By coincidence the celebration of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving begin in the same few hours this year. And I am thankful for all my friends in many faiths… and even those who are skeptics. But you can all have faith in this: I respect you and am thankful for all of you.
Ward Lucas
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)
This story has been batted about for a few months but It’s a fascinating look at abuse of homeowners by their Associations. It took place in Celina, Texas.
Dozens of homeowners had to replace their roofs after last year’s big hailstorm. But four or five homeowners are being fined up to $500 per day because their roof tiles are a slightly different shade from the rest of the neighborhood. The Carter Ranch Homeowners Association demands that all roofs be “weathered wood.” But there’s no single shade that goes by such a name. There are multiple colors of weathered wood. So the HOA is threatening to lien and foreclose on the homes that the HOA board deemed were the wrong shade.
The kicker to the story, though, is video of a home whose owner painted his driveway and the sidewalks past his home bright white. It’s an obvious violation of the Carter Ranch covenants. But this homeowner doesn’t get fined, liened or foreclosed.
He’s the HOA president.
http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news?fId=223692861&fPath=/news/local/&fDomain=10247
Shadowglen Homeowners Association, Austin, Texas. Homeowners are beginning to get hefty fines if any vehicle parks in front of their house. It doesn’t matter if the car belongs to the next door neighbor, a delivery company or just a friend dropping by, homeowners are getting slammed with fines of $500 and more.
Isn’t it strange how all these HOAs start off so benign, yet end up so fascist? All it takes is a couple of new board members who suddenly find themselves in the first position of power they’ve ever possessed.
In my new book Neighbors At War, I explain the chemical reaction that happens in the brains of those who get that first taste of raw power. And in Chapter 15 there’s a discussion of two of the most controversial sociological experiments ever conducted. Each experiment attempted to explore what goes on in the minds of people who suddenly feel the need to damage another human being. In one of the experiments, the scientist pondered why it was so easy to persuade German guards to mindlessly slaughter prisoners of war. What he discovered shocked and outraged the entire psychology community.
There’s a reason that board members and managers in a place like the Shadowglenn Homeowners Association are often referred to as the ‘lawn Nazis’ or the ‘HOA Nazis’. Power is an incredible aphrodisiac!
(click here for KXAN-TV story)
http://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/hoa-parking-rules-upsets-homeowners
Seems that Texas lawmakers are a little concerned about the abusive use of spy drones by civilians. They’ve passed a law to restrict their use.
And here I thought that Harris County, Texas, one of the most abusive clusters of HOAs in the country, would be able to use drone cameras to peek inside the property and homes of HOA members to see if there were any covenant violations!
Six other states have passed anti-drone laws, but according to Fox News NY Texas legislators were especially concerned about private citizens and public entities who could use drones to eyeball what was going on in private bedrooms.
Still, as we’ve learned over the past year’s worth of federal spying scandals, privacy is a thing of the past. Despite privacy laws, they’re listening, they’re peeking, they’re photographing, they’re going through your trash. Ah, and HOA board members are doing it, too.
It only makes sense.
