Category Archives: Humor

HOA Parking in Texas

An old joke by deadpan standup comedian Steven Wright ponders an amusing twist in the English language. He asks “Why we drive on a parkway, but we park on a driveway?”

Well, a Homeowners Association in Frisco, Texas may have solved half that riddle. Homeowners can no longer park on their own driveways in the Stonebriar Village HOA. All cars must be concealed in garages because they make a neighborhood look so ugly.

There are other things that make a neighborhood much uglier. Fascism. Bullying. Property values that never rise because Americans are waking up and paying attention to warnings about life in an HOA.

(link to Dallas News story on Stonebriar Village parking rule)

And just for fun, a link to more really offbeat humor from Steven Wright:

Dead Beavers?

I thought I’d heard of everything, but readers of this blog site send me the most wonderful material. Homeowner association disputes go to cops and courts all the time. But the latest one from Forsyth County, Georgia got me chuckling.

A board member upset a homeowner who went home and told her husband. The husband then slimed the board member on Facebook. The board member promptly filed a police complaint saying he was afraid of this neighbor for a variety of reasons such as guns, alleged PTSD, and of all things….

Hold your breath….

…leaving dead beavers in a parking lot to retaliate against a business owner.

(link to story on the dead beaver guy)

 

 

Hire The Dirty Book Lady!

This one is just too delicious not to post. When you live in a Homeowners Association that’s squandered $700,000 bringing the neighborhood close to bankruptcy, what do you do? That’s easy. You get involved in porn!

Huh?

Yeah, you hire a property manager who’s been fabulously successful at writing kinky sex books.

That’s what the Woodlake Community Association in Chesterfield County, Virginia did. The community has been ripped apart by financial mismanagement. When the HOA board and property manager quit earlier this year they hired Bethany Halle, an author of 70 novels ranging from exotic to erotic. And she’s actually made some best seller lists with books about gay sex.

Fifty Blades of Gay?

No, I just made that up. But heck, as the new manager of Woodlake Community Association she’ll undoubtedly be exposed to lots of new material for future books.

Beating around the bush a little more, a great subject for a dirty book would be the huge HOA scandal in Las Vegas that’s sending up to forty people to federal prison.

Fifty Raids a Day? (big groan!)

Actually, hiring a sex-and-bondage author is probably an outstanding move by this financially strapped community. Bethany Halle is obviously a good business person and has been an HOA manager for many years, successfully straddling two very different professions. What’s not to love?

(link to Chesterfield Observer story on new HOA manager)

 

Absolutely Hilarious!

I have no idea if what’s linked below is the real deal. It’s posted by the Smithsonian Magazine which tends to give it some credibility. I’d feel more comfortable if this had been posted on an April Fools Day. But it’s a hilarious look at what life might have been like in a Homeowners Association in Britain in 1365.

(link to ancient HOA rules)

 

Ultimate Bad Neighbors

Zillionare FaceBook founder Mark Zuckerberg is trying to start his own HOA in Palo Alto, California. He just doesn’t want anyone else to live there except him.

Understandably, when Zuckerberg built his own mansion he wanted some privacy and bought up all the homes around him. He can afford to toss around 38 million bucks. But he’s being sued by a couple who claim they were conned into selling their property at too low a price to a ‘mystery’ corporation that turned out to be Zuckerberg.

I sympathize with this billionaire wanting some privacy and security. He’s probably got more stalkers and paparazzi than George Clooney. But with his wealth why would you subject yourself to the incredible invasion of privacy that happens during depositions and court testimony? To Zuckerberg, 1.7 million dollars is pocket change. Pay these reptilians off and get on with life!

(link to Bloomberg article on Zuckerberg neighbor fight)