Yay home-owners association thread!

Farking fascists. Why would anyone agree to live like that? The last thing I need is some busy-body nosy neighbour telling me what I can hang on my house and where I can park my car.

Another article making me happy I live in a regular old downtown area.

I have colored lights up in the SUMMER even, sometimes. Plus my house is green. I like that houses on my street are all different colors, actually. Makes things interesting, they're all nicely painted.

/the lights are for festive atmosphere when drinking beer on the porch

Stunningly well-written and informative article!

But really...

Meh. If you don't like it, don't live there. If you do live there, participate...

Only 38 of more than 200 homes responded - 19 in favor of the current rule of only white lights, non blinking - 14 for colored with blinking - and only 5 for steady colored light

38 Respondents out of 200? If you're so pissed that they wouldn't let you put up your tacky lights, you should have gotten off of your ass and encouraged more than 14 of your 200 neighbors to vote for it.

Screw HMA's. If you own your house, ignore the damn HMA's. They're run by fat, ugly, stupid women that don't have anything better to do with their day than involve themselves in other people's business. They are the legalistic evolution of the nosy b*tch that peeks over your fence and gossips. Anyone buying a house should refuse to sign any contracts that force you to join such an organization. I don't believe HMA contracts should be enforceable by law. They're anti-American fascist crapola.

Not so cool story bro:
When I was 10 my family moved to the village of a small New Hampshire town a month or so before Christmas. We put up our traditional colorful Christmas lights in the windows of our new house. The next day the police arrived at our front door and I will never forget to this day what that cop said to my Dad.

He basically arrived at our door quite angry about our Christmas lights and threatened to throw my father in jail if he did not immediately remove them. Apparently, town ordinance stated that only white lights could be shown within a mile of the village center. "No coloreds!", the cop shouted at my Dad. He then poked his finger finger right at my Dad's nose and sternly repeated to his face, "NO COLOREDS IN THIS TOWN." The message was clear. We never bothered putting up any Christmas lights again after that.

My favorite HOA story: Satellite dish gets installed on 2nd floor deck. HOA sends letter saying it must be relocated to the back of the house (which means the roof toward the back of the house because that's the only way to get reception). Satellite company comes out, removes dish, and begins installing it on roof toward back of house. During re-installation, HOA comes by and says no satellite dishes on roofs. And where, exactly, do they say it should go? On the 2nd floor deck, of course.

The best part is that it turns out that there are no rules about where residents can place satellite dishes. The HOA is just making it up as they go.

Someone needs to put a triple tier pissing bird bath with blinking lights of all colors and a strobe light to top it, just to say fark you HOA.

sigdiamond2000: BurnShrike: Why would anyone agree to live like that?

You ever watch shows like "House Hunters" or "My First Home"? These are the kind of people you're dealing with here.

These are the kind of people who think having fake cherry kitchen cabinets is more important than the structural integrity of the house.

These are the kind of people who think having double bathroom sinks is more important than having properly installed windows.

These are the kind of people who think having stainless steel appliances is more important than having a well-laid roof.

These are the kind of people who go on Disney cruises.

What's your problem with the Mouse?

If more home buyers said "NO !" to HOAs, they would find that property values would drop in HOA controlled neighborhoods. I glad I don't live in a stinkin' HOA ghetto !

BurnShrike: Yay home-owners association thread!



Bears repeating in a colour and style deemed suitable by a council of local busybodies.

Hector Remarkable: Not so cool story bro:
When I was 10 my family moved to the village of a small New Hampshire town a month or so before Christmas. We put up our traditional colorful Christmas lights in the windows of our new house. The next day the police arrived at our front door and I will never forget to this day what that cop said to my Dad.

He basically arrived at our door quite angry about our Christmas lights and threatened to throw my father in jail if he did not immediately remove them. Apparently, town ordinance stated that only white lights could be shown within a mile of the village center. "No coloreds!", the cop shouted at my Dad. He then poked his finger finger right at my Dad's nose and sternly repeated to his face, "NO COLOREDS IN THIS TOWN." The message was clear. We never bothered putting up any Christmas lights again after that.

Not to ITG but I would seriously have a hard time not laughing myself stupid in this situation.

Flakeloaf: Hector Remarkable: Not so cool story bro:
When I was 10 my family moved to the village of a small New Hampshire town a month or so before Christmas. We put up our traditional colorful Christmas lights in the windows of our new house. The next day the police arrived at our front door and I will never forget to this day what that cop said to my Dad.

