DNA samples from the hundreds of brown spots in the front yard. And of course, he’ll charge thousands and thousands of dollars in lab costs to the HOA’s ‘secret’ reimbursement budget. The homeowners will be assessed, of course. Everybody will hate everybody, the president’s house will really get bombed now.

When people get stupid, stupid things happen.

(click here for Dallas dog story)

$100,000-Love Scores Zero With Quivira Falls Homeowners

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guest blog by Nila Ridings

Tennis anyone? Well, not for the past several years because the courts have been bolted shut. The surface is broken and the weeds are growing wild up through the cracks. When the courts were open they were enjoyed once in a blue moon by non-residents with Missouri plates on their cars.

On October 22, 2007 six of the board members signed and mailed a letter to every homeowner to defend their position against the petitions that had been signed by over 240 homeowners to recall the board. In that letter they state, “They say we are also frivolous to buy wind screens for the tennis courts.” And, then they go on to say that due to the foreclosures that would impact their revenue they voted “for,” but decided “against,” buying the wind screens and new nets.

You bet there were homeowners opposing that ridiculous and unnecessary purchase because our townhouses were rotten to the point of having frame damage. As a matter of fact, just four months after that letter was written the electric meters fell off my house because the siding and the structural frame was so rotten it just completely gave way. This happened during a torrential rain storm and ripped two holes about the size of five gallon buckets in the back of my house. Water was literally spraying out the electrical breakers on the wall downstairs and the water was gushing in under my new wood flooring, all over my new basement ceiling, down the walls, and running like a river across my brand new white berber carpeting and on across the basement to the drain in the utility room! And there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. My work order had been in for over two years for wood rot repair and it was met with nothing but totally goofy childish excuses. When I told a board member I was going to hire my own contractor to repair the exterior of my house and apply the stucco, she told me…get ready now readers… brace yourselves………………..“If you hire your own contractors we are going to sue you and make you take the stucco off and put the wood rot back on!” To this day, that is one of the most stupid things anybody has ever said to me in my entire life!

Back to the tennis courts. One of the homeowners got ticked at the HOA and decided to report the tennis courts as abandoned property to the City of Overland Park. Of course, I was notified of this because any time people are upset…I hear about it.

Nobody wants to raise hell with this HOA board because if you dare do it, there is hell to pay. Sheer hell. Ugly hell. Hate-filled hell. That treatment silences 99.999% of the homeowners. They haven’t been blind to the treatment I’ve gotten by the board and their cronies so they are not marching down the “Nila Ridings Road.” No sir, they value their quality of life and bank accounts far more than speaking out…thus, this HOA is a horrible nightmare!

Quite by accident I found the property manager on my driveway right after hearing of this report. I decided since she was right here within two feet of me, I’d ask about the status of the tennis courts. She told me it was CITY CODE that Quivira Falls had to have these tennis courts resurfaced or totally removed, including the asphalt. The cost to remove the fencing and asphalt for both courts was going to be $100,000.00 and 1/3 that amount if they were resurfaced. I was skeptical….my gut instinct and intuition was saying this “smells” rotten. My call to the City revealed it is not City code for Quivira Falls to have tennis courts. A plan can be submitted for something new in their place, OR they can be removed. BUT THE ASPHALT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE REMOVED!

I’m 99% sure I could find somebody that would take those fences down for free and haul them off and reuse them. I know a few loads of dirt and some grass seed can be purchased for far less then $100,000.00. And, in the end the HOA would save money by not having to maintain the courts, buy nets, or those wind screens that were voted on in 2007, the lights could be removed as well and probably sold, but certainly there would be no electricity burning and there would be no expense of changing the bulbs when they burn out.

I sent emails to the property manager and the board demanding this project be stopped so further discussion could take place before another $35,000 is wasted. For those of you who don’t know this, my HOA borrowed $1M and most definitely it makes more sense to pay down debt then it does to resurface unused tennis courts! Nope, this CAI property manager is going forward with this project no matter what!

Did I fail to mention just a couple of years ago they built a fancy handrail down the steps to the tennis courts? That’s right, it’s been the “staircase to nowhere” because once you walked down there you were “welcomed” with the padlock!

Homeowners are putting protest plans together. It looks like ANOTHER war is about to begin in Quivira Falls!

Here’s the kicker…”Arizona Dave” just had the tennis courts at his condo complex resurfaced. They are larger than the ones in Quivira Falls. Dave’s association is managed by him, not a CAI property management company. He emailed me the paid invoice….$12,000.

Like I said, something “smells” rotten!

Another Million $$$ Embezzlement Hits A Homeowners Association

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Why hasn’t Hollywood jumped on the uncontrollable embezzling that happens in Homeowners Associations across America? Some astute member of the Writers’ Guild could come up with a great screenplay. The reason it hasn’t been done is that the plot would just be too unbelievable.

If you know a good writer, tell him to look at the current story in the Bear Reserve Homeowners Association in Eustis, Florida. The cops have just busted a couple of developers who became board members on this HOA. The pair are accused of embezzling 1.5 million dollars and moving it to shell corporations. How the heck didn’t homeowners discover many years ago that they were being ripped off?

Always remember that embezzled money is rarely returned, which means a special assessment against all HOA property owners. That’s part of what makes HOA embezzling such a horrific crime.

If your board refuses to give you an accounting of all HOA funds spent, if you get delayed, harassed or ignored for making such a request, then you, my dear friend, may rightly assume that your HOA money is being embezzled. Just assume it! It’s going on everywhere.

(link to WESH-TV story)

Huh? There’s Jews In The Neighborhood?

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Anti-Semitism is vile wherever it pops up. If you’ve read my book, Neighbors at War, you’ll read how the modern HOA movement was started in 1964 just months after the Civil Rights Law was enacted. In other words, Homeowners Associations were started as ‘private clubs’ to keep Jews, Negroes, and Orientals out of white neighborhoods. The language of those whites-only sentiments can still be found in millions of real estate deeds across the country.

Keeping minorities out of ‘private clubs’ worked pretty well for a few decades. One of the heroes of the anti-HOA movement will never know the huge impact he had on the history of civil rights and HOAs. It was Tiger Woods’ victory in the Jerry Pate golf tournament that got the PGA scrambling to make sure it didn’t inadvertently schedule national tournaments in whites-only country clubs.

Back to discrimination against Jews, the latest fascinating court decision comes to us from Dallas. The Highlands of McKamy Homeowners Association tried to stop an Orthodox Jewish congregation from gathering in their neighborhood. And of course, the apparent timing was aimed at getting them tossed out before Passover. That story is linked below.

Ah, Passover. I have an incredibly personal story aimed for the coming Easter weekend, but in the meantime this article from North Dallas really ought to be read by all those who respect and revere the Jewish people.

(link to Dallas story)