Category Archives: racketeering

Condo Fires In The Past 90 Days

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guest blog by Nila Ridings
 
The new year is not off to a good start for Ewing Township, Dallas, Branson, and Boulder.  Condo fires have left them with injured firefighters, displaced residents, and causes unknown. 
 
It is time to discuss fire safety in your home, condo, townhouse, or any other abode.
 
1 ) Do you own fire extinguishers?
  
2 ) Do you know how to use them? 
 
3 ) Are they stored with fast/easy access? 
 
4 ) Have they been checked by you or professionals? (see the video in the link below)
 
5 ) Do you have working smoke alarms with good batteries?  Are they tested monthly? 
 
6 ) When house guests visit do you show them where the fire extinguisher nearest their room is located?
 
7 ) Do you move the BBQ grill away from flammable surfaces and keep an extinguisher nearby?  (see link below for helpful hints)
 
8 ) When you stay in hotels do you make a note of where the fire alarm is and how many doors you are from the stairwell exit?
 
9 ) Do you know to NEVER throw water on a grease fire?  Use flour, baking soda, or smother the fire with a towel. 
 
People who do not have a fire extinguisher or know how to use one panic at the sight of smoke or flames.  It’s best to know how to fight the fire than to run around screaming.  Or grab your cell phone and start filming as some of these condo residents have done.
 
Many local fire departments will come out and change smoke detector batteries for you.  Check with yours if you need some help.
 
Last but not least, the link below offers information on buying an insurance policy for your condo.  There is a difference between condo and homeowners insurance policies.
 
In attached housing we can quickly become victims if our neighbors lack concern for safety.  Who knows what chemicals they may be storing?  Or how often they fall asleep with a lit cigarette.  Which ones leave their laptop computer on their bed all day which can cause the battery to ignite?  Lest we forget the ones that have saved newspapers and magazines since 1962 and then stack them to the ceiling.
 
With all this risk for fire it would make sense that sprinkler systems should have been mandatory to obtain building permits!  Oh wait…THAT would have taken money out of the developers’ pockets and raised the sales cost on the units.  
 
Money versus Safety.   Money always wins.
 
 
 

Last Call…Who Gets Stuck With The Condo?

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guest blog by Nila Ridings

Occasionally I talk with a condo or HOA homeowner who tells me they are working to pay off their mortgage so they can leave the property to their kids debt-free when they die.  None of us knows when we are going to take our final flight, but we all know the risks of owning in a condo association or HOA.  For those who don’t, I’d suggest spending time on this website and reading Ward’s book, Neighbors At War!
 
I’ve watched the results of this plan play out over the past few years.  When heirs live out of state they sell for whatever they can get or turn their new property into rentals.  Rarely, do they move into the unit.  And they have no clue what is going on inside of the HOA , who is running for the board, how many lawsuits are pending, or if the HOA has taken out a million dollar loan.  They’re clueless and have absolutely no interest in knowing more.
 
If they can’t get the property sold and don’t want a rental, they are stuck paying monthly dues to the HOA. While there is no water, sewer, or trash usage during that time the HOA bill continues, along with taxes and insurance.  If at some point the HOA slaps a lien on the property there is an amount to be paid that nobody knows about. Or, the lien was satisfied but the HOA never released it.  Possibly the deceased wasn’t aware of it, but it’s there and it has to be paid before the place can be sold.  Or an assessment pops up and heirs are on the hook to pay that, too.  Suddenly, this inherited real estate becomes a pain in the neck and/or a financial burden to someone who can’t afford the extra expense or deal with all the added stress.
 
We learned in Neighbors At War that mortgage-free HOA properties also become targets for non-judicial foreclosure.  Since corruption never misses an opportunity the dead are not exempt from HOA abuse either.
 
During a recent conversation with an HOA property owner I learned something that I expected was coming.  This individual wanted a reverse mortgage only to learn that isn’t possible because the HOA is not FHA approved.  The advice given was to take out the maximum amount in a mortgage, enjoy life with the money, and when the money runs out or the final breath is taken, the kids can let the property go back to the mortgage company and walk away.  If the HOA opts to foreclose, so be it. (Who needs a good credit rating to get into the cemetery?)
 
Bottom line is: hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in a covenant controlled and often times corrupt HOA is not a way to leave your heirs feeling loved.  It could bring them a financial burden that could drastically change their lives and leave them feeling angry with you for leaving them in such a financial mess.
 
