HOA Threatening To Sue Over Purple Play Set
9Saw this on Consumerist:
Family Says HOA Threatening To Sue Over Purple Play Set In Their Backyard
I haven't had the misfortune of being in a neighborhood that's run by a HOA (Homeowner's Association), but I'm sure plenty of you have stories to share (or you just want to share your love of purple).
Did the existence of a HOA keep you from choosing one place over another one?
- 21 comments, 20 replies
- Comment
OH NO THEY DIDN'T... THIS IS A TRAVESTY!
The family should counter-sue for not having ENOUGH PURPLE IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.
I hate HOAs as a result of living under one for years. We lost charcoal grills, we lost the ability to work on our cars in the driveway, we lost the ability to plant flowers or have more than two planters on the patio... but we had the docs going in. Everything the neighborhood machine has done was possible under the rules we agreed to.
NEVER again. I don't care if that means I get a neighbor with a car on blocks in the front yard... I'll get to work on mine, have a real grill, plant a damn garden, and have a fenced yard to let my dog run without a leash.
If you move into an HOA you have to read and understand the rules, and then extrapolate them under the worst conditions you can imaging, being run by people who are power-mad autocrats and don't like you wanting to do your own thing. That way when it gets bad, at least you won't be surprised...
@duodec No charcoal? What barbarians!
@Barney!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@mfladd ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
@Barney I figured when PURPLE is being threatened you would want to be summoned :)
@mfladd You betcha!
I want to know what color is “too pastel”. I always thought something was pastel or it wasn't, not a lot of leeway there though really any pastel color is too much pastel for me so eh.
My neighborhood would look shady as fuck without a HOA. But if I wasnt renting I would choose a place that was nice without HOA enforcement.
Yes. HOA's perform a valuable service in keeping neighborhoods looking nice, but they inevitably attract these stepford Nazis who have nothing better to do then be assholes.
The quality of an HOA is completely dependent upon the purple that live there. Most of the time, people who complain about their HOA refuse to get involved. I joined the board at my condo association and made my will known. I argued, voted, and got shit done.
It's the most basic type of republic, except there's no lobbyists buying votes. The fact is, most people are lazy. They don't attend meetings, don't participate in discussion on rule changes, then complain when there's a rule they don't like.
Guess what: Rule changes are easy, and most board members have terms of 1-2 years. It's a handful of hours of work a month to ensure you're directly involved in rulemaking and policy decisions. It's about 30-60 minutes a month to simply attend meetings and make your voice heard! Shit, fuckers! Quit whining and get involved!
/rant
Ninja edit: autocorrect changed "people" to "purple" in the first paragraph. I'm leaving it because we love @Barney.
@DaveInSoCal I would rather not have to waste my time at all, as opposed to "getting involved". You sound like someone trying to get out the vote on a college campus.
@givemeyoursoul: "You sound like someone trying to get out the vote on a college campus."
OR… he actually cares about his neighborhood and not just his own yard.
@DaveInSoCal I love purple.
@Barney Purple is an okay color, but I prefer blue.
@juststephen
@mfladd There is hope for @juststephen. He no longer posts, "I hate purple" after my "love purple" comments. Heck, we might even become friends.
I hate HOAs. We live in a very small neighborhood of townhouses (literally just one street of them) and someone was complaining not too long ago on Nextdoor about the lack of an HOA because of something their neighbor was doing. I told her that the whole reason I bought here was because there was no HOA and there never would be one because they'd never get enough people on the street to agree to one (it's been tried in the past). HOAs were created by the devil.
A friend of mine was all set to buy a home but backed out when she saw the HOA rules seemed to forbid simply working from home, even telecommuting.
@jqubed how can they riffle through your items if you are home all the time... geeze.
@jqubed Usually that's to avoid people having a business where customers come to your home for business purposes. It reduces the number of strangers, foot and car traffic in the neighborhood.
Usually an individual can ask for an exception, but probably not worth it in most cases. Telecommuting from home generally wouldn't be prevented by this rule. My old HOA was like that and i worked from home for 4 years with no issue.
@DaveInSoCal Yeah, I can understand why the rule would be in place. Apparently that one was just really poorly worded (and poorly written; she said the whole document was riddled with spelling and grammar errors).
@jqubed Ours had a prohibition on trucks in the driveway. They 'said' it only meant large trucks with commercial signage, but thats not what the rules stated. I had a large pickup that would not fit in the garage (I miss that truck...); I made them add an exception before we bought the place (from the builder before they turned things over to a board), and that ended up saving a neighbor whose pickup had his store's name on the door.
They couldn't enforce the unwritten signage prohibition (they tried), only the 'no trucks', and since they could not prohibit my truck they just couldn't get the support to go after my neighbor.
@duodec A nearby town is notorious for their sign rules and will enforce them on vehicles parked outside related establishments as well. They restrict sizes and even the number of colors that can be in a sign. This came back to bite them a few years ago when a pastor added his picture to a church vehicle that already had the church sign on the side and parked it by the roadside. The town decided that was a sign and having a person's face on there added another color which put him over the limit. The pastor was African-American, though, so the town suddenly sounded pretty racist when they complained about "too many colors" on his sign. I think they ended up dropping the issue in his case because of the negative publicity it generated.
@duodec http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2015/01/lawsuit_pickup_truck_not_welcome_in_fayetteville_development.html
I have a F150 crew cab with 6.5 bed. Large but I love it when camping and as a daily driver. I'd loose my shit if they told me I need to get rid of it.