He basically arrived at our door quite angry about our Christmas lights and threatened to throw my father in jail if he did not immediately remove them. Apparently, town ordinance stated that only white lights could be shown within a mile of the village center. "No coloreds!", the cop shouted at my Dad. He then poked his finger finger right at my Dad's nose and sternly repeated to his face, "NO COLOREDS IN THIS TOWN." The message was clear. We never bothered putting up any Christmas lights again after that.

Not to ITG but I would seriously have a hard time not laughing myself stupid in this situation.

I was just a kid. I didn't fully understand, and wanted more information, but my Dad would never talk to me about it. You're not lying, it is freaking hilarious.
The punchline - that officer went on to become the Chief of Police of the adjacent town and is to this day.

As others have said, depending on the location, finding a suitable house that is not already part of an HOA is increasingly difficult. In the DC 'burbs where I wanted to live (convenient to family and work), my options were half-million-dollar shacks in need of 100 thousand dollars of repairs, that were 1 storm away from being condemned, but whose owners hadn't realized the market bubble popped... or very very new housing (anything built in the past 15-20 years) that's part of an HOA.

I have no problem with my HOA, probably because I participate with it, attend the meetings, etc. They serve a purpose... and if you think they're being tyrants, well you have every opportunity to participate yourself and change things.

Hector Remarkable:
When I was 10 my family moved to the village of a small New Hampshire town ...
He basically arrived at our door quite angry about our Christmas lights and threatened to throw my father in jail if he did not immediately remove them.

"Live Free or Die" indeed.

"NO COLOREDS IN THIS TOWN."

you sure he was talking about the lights.... Hector?

unclecrazy99: If more home buyers said "NO !" to HOAs, they would find that property values would drop in HOA controlled neighborhoods. I glad I don't live in a stinkin' HOA ghetto !

What I've heard is you can't get an FHA backed loan for a new house unless it comes with an HOA. Which means the only houses without them were built pre-1960.

True story the whole purpose of home owners associations was to prevent Blacks and Mexicans from buying houses in the new suburbs. This after the supreme court ruled that convents doing so were unenforceable. Later, the courts rules that HOA couldn't do that either. Then banks took over the job by just refusing to issue loans to black people unless they lived in particular neighborhoods.

Grandemadaca: Hector Remarkable:
When I was 10 my family moved to the village of a small New Hampshire town ...
He basically arrived at our door quite angry about our Christmas lights and threatened to throw my father in jail if he did not immediately remove them.

"Live Free or Die" indeed.

"NO COLOREDS IN THIS TOWN."

you sure he was talking about the lights.... Hector?

Yeah Hector... are you black? Because depending how long ago that was (not to presume you're old)... that cop may have meant something a tad more sinister.

Talon: Grandemadaca: Hector Remarkable:
When I was 10 my family moved to the village of a small New Hampshire town ...
He basically arrived at our door quite angry about our Christmas lights and threatened to throw my father in jail if he did not immediately remove them.

"Live Free or Die" indeed.

"NO COLOREDS IN THIS TOWN."

you sure he was talking about the lights.... Hector?

Yeah Hector... are you black? Because depending how long ago that was (not to presume you're old)... that cop may have meant something a tad more sinister.

Um, I'm actually only "internet-ethnic". But even so, that was indeed the point of the story. It was a "wink,wink" type racism - sorry to veer more toward Christmas lights than HOAs, although I bet small towns can be much like them.

I had already been taught not to use that word at all.

Use all halogens. Sure, the electrical cost will be a biatch, but watching their faces contort, bathed in the light of your miniature sun would be worth it.

Neighborhood Bans Colored Christmas Lights

I though that we weren't suppose to say colored any more.

Godot42
Screw HMA's. If you own your house, ignore the damn HMA's. They're run by fat, ugly, stupid women that don't have anything better to do with their day than involve themselves in other people's business.

That is a perfect description of the HMA board member who lives near me.

CSB time:

Across the street from me and behind the houses there is a drainage pond. It is shallow and it is a designated wetlands. In the summer it gets a lot of algae on it. I'm not surprised. It's a farking wetlands. I also do not care. My house isn't on the pond anyway.

Enter the HOA. After I moved in a few years ago, a proposal was made to charge all neighborhood homeowners to clean up the pond by digging it deeper, an expensive process particularly because of complications caused by its designated wetlands status. They said it would be about $800 each plus our usual annual fee. People who actually lived on the pond would pay 50% more. That was too much for the whiny pond people who wanted everyone else to pay for fixing their back window views, so we were told it would cost more, over $1000 each.

According to our codes, they needed 75% of homeowners to vote "yes" to have a special assessment. Homeowners who did not vote were considered a "no". The following spring they pushed an amendment to the codes changing the percentage needed to 55%.

