Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 180
- 1
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Does every HOA start imploding on harassing people over trivialities after they achieve their primary mission of keeping human garbage out of the neighborhood?
Not at all, in fact it's fantastically rare. I think it's just another example of the thing where only ridiculous and outrageous stories of misbehavior get written, upvoted, and shared. The vast majority of them work perfectly fine basically all the time, but nobody tells stories about that.
I live in a decently nice condo building with a board that does maintenance, upkeep, and upgrade of common areas. They all seem perfectly reasonable and competent, and nothing dramatic has ever happened as far as I know. They're all up for re-election every year, but board meeting attendance is fairly low and virtually nobody ever runs to challenge any of the existing officeholders. They seem more barely able to muster enough man-hours to take care of all the things that they ought to than to have a ton of extra time to hassle people over random stupid stuff.
It's been my experience in real life that nobody I've ever met in person had this sort of thing happen to them. Basically everybody in real life will look at you like you're crazy if you express an opinion that it's likely enough to happen to take precautions against. I think that's a much more reliable measure about how much of a risk something actually is than how often you see stories about things on the internet or in the news.
More options
Context Copy link
This is the popular conception of HOA's, but everyone I've been involved with has predominately existed to maintain shared infrastructure (in the single family home case often infrastructure that probably should be the city's responsibility, but the city is uninterested; they still get tax revenue but don't have to pay for it). It's a failure mode of HOA's but how common is it really?
More options
Context Copy link
Nah. Ours did a bit last year, and we just voted in 3 people to the board who ran on 'roll back the due hike and stop bothering people about clover in their lawn'. We got exactly that. It's like any other form of democratic government, you get what you vote for.
More options
Context Copy link
No. We have an HOA. I have zero complaints about them being too strict. I wish they were slightly stricter. E.g. a neighbor has a giant LED american flag just inside a garage window. This is technically not HOA violating because it isn't outdoor lighting.
More options
Context Copy link
No, but you don't hear about the ones that just manage the neighborhood to the satisfaction of the residents.
More options
Context Copy link
Sure seems too. I had a buddy who lived in a shitty townhome community in a bad part of town, and the HOA rode his ass about the color of his front door (which was picked directly from the HOA's list of approved colors), but didn't seem to care one wit about the broken down vehicles scattered about the guest parking spaces, the litter scattered about by scumbag kids, or any of the other daily inconveniences caused by living among low trust, high time preference demographics.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link