Seriously, if you're 'offended' by sidewalk chalk drawing by a 3 year old, you should move to Pakistan where everything can be treated as an outrage and you can just spend all your time rampaging through the streets.

So if you join a HOA, you just can't do what you want, when you want? Imagine that.

jayphat: Oh you bought a house in a HOA? This is how many farks I give.........

Why don't Republicans pushing "right-to-work" laws also push "right-to- live" laws that let you buy a house without joining the HOA?

Winston Smith '84: I was on your side until the last paragraph. You, your family, the pastor, and your Dad's old friends became bigger dicks than the HOA.

You're absolutely right. And that's not sarcasm mode, you are. Destruction of property is wrong...but so were a lot of other things in that area.

The alibis that we kids had been in church all day were, actually, honest ones, and we really had. The accusers assumption that we children who'd been seen with BB guns that week were the only POSSIBLE culprits was the real fallacy. (The explanation, as Mom told me some years later, was that Dad and the uncles took care of the HOA guys' cars while we were at vacation bible school.)

There was also a lot of other nasty stuff the HOA Board had done prior to the car incident, including sending a single mom to collections after she failed to pay a $10-a-day fine for not repairing the fence the spoiled rich kids (one of whom was an HOA board member's son, but there was a cop on the HOA board, too, so nobody was hearing it,) had spray-painted slurs against her kid all over. (He was biracial and liked ballet, so that meant n- and f-words.) Single mom's son had attempted to kill himself after the bullying he'd been getting in the neighborhood finally followed him home and caused his mom trouble, and he was in the ICU, so understandably she had other priorities, and sadly, the dads and uncles of the neighborhood didn't hear about it in time to fix her fence until she was already being called and harassed by the debt collectors every time she came home from her son's bedside. One of them went, as a favor, and pointed out that the fence had been repainted and could the board please call off the debt collectors, given the circumstances, and the one member there, whose son had vandalized it and bullied the kid in the first place, said no. Mom was working on getting our Auntie to make a stink on the news, but that isn't always as easy in an election year, even with local stations, (it was when Clinton ran against Dole, to get an idea of when this was,) and by the time there was a story, it'd already gotten too bad for a PR problem to fix.

There was also the fact that HUD had bought some houses in the plan for low-income (read: minority,) families and the HOA bastards, bad and persnickety as they were to us redheaded Irish-Americans, they were really obscene with the new families. One of them came over and shrieked at a lady in front of her children and threatened to report her as an unfit mother if she didn't mow her lawn better. She'd been there one week and hadn't had the chance to buy a damned lawnmower. They also used to use really vicious slurs and accuse the family from India of cooking the local cats. These were not nice people.

The day the single mom's boy passed was the day Dad and the uncles went on their little raid.

All in all, the total damage was probably about $400 per car and their insurance covered it. The HOA, however? Their actions had made the area so nasty that a kid died.

So yes, while my family absolutely behaved terribly, it was under pretty terrible circumstances. And I still feel completely justified in being proud that Dad, while not being of perfect moral character in that he yielded to the very sort of violent impulse our grandparents left the old country to get away from, he did persuade the uncles to go after the cars rather than the HOA board member's rotten kid.

If people in power use the rule of law for tyranny and cruelty, rational citizens will stop feeling the need to obey the law. It's not a good thing, but it does happen.

Interestingly, two of the uncles wound up on the HOA board not too long after that, and one's still there. If anyone can't afford to make repairs now, they have deals cut with area stores for whole blocks to buy their paint and deck stain and whatnot in bulk and do things cooperatively, so if one person has time but not a lot of money, some of their neighbors can cover their share of the materials in exchange for their share of the actual work. (The previous board had blocked this because they felt it 'encouraged the wrong sort to buy homes here when they couldn't afford it.') Kids are allowed to volunteer for big painting, landscaping and repair jobs and get community-service credit for graduation or to offset their parents' dues, and the meeting house is leased during the off-hours to groups and companies for events, so everyone's fees have gone down thanks to the revenue. That, and the police have a scheme set up where any kid caught harassing another one gets community-service hours, so the whole development is not only beautifully maintained, but the vandals won't wreck their own work and kids are a lot politer to each other.

I wouldn't say we're good, but we're not that awful.

I live adjacent to an HOA. The line of demarcation isn't obvious since it's a pretty old neighborhood and the HOA was originally formed in 1926 to manage their water system, but a lot of the people who have moved there in more recent years gradually tweaked it into something resembling a more modern HOA.

The busybodies are endlessly irked by something, and several have mistakenly tried to impose their rules on me. There is nothing sweeter than seeing their fury thwarted.

When did we give ultimate deciding power to the most offendable?

What could possibly be more innocuous than sidewalk chalk? The kid is gonna get bored of that in a couple days, then it will rain, and they'll have their precious unmarked pavement again. Whatever happened to being slightly tolerant of those around you for the sake of getting along? Everybody can't get their way 100% of the time.