No one lives without dying.  Careful thought should be given to how we wish to be remembered.  Hopefully it won’t be that generations to come are left sitting around holiday decorated dining room tables discussing Mom and Dad or Aunt Matilda’s HOA nightmare that was “supposed” to be an inheritance!

A New Website Feature

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I’m a total Rube Goldberg, so put me into a room with dials and meters and ramps and hammers and I’m quite likely to hammer together something very stupid-looking that might actually have some societal value.

On the opening splash page of Neighbors At War, there’s a category called “Resources.” Click that and you’ll find another “resources’ button. Tap that and you’ll see a list of crimes, like embezzlement, robbery, burglary, assault, and a dozen similar words. Clicking on each of these words brings up an automatic Google search. In other words, if you click ’embezzlement’…. in the background I secretly run the terms “Homeowner Association, property Association, Property Owner Association, HOA, POA, CID, CIC embezzlement.” That, hopefully, gives you some interesting numbers to show to a non-believer, someone you’re trying to rescue from ‘the dark side.’  The numbers are quite staggering…and convincing. And it’s certainly an interesting (but not necessarily perfect) research tool.

I may run this promo a few times over the next two months in an effort to try to get our many readers thinking in terms of raw research.

Oh, and another thing for which Homeowners rights advocates have long lusted… is a national (or even international) list of attorneys who are willing to represent battered and bruised homeowners who try to fight the kind of anti-Constitutional outrages we see each day in our neighborhoods. Please help me build that list. Attorneys on our side won’t get rich. The billions of management dollars are on the other side. Still, sometimes the Revolutionaries win. And they win because someone, somewhere, believes in the concept of Justice under the law.

BTW, any research I accumulate on this project will be shared with every other would-be Paul Revere in the country. No cost. No fee. Just a personal promise to me of your personal integrity.

Ward Lucas

 

Jack English Is Loving Life Until The End

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guest blog by Nila Ridings 

93 years old, living in the wilderness, splitting wood, and making violin bows.  Will that be you?  Or me?  Jack English has loved the wild areas of California since he was a young boy.  And his wife’s dying words and his sentimental heart led him back there with plans to stay until the end.
 
Jack mades me think of Dorothy.  She lived in my HOA.  When it was discovered the audits had not been done, and  $10,000,000.00 was unaccounted for, and the bills weren’t paid, and the houses were rotting before our eyes, Dorothy invited me in for a talk.  She was 93, frail, but with fight in her eyes.  In my mind’s eye, I can still see her sitting there in the power blue velveteen chair with her walker at arm’s length.  Her eyes were locked with mine.  As the tears ran down her cheeks she said, “Nila, if I was younger I would be fighting as hard as you are to get to the bottom of this, but I’m too old and too weak.  Something sinister is going on here; you know it and I know it.  If you don’t get this mess straightened out, I am going to figure out a way out of here!  I don’t want to spend another day of my life in this horrible nightmare of a homeowners association.”  Sadly, Dorothy ended up in a nursing home and not long ago I read her obituary.  It still makes me sad to think that Dorothy, at nearly a century old knew she was being ripped off, but she was helpless.  She could be nothing more than a victim and hand over her money every month.
 
It’s really refreshing to see Jack English’s story.  Knowing he was one elderly person who didn’t get caught in some HOA maintenance-provided propaganda sales pitch like so many other 80 and 90 year olds.  And, it’s a reminder that when we fight these HOA battles it is not just for ourselves.  It’s for all the Dorothy’s across this country who have no clue that when they bought into an HOA they signed away their twilight years into a hellish nightmare like they have never known in the decades they’ve lived before.  We must never forget that their silence doesn’t mean they are not fully aware of the corruption.  Father Time has just weakened them enough to make them easy prey for the HOA monster.
 
Now, take a look at what life at 93 and HOA-free can be!
 
 
http://solarburrito.com/blog/93-year-old-man-lives-in-wilderness-cabin/
 

Tinney And The Teenagers

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guest blog by Nila Ridings

It’s refreshing to see this video and how 84 year old Tinney Davidson is impacting the teenagers on their way to school. She’s a widow now, but she and her husband started this daily routine together.
 
In the world of HOAs we see story after story about the restrictions that prohibit children from feeling welcome in their neighborhoods.  Perhaps if HOA Amerika took on a new attitude towards children, we just might see a few more videos like this someday?
 
These teenagers surprised Tinney so much on Valentine’s day it made her cry…happy tears!
 
 
http://myfox8.com/2014/02/27/elderly-woman-waves-at-students-every-day-gets-a-big-surprise/