I ignored the ballot, the same as a "no" vote. This lady came to my door to get a ballot response and told me that the amendment was not at all intended to push the pond project, that that was dead. I told her that I wasn't buying it. I expected a pond assessment if they got their code change. I voted "no", saying that while I know the algae is an eye sore to some, it didn't bother me and those who lived on the pond should pay to clean it up if they wanted. I was polite, but she got pissed and whined that "speaking of eye sores", my lawn needed mowed. End of conversation, biatch.

Somehow they got their 75% and changed the HOA code to 55% for special assessments. Last year, a reduced pond assessment passed that will cost me about $600 over the next three years. My HOA can go fark themselves.

If you were dumb enough to move in and join an HoA you deserve it.

gibbon1: unclecrazy99: If more home buyers said "NO !" to HOAs, they would find that property values would drop in HOA controlled neighborhoods. I glad I don't live in a stinkin' HOA ghetto !

What I've heard is you can't get an FHA backed loan for a new house unless it comes with an HOA. Which means the only houses without them were built pre-1960.

True story the whole purpose of home owners associations was to prevent Blacks and Mexicans from buying houses in the new suburbs. This after the supreme court ruled that convents doing so were unenforceable. Later, the courts rules that HOA couldn't do that either. Then banks took over the job by just refusing to issue loans to black people unless they lived in particular neighborhoods.

"True story" because???? True story an UFO landed in my yard last night. True story leprechauns live in my garden. I can detect at least four "true stories" in that paragraph, each needing verifiable citation. Let's have 'em, tosh.

unclecrazy99: value

I've yet to see proof that a HOA results in higher property values. It is well-accepted in financial theory that if you don't control something, it is worth less than something that is otherwise identical, but you have control over.

In other words, it's all faux-riche bullshiat.

The Why Not Guy
The kicker? My uncle and his wife are thrilled. They see all of this as "law and order" that keeps the decent people safe from the scumbags and helps their property values remain high

"PROPERTY VALUES!" is the rallying cry of all busy body HOA douchebags. It justifies anything and everything.

The Why Not Guy: But again, they're happy. You couldn't pay me to live like that, but they're happy, so who am I to judge?

You are a person who may have a sense of taste that, while different than the collective hive-mind of an HOA, may not be uninformed and pleasing to the eye. You would (if you were in that situation) a person who bought land and property.

/yeah, yeah, I know...

gibbon1:
What I've heard is you can't get an FHA backed loan for a new house unless it comes with an HOA. Which means the only houses without them were built pre-1960.

True story the whole purpose of home owners associations was to prevent Blacks and Mexicans from buying houses in the new suburbs. This after the supreme court ruled that convents doing so were unenforceable. Later, the courts rules that HOA couldn't do that either. Then banks took over the job by just refusing to issue loans to black people unless they lived in particular neighborhoods.

gibbon1: FHA backed

Your "what I heard" is completely false. FHA doesn't care about HOAs. The rest of it is false as well. Banks (especially large ones), have no intimate knowledge of neighborhoods beyond the comps. If you have the credit to buy (and, these days, a 10-20% downpayment), they will give you the money to buy whatever house you want. You may argue that this is against poor people and most poor people are minorities (which is a spurious argument at best), but banks really don't care much about who gets the money, they worry about making profit.

To your other point, some HOAs may exist that discourage racial integration, but HOAs were originally set up to allow people to collectively make their neighborhood homes homogenized. At least, that is the only reason I can come up with.

\\silly, banks are evil.
\lawful evil

DigitalCoffee: Neighborhood Bans Colored Christmas Lights

I though that we weren't suppose to say colored any more.

Naw, "colored" is still fine. It's "Christmas" you're not allowed to say.

The Why Not Guy: But a bush? In their own backyard? What possible objection could there be?

The only thing I can even remotely come up with is it's to avoid some bush that attracts hundreds of thousands of bees.

/Or someone has a snowflake who will implode if exposed to a grain of pollen

The Why Not Guy: being given a list of 5 approved neutral paint colors

Usually there's no paint involved nowadays, it's all vinyl siding.

And vinyl siding, at least in the Midwest, comes in a limited selection of colors - grey, pale blue, and tan. Trim is always white, again vinyl. OCCASIONALLY you'll find a place with pale greyish green similar to the blue, but it's rare.

A few years ago I needed to fix my screen door, which is a 1960's era aluminium thing. At first I thought I'd just replace it, so I went to Menards, only to find out that they only sell vinyl covered ones, and of course ONLY in white, because it matches the other approved vinyl trim shiat all the suburbs use. I asked about wooden screen doors, they don't have those, asked about aluminium ones, got told that no one uses such low class things these days.