@StrangerDanger I know someone who has a friend that had a surplus 2-1/2 ton military truck, wonderfully restored (meaning flat OD paint, camo canvas, etc). Way too big to fit in a garage so he parked in his driveway. The HOA there was run by a group of don't-work stay-at-home nasty crones who took an instant dislike and made his life hell for months before he gave up and rented a spot elsewhere to keep it.
I'd have been proud (and happy, and hopeful to get a ride!) to have that parked near my home; it wasn't in the way, didn't block anything, and wasn't against the letter of the rules. But the board went after him on generic 'cosmetic' grounds and nuisance (people would slow down to look at it when it was parked). They used the vagueness in the HOA docs to enforce their own private opinions and positions against a resident.
A few years ago in Maryland one of the neighborhoods with an HOA decided to have a "most beautiful house" contest. Turned out that ALL of the nominees, while beautifying their houses had broken the rules of the HOA about landscaping, fences, flower pots, etc. After they got through eliminating all the nominees who were in violation of the HOA rules, they no longer had any nominees for most beautiful house. Kind of makes you wonder.
Comparing my parents' neighborhood's wacky HOA rules and the laws set by the democratically-elected council of my small suburban town... there are fewer differences than you'd think. We can't have commercial vehicles on the street, we can't make various modifications to our homes without approval, there are tons of landscaping limitations, etc. But the difference is - the ones that affect me are laws. I can't sleep on my sofa, drink a beer on my porch, or throw a ball into the air outside, because it's against the law.
My parents have served on their HOA board to influence what goes on, and it's been pretty easy to get things revised or clarified or get exemptions. It's much harder to change or repeal laws, especially when our town council is a bunch of conservative old farts who have had their positions for ages.
Why do people hate purple? That playground set is such a pretty shade of purple. What is wrong with that HOA? I love purple. Everyone should love purple. The world would be a better place.
lol NIMBYs
We stayed away from a few homes/neighborhoods because of the extent of their HOA rules. We do live in a neighborhood that has an HOA, but it is a laid back HOA. It is mostly here to keep the cars being put on blocks and parked in the front yard. There are somethings that have been questioned but there hasn't been an enforcement of the rules.
Right now, the HOA is trying to figure out if a non-profit food bank can distribute food from a private residence. Since the distribution of food began, there has been an increase in vehicle break-in's and attempted home break-in's. Not sure if it is a direct correlation or just bad luck.
There are good and bad HOAs just like everything. And just like politics if you want to improve the situation you need to get involved yourself.
I lived in an HOA community and an Ex-HOA member would stay home all day (retired) in a 3rd story room, looming and looking out of her window via telescope. There was a rule for no fans in the window, like A/C mounted window fans.....I had a fan in the middle of my floor, standing fan, and she took pictures of it being visable THROUGH my window.... got a fine a week later. Kept my blinds shut for the rest of the lease then moved out.
@connorbush Get a fake security camera from Harbor Freight or equivalent. Put it on a tripod inside your room, aim it out the window at her window.
Or better get a real netcam with a replaceable CCTV lens, put a long lens on it, aim it at her window, and put her on Youtube.
@duodec already moved out. I was young and naive. I used to proudly strut around nude though. I'm sure she enjoyed that.
We had the bestest HOA in Miami they couldn't due anything but raise the dues 5%/yr without a 75% majority. It was great, the lawn got mowed and the liability insurance got paid, no empire building could happen. It usta be so much fun to go to a meeting and watch the future Trump wannabes froth at the mouth because they couldn't get enough people to show up to advance their agenda at the time.
Just some random observations. Grape Kool-Aid never comes out of anything. Kool-Aid is very inexpensive, and it's not traceable. Driveways are porous. Grape Kool-Aid is very, very purple. Ninjas, and their deeds, are invisible in the dark. Super-soaker water guns can be spray-painted black.
@OldCatLady Then there'll be a special assessment to repair the driveways if its a condo or townhouse development.
"...those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort." - L.Long
I don't live in an HOA controlled neighborhood, but I definitely have some neighbors with a stick up their ass. My yard is on a fairly steep hill, making the back yard virtually unusable for anything aside from sleigh riding. It has also caused moisture problems in my house over the past 35 years.
When we bought the home in foreclosure in 2011, we knew we would have to make some changes to the property to correct the water issues but knew the price would make it a project we'd have to save up to do. We finally started our project last week. We decided that if we're going to hire someone to dig some drainage ditches and fix the water issues, we might as well just terrace out a spot in the back yard so the kids have a flatter play area.
Because our yard is on a hill, and the back yard isn't accessible via heavy machinery, we had the materials delivered curb-side and our contractor brought them around back as he needed them. Apparently, my neighbors got butt-hurt because over the pile of gravel and other materials in the front yard while the work was going on. We were contacted by both the highway department (who didn't have any issue with us aside from the phone calls they received) and the Sheriff's department (who also didn't personally care, but wanted to come check out what was going on).
We figured it was someone who couldn't stand that something was happening behind our house where they were unable to see and watch.
Long story short, when I find out who was calling and complaining about the noise and the mess IN MY YARD while we corrected a major design flaw (and improved property value), I plan to have a dump truck load of manure delivered in their driveway. I'll make sure to call and complain about the smell afterward.
I hate HOAs. I also hate neighbors who suck.
But I hate HOAs more.