Category Archives: Horror Stories

Ouch! Things Get Nasty!

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The latest neighborhood nastiness comes to us from Newport News, Virginia and the Kiln Creek Homeowners Association. Eight years ago Bill and Janeth Garlette built a koi pond in their backyard. And for eight long years the HOA has approved of their pond and their various gardening improvements. 

All of a sudden, a new HOA board has hit the couple with two dozen alleged violations of neighborhood covenants. The couple’s attempts at fighting the allegations were futile, so Garlette ripped out the koi pond and razed the backyard to bring it into compliance. But even that wasn’t good enough, and the HOA has filed a 300,000 dollar lawsuit.

Yes, there are allegations of death threats back and forth between the Garlettes and a neighbor who they think instigated the HOA lawsuit. And yes, the Garlettes say they are now officially out of money.

HOAs claim they were set up to protect property values. But this is one neighborhood where property is going to be very difficult to sell.

(click here for WVEC-TV story)

 

Mama “Goes Grizzly” on HOA Bully

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guest blog by Nila Ridings
 
Just when I think I’ve read my craziest HOA story yet…here comes another!
 
Burl Fluharty, head of Westfields Condominium Association in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania must be on some kind of power trip. He’s decided that kids from an adjacent HOA-free subdivision should be subjected to his dictatorship, too! The two neighborhoods share a street, and Fluharty demanded they quit riding bicycles there….or he’d call the police!
 
“BACK OFF BURL!!!”  
 
Dorene Akujobi pounced like an Alaskan Mama bear protecting her cubs.  If her kids ride their bikes on the shared street, she’ll protect them from Burl’s verbal abuse.  She growled and showed her teeth and maybe her claws, too. “Bully Burl” has no jurisdiction outside of his HOA fiefdom. And Mama Grizzly stood her ground.
 
Fluharty, realizing his threats to call the cops weren’t scaring Dorene, tried another tactic. He had his HOA attorney, Robert Stewart, write a letter threatening a lawsuit. Fluharty must have been thinking “if I can’t scare her with the threat of cops, I’ll scare her with the threat of going to court! If it works on my turf, it should work on hers!” (And how nice that his HOA gets to pay this guy’s idiotic legal bills!)
 
As Fluharty continued to press his case, he argued that the real reason he wanted the kids off the street was because elderly drivers in his condos might not see them! It apparently didn’t dawn on him that elderly drivers who can’t see kids on bikes probably shouldn’t be driving.
 
But there was a lovely followup to the story as related in one of the comments below from a fellow neighbor: It seems the Township’s attorney wrote a letter to Fluharty telling him to cease and desist flinging his threats around the neighborhood. Even if he is an HOA president, there are limits to his power.   
 
Back to Mama Grizzly: “Way to go, Dorene!”
 

Wow! Any Doubt a Housing Collapse is Coming?

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This blog post is, indeed, a little esoteric. But many experts have predicted that another financial bubble is going to collapse, this one involving the HOA housing industry.

You really have to dive in between the lines of the story linked below. But this financial expert is predicting societal changes which actually could lead to a housing collapse in suburban America. He says the most dynamic part of our growing financial culture is the diversity of thought and creativity that’s only found in our inner cities and not in our stale suburban neighborhoods. He claims that our societal focus on suburban life is destined for failure and calls it “…the primary reason for global financial crisis.”

I’m no economist and my own predictions are far less sophisticated than his. But it boils down to the same conclusion: Sir Thomas More’s vision of Utopia is exactly backwards and is destined to collapse simply because the human spirit is not designed for life in Paradise. It’s evolutionarily designed for survival of the fittest. And the HOA Utopian model was never designed to handle the harsh realities of life. 

When those institutions which underwrite home loans discover that the typical Homeowner Association model does not protect or stabilize property values, when they discover that homes outside HOAs actually rise faster in value than those inside gated neighborhoods, when they finally discover that embezzlement is the Achilles heel of covenant controlled developments, then investor money will start flowing out of homeowners associations and back into more traditional neighborhoods.  

(click here for Richard Florida’s interview)

 

I Nearly Died Laughing!!!

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Oh, my sides still hurt from the hilarity. Linked below you’ll see a very short and amazingly insightful video from an HOA critic who is, as yet, unknown. If I can learn his identity I intend to send that person an autographed copy of my book to show my appreciation.

This fellow obviously lives in an HOA, obviously has been hassled over his holiday decorations, and obviously keeps up with current news events.

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And if one of you can figure out who this fellow is, I’ll also send you a book autographed to whoever you want, a neighbor, a Congressman, an HOA board member.

As a matter of fact, we need to keep the humor going. Anyone who sends me a photo or piece of video that needs to be circulated to followers of my website, please feel free to do so. If I end up using your video, you’ll also get a free copy of Neighbors At War in the mail!

Ward Lucas

Senator Carona and the Loan Star State

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I’ve linked to this story before, but exposing this kind of person never gets old.

John Carona owns and runs Associa, the largest HOA management firm in the country. Many homeowners have bought into his neighborhoods and long regretted that decision. It’s tough to understand why Texans keep putting him in office.

This politician and his questionable business tactics need to be exposed at every opportunity.

(click here for link to Texas Tribune story)