One of the country’s best Homeowners’ Rights bloggers….perhaps THE best is Deborah Goonan. Her blog is Independent American Communities. Articulate, wise, informed. In short, I’m wildly jealous of her! Maybe in the next lifetime I’ll be reincarnated with her brain.
In any event, her current post, linked below, is one you should print out and keep copies in a file folder where you can quickly find it to hand out to friends.
Billionaire Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have a great heart for Africa. They’ve put billions of their own dollars into improving life for those in the third world. Recently, Gates made a somewhat startling statement. He said that Africans could double their annual income if each person had two chickens.
We’re not talking chickens in a pot, we’re talking about creating a continent-wide industry, eggs, protein, new income sources. When the average person in the third world earns just two dollars a day, generating a new source of income actually makes common sense. Although silly at first blush, Gates’ comments are actually another stroke of genius.
Ah, but our topic is Homeowners Associations. And here in America we’re suffering from a nationwide plague, a disease outbreak called ‘Homeowners Associations.’ And the typical HOA board doesn’t like chickens. (How the heck did Ward make this turn?)
In Roswell, Georgia, another HOA is threatening to take away the home of a couple who have two pet chickens in their back yard. The family loves the chickens, they share the eggs with neighbors, nobody has complained about the clean and quiet birds. Still, the HOA says if the chickens aren’t gone within 10 days, they’ll start fining the family a hundred bucks a day.
I promise not to use the word, ‘foul,’ here. I just want to say that Homeowners Associations are a bigger threat to American freedom than a couple of backyard chickens.
(link to chicken story in Roswell, Georgia)
Condo, co-op, duplex. Growing numbers of people are moving into Homeowners Associations with approximately ZERO knowledge of what they are and how dangerous they can be.
It’s been tough getting the media’s attention, but the movement to wake American homeowners up seems to be gaining momentum. Every little bit helps, including the article linked below.
(a word of warning from TheStreet)
It’s unsettling how so many tens of millions of people have just blithely wandered into the Homeowners Association experience without thinking. And so many people think they’re getting such a deal by being one of the first to believe the developer’s promises and move in.
Hoo, boy. A number of prospective homeowners bought condos in a residential skyscraper under development in San Francisco. The developer just didn’t tell them all the relative facts; that one side of the building has sunk sixteen inches into the ground and the building is tilting.
Wow!
In an earthquake-prone city these homeowners are now wondering if the next quake will send their building on Mission Street…right down the middle of Mission Street, And there’s word the developer has known about this problem for the past seven years! That’s honesty for you.
I’m not sure who’d want to live in San Francisco, anyway. Yes, I’ve been there on multiple occasions. And yes, the restaurants are great. But with earthquake experts warning Californians that ‘The Big One’ might be a little closer than anybody thinks, yes, I’d rather live with the risk of Colorado blizzards than California temblors.
(link to story on leaning tower of Frisco)
Facebook has lots of HOA, COA and cooperative ads that pop up and most I ignore. This one I could not because it said Village Cooperative a 55+ housing community. And wouldn’t you know Facebook has it blocked so I cannot make any comments. A year or so ago I did comment on some sort of HOA advertising and since then I’ve been blocked from making comments on all things HOA. Coincidence? I think not.
My heart sank. They are building several of these in close proximity to where I live! Who are the poor fools who will fall into this trap? Did they not read the Kansas City Star HOA Hell series that Judy Thomas wrote back in August? Were they on vacation? Were they packing to sell their house and move into this Village Cooperative? Or did they believe the sales pitch and not the journalist?
This is when I wish our advocates had massive amounts of money for advertising to purchase billboards next door to these places warning buyers to run like their hair is on fire!
Read their website. They make it sound like Village Cooperative is as close to heaven as you’ll get on earth. Makes me gag!
(link to Village Cooperative website)