I ended up buying parts to fix the one I have, because while it's not beautiful per se, the trim on my house isn't white, it's a warm off-white color and a white door would really not work out. I asked for dark green (some places do have dark green, and really anything BUT pure white probably would do) which would go okay, but they didn't have it. White, and only white, vinyl.

Rude Turnip: I've yet to see proof that a HOA results in higher property values. It is well-accepted in financial theory that if you don't control something, it is worth less than something that is otherwise identical, but you have control over.

In other words, it's all faux-riche bullshiat.

Yeah, it's interesting to compare with the way that people fight tooth and nail against having their places declared part of a historical district or a historical property, because that means there's restrictions against making certain exterior changes. People accept that that loss of freedom is a pain in the ass and might make the house harder to sell, but they seem to have a blind accepting eye for the modern HOAs.

...and while on the topic of vinyl siding:

(1) Moldy vinyl siding really looks horrible. You might not need to paint your house, but you really should wash it every so often.

(2) "In" colors change, just as they do in any other sort of fashion. All these endless burbs now with the pale grey, tan, pale blue siding with white trim are going to be very dated at some point. At least with paint, you can change the color if you want. (Sometimes you see old houses with goldenrod or avocado green wide vinyl siding and black shutters, you can just feel the 70's vibe oozing out.)

Flakeloaf
Naw, "colored" is still fine. It's "Christmas" you're not allowed to say.

Hurrrrrr. War on Christmas!

/I'm in the overwhelming majority and I'm being repressed!

The Why Not Guy: You couldn't pay me to live there. Cookie cutter McMansions with no personality. Not close enough to the city (Rochester) to be convenient to attractions, but too close for the beauty of rural living. Of course, I can't afford to live there even if I wanted to, and they wouldn't want me there because yes, I do have my own sense of taste. But if my uncle and his wife like it there, well, it's no concern of mine. I have a little cottage in the ghetto. I just painted it tomato red, with buff trim, chocolate accents and a bright sky blue door. I love it, and I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. I'm sure my uncle and his wife would cringe if they saw it, but hopefully keep their opinion to themselves. I'm just trying to do the same for them.

Actually, that sounds nice! The color scheme, I mean...I'm not gay.

we are looking to buy in the next year. hoa's are a big NO for us, so that greatly limits our selection. price range is also a limiter, since we sure can't afford $150k+ at this point.

so, what i think we're going to do: there are lots of rural towns within a very easy commute of my workplace in downtown ft worth. these areas have lots of availability of large (1500+ sq ft) mobile homes on 1 or more acres of land for anywhere from $40-90k...many of the better ones we've looked at are around $65-75k.

we can get this, on an fha loan, with 3 or 4% down, and live in the trailer till we can afford to have our dream house built on the property.

The Dog Ate My Homework: The best part is that it turns out that there are no rules about where residents can place satellite dishes. The HOA is just making it up as they go.

Interestingly Florida passed a law recently that says an HOA cannot do anything to you if you plant native species in your yard; any existing HOA rules are null. It has not been tested yet, but I can't wait until it is. I'm sure HOA's everywhere are cringing at the thought of people realizing this law exists, and fully intend to enforce landscaping rules until there is push-back and they do get sued.

The Dog Ate My Homework: My favorite HOA story: Satellite dish gets installed on 2nd floor deck. HOA sends letter saying it must be relocated to the back of the house (which means the roof toward the back of the house because that's the only way to get reception). Satellite company comes out, removes dish, and begins installing it on roof toward back of house. During re-installation, HOA comes by and says no satellite dishes on roofs. And where, exactly, do they say it should go? On the 2nd floor deck, of course.

The best part is that it turns out that there are no rules about where residents can place satellite dishes. The HOA is just making it up as they go.

Have fun:

Prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, HOAs could restrict or prohibit satellite dishes. Many communities still have these rules in their CC&Rs, but after October 1996, they are no longer enforceable. With a few exceptions, any homeowner may install a satellite dish of a size of one meter or smaller in diameter (larger dishes are protected in Alaska). While HOAs may encourage that dishes be placed as inconspicuously as possible, the dish must be allowed to be placed where it may receive a usable signal. Additionally, many HOAs have restrictive covenants prohibiting a homeowner from installing an OTA (Over-The-Air) rooftop antenna. These restrictions are also no longer enforceable, except in some instances. For example: the antenna may be installed at any location unless it imposes upon common property. Also, the antenna must be of a design to receive local, not long-distance signals and must not extend any higher than twelve feet above the top roof-line of the home, unless an exception is granted by the HOA due to extenuating terrestrial interference.[35]

/bold text if you really want to mess with them

I don't want those coloreds anywhere near my whites! Maybe to decorate the outlines of windows and doors but not the house itself!