Category Archives: Home Assoc

R.E.S.P.E.C.T., Aretha What You Do To Me!

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Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me. Aretha Franklin may be the greatest female jazz/blues artist in history but her Homeowners Association wants their money. And there’s nothing they RESPECT about her. Franklin admittedly has a poor record of paying her bills. And her condo association neighbors are now going after her for $11,000 in unpaid dues.

The Hills of Lone Pine Homeowners Association is trying to foreclose on her condo. Hopefully, this one will settle properly for all those concerned. But I’d hate to run up against the kind of lawyers she has access to.

(link to Detroit Free Press story on the “Queen of Soul”)

 

Horrible House Color, & A Personal Memory

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Paint your house the wrong shade and you’ll get death threats! It’s happening to a couple in Texas who got permission to paint their house blue, but when the shade of ‘blue’ wasn’t specified they painted it teal blue. Amazing.

(story in London Daily Mail of teal house fight)

It brings back memories of one of my biggest gaffes. My first house in Denver was a dirty canary yellow and after living there a few years I really wanted to change it. I hired a painter and picked out a shade of soft gray that I thought would be very elegant. Since I was working 15 hour days at the TV station I wasn’t there when the painter did the house.

My wife called me at work and said, “You’d better come home immediately, there’s trouble with the neighbors.”

I raced home to find about fifteen or twenty neighbors gathered in the street in front of my newly painted house. But Good Lord, there was my painted house. The painter had used the correct shade of paint, but that house looked for all the world like the blue color you might see on a beached dead, rotting whale. It was horrible.

I assured the crowd that I would re-paint the house immediately and the second paint job was started the very next day, this time in true soft gray. There was no Homeowners Association. No threats of liens or lawsuits. There didn’t need to be. I just did what any one of us would and should do.

Once in a while I drive through that neighborhood of thirty-five years ago. The house is still painted soft gray.

 

It Just Never Goes Away

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I was watching a grandson’s football game this afternoon here in the Denver area. A familiar looking lady walked up to me and grabbed my arm. She said, “Remember me?”

Ugh! At age 66 I hate that question. So she reacted to my blank stare: “I was at your house several months ago and brought you a big box of records on your former Homeowners Association.”

Ah, yes, I got the connection. This lady and her husband were foster parents and they loved the neighborhood. Not knowing a thing about the national HOA scam, they blithely bought a house and moved in with three foster kids. Knowing how anti-minority, anti-Semitic and anti-queer this neighborhood is I wasn’t surprised she’d have trouble. She was in tears and I just didn’t have any good advice for her except to move out.

She says she was told by more than one HOA official “your kind isn’t appreciated in this neighborhood.” All her attempts to improve the exterior of her home were rejected. She and her husband were doing some interior improvements and she was told by a notorious lawyer who takes every opportunity to get on the board and stay there, that if even one nail is out of place he’ll force her to tear everything down.

Well, this HOA succeeded in driving her out of the neighborhood. She moved. And she said her new non-HOA home is a wonderful place where all the neighbors talk and get along. She did say she still loved this area and said she was going to inquire about whether some adjoining HOAs were any better.

“No!” I told her. I gave her the same old advice I give everyone. “THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD HOA. EVERY ‘GOOD’ HOA IS JUST ONE VOTE AWAY FROM DISASTER!”

It’s true. It’s very sad, but it’s true.

11 Year Old’s Halloween House vs. the HOA

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Money Magazine once named Naperville, Illinois the second-best place to live in the United States. All that stands in the way of that reputation now is a militant HOA that wants to shut down one family’s Halloween decorations.

Each year the family puts up an amazing display of ghosts and goblins and a synchronized light show. Each Halloween an estimated 8000 drive by the famous house.

The HOA has enacted new regulations that would effectively stop this family from showing their creative side. An 11 year old girl from outside the Association who loves the Halloween display had a creative way to try to persuade the HOA to back down from its decision to close down the over-the-top decorations. She went to the Internet to solicit help. And the HOA, which normally doesn’t allow outsiders to attend its meetings, actually allowed this little girl to put on her presentation. There’s no way to know what this HOA will decide. But this youngster has a wonderful future ahead of her, now that she knows why HOA life should be avoided at all costs.

(link to Chicago Tribune story on Halloween fight in the suburbs)

 

 

Another Day, Another Embezzlement (heavy sigh)

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Kevin Costner said, “If you build it they will come.”

A new movie could have him saying, “If you create it (checking account), they will come (embezzlers).

Years ago there was a rash of stories about soccer-moms who were stealing from the soccer club checking accounts. Some people just can’t withstand temptation.

In the story linked below, owners of storage facility lockers in Lake Havasu City discovered their board president had skated off with about $300,000. They’d love to sue him to get it back. But he had the temerity to die. It’s happened before!

(link to story about embezzlement)