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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   3037 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026

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Why are 55+ communities allowed? What are the perceived benefits of 55+ communities? https://x.com/LeahRain77/status/2079094767233745170 has blown up on X and I know I've seen 55+ communities when searching for houses. They usually come up on searches as less expensive and I guess I assumed they were assisted living facilities but looking at today's drama that's not the case.

It's weird to me that people are getting so offended at the idea of an almost-30 year old woman can continue living in the same home she lived in before her father passed away. What is at stake here to these people that is worth the expense of suing a woman out of her house?

The time I've heard the most complaints about these was from a friend (grad student) trying to find housing in a college town and complaining that lots of the (good) places were 55+ and obviously not available to students. Honestly, in-context I can imagine older adults appreciating some guarantee that the neighbors won't throw a kegger and loudly play beer pong into the wee hours of the morning.

I'm less content with, but maybe understand, not wanting young families adjacent. We should really do better about making most spaces more family-friendly.

lots of the (good) places were 55+ and obviously not available to students.

and if there was student housing on that magic dirt, I'm sure the neighborhood would be just as good. (neighborhoods can be geographically advantaged, but that generally isn't the determining factor.)

Yeah, living in an off-campus apartment really made me understand why homeowners fight student housing tooth and nail. Students are young, transient, and generally not personally responsible for their own finances, which is a triple whammy red flag for "will absolutely destroy the neighborhood."

Plus, beyond drunken destruction, the presence of student housing is inversely related to how responsive the local government is to community issues. Students don't pay property taxes and are often still legally domiciled (and therfore are registered to vote) at their parents' home, and will be gone within a couple of years anyway. So nobody at city hall cares about their complaints and the infrastructure all goes to shit. Landlords don't bother keeping up with capital maintenance and don't care as much about the quality of public infrastructure since they have a guaranteed renewing pool of cost-insensitive and naive tenants who tend to be unreasonably tolerant of conditions more established tenants would demand be fixed.

College students make terrible neighbors, even when they're well-behaved teetotalers, because they're fundamentally foreign tourists with no long-term stake in the community.

lots of the (good) places were 55+ and obviously not available to students.

Remembering myself as a student, I am thinking maybe that's exactly the point. I mean, I wasn't particularly wild and rowdy, but there was certain amounts or drinking, listening to loud musing and various behaviors that could be considered obnoxious by 50+ year old me involved. If you want peaceful, quiet, respectful neighbors, the students kinda carry a high risk profile on this one. I know not students are like that, and not all the time, but why take the chance?

listening to loud musing

A philosopy student, I see...

The existentialists are the worst!

Honestly, in-context I can imagine older adults appreciating some guarantee that the neighbors won't throw a kegger and loudly play beer pong into the wee hours of the morning.

This makes some sense, but could be enforced with some noise ordinances instead of age discrimination?

Noise ordnances can only be enforces after the noise is made. And, to be honest, what the enforcement can do? In the best case, police would come and tell them to shut it down. For today. And they'll also hate you forever if they learn who called it. And will repeat the same next week. More likely though, police wouldn't even come because they have better things to do (and if it's a university city, as likely as not they voted to give them as little funding as possible anyway) so they'd just register the complaint and be done with it.

And even if the deterrent works, a college student rarely lives in the same place for more than a year or two. By the time enforcement starts to stick with one set of residents, they're replaced with a new crop and the cycle begins anew.

If an HOA has a rule about noise after a certain time of day, then if someone violated it they would have to pay fees and potentially lose their home. It's basically the same thing as this tiktok girl being forced from her home, but with less discrimination over something she can't control.

they would have to pay fees and potentially lose their home.

I haven't heard of any case that HOA evicted someone from their house for unpaid fines. In any case, that would likely be a multi-year very expensive lawsuit. And the students would likely be renters, so they couldn't care less about that. Given that renter evictions in places where there are a lot of students usually are also a long and expensive process, the only real threat to the noise makers would be not extending their lease at the end of it - which may be up to a year ahead - and police arresting them (which probably wouldn't happen but at least they could threaten and intimidate them - if they show up at all).

Age discrimination is probably less of a hassle to enforce than a noise ordinance (hear the loud party late at night when you're trying to sleep, call the police, wait for the police to show up and tell your neighbors to turn the music down, rinse repeat if they decide to turn the music up again once the police have left).

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