Tellingthem: \I will never buy a place with one

It can be pretty hard to buy into a condo without one, and at least around here any neighborhood that isn't 30 years old or out in the boonies has one for detached houses too.

I'd be a lot more down on them if it wasn't for dipshiats planting random shiat like banana trees in common spaces (and blocking other people's windows) and dumping cardboard in the trash dumpster so the city won't empty it until someone crawls in to get it out - some people are just shiats who don't give a fark about their neighbors and need a draconian HOA to be kept in line.

theteacher: Downfall of socialism: HOA

HOAs are not socialism.

You'll note the Tea Party has rarely raised a stink about HOAs, probably because they hope they can return to the old-school neighborhood covenants keeping certain "undesirables" from purchasing property.

Rain. Rain washes off chalk. But stupid is permanent.

Obviously this is too late for most anyone to see, but as most of the posts really had nothing to do with the specifics of TFA, the tardiness may be secondary to its unimportance.

I'm still on the mailing list for the HOA in this neighborhood. They just sent this:

"Unfortunately, CBS reported the "Chalk Art Banned in Stapleton" story inaccurately. The story referred to "the association" as the "Stapleton HOA". For that reason people thought the report was referring to the Stapleton Master Community Association (MCA). The correct association they were referencing is a specific Wonderland garden court sub association located in filing 32. It is not affiliated with the Stapleton MCA in any way.

In the Stapleton Community sidewalks are the property of the homeowners. In the referenced incident the sub association manages the sidewalk for all of the property owners. If you are in a single family home, the sidewalk is yours to create a masterpiece using sidewalk chalk!

For the record, the Stapleton MCA does NOT have any rules prohibiting chalk art on any sidewalk throughout our community. We encourage it at our pools and even in the MCA managed parks."

This "garden court" and "sub association" is a deal with a bunch of small groups of houses in this development. Most houses are not in one of these groups, but basically there are sets of 5 or 6 houses with especially small private lots, but an extra shared 'courtyard' (that's bigger than any single family yard for miles around) that they manage via an additional HOA. Which definitely makes whoever complained a super deluxe douchebag, because they definitely know these neighbors and should have had the stones to ask the parents not to let their kids harmlessly entertain themselves outdoors where others could manufacture offense about it.

I was happy to hear that my old neighbors are not actually subject to an evil hoa after all.

lilplatinum: When the type of people who buy a property in a specific area (like a lame suburb with similar looking houses) all have a similar opinion of what does or does not make a house worth more or less money, then you are hurting their property value in real terms. It might be for reasons you don't agree with, but if it happens then they are real terms.

This is only valid up to a point. If everyone in a community has a ludicrous idea about what makes a house worth less money---for example if they think their houses are worth less because your WiFi signal has contaminated their soil---then no, you did not hurt their property value in "real terms," even if all future buyers have the same moonbat beliefs.

In this case, you're talking about sellers and buyers who believe a house is worth less money because of the decor of a different house on the same block. Or because there is sidewalk chalk in front of some other house, which is particularly moronic because sidewalk chalk washes away long before any financial transaction involving your property can ever take place. If anyone thinks that harms their property values, they're just confused about money and houses and things and cause and effect.

You seem to be arguing that if enough people hold a wacky belief about you lowering property values, then the loss in property value is real enough, and you are hurting them. Thus if enough people are racist in a neighborhood, then according to you the black man across the street has hurt his neighbors' property values. I, instead, would argue that any loss in property values is not the fault of the black man, but entirely due to the hangups of the racists.

I'm pretty happy with my HOA. Do I hate the rule that we cannot put up privacy fences? Yes, but everyone's hedges and metal fences after 5 years look far better than rotting wood. Was getting a letter reminding me that I'm not supposed to put garbage out before 5pm the day before garbage collection annoying? Sure, but I guess if everyone follows it, it does cut down on the time the street is cluttered with garbage and I like that result.

Am I glad they put the lien on the flipper who sat on a piece of property and let the lawn go sh*t waiting 4 years for the housing market to turn around, and finally forcing him to hire a lawn service so the place didn't look abandoned? Abso-farking-lutely.

Now that I'm selling my house, am I glad my neighborhood has houses listing for $20/sqft more than the non-HOA neigborhood across the highway (with lovely features like personal radio towers). Heck yes.

Ed Willy: theteacher: Downfall of socialism: HOA

HOAs are not socialism.

You'll note the Tea Party has rarely raised a stink about HOAs, probably because they hope they can return to the old-school neighborhood covenants keeping certain "undesirables" from purchasing property.

Neither has the Occupy movement. They must be in it together!

ph0rk: Thorak: hey have zero business whatsoever making any "regulations" about private property use in any way.

If you have 10 acres out in the boonies, fine.

However, if I can see your magenta door and fusca shutters from my front steps, it bothers me.

It seems absurd, but some people in small 1/4 acre lot neighborhoods do some crazy, hideous things to their houses, and that affects the property value of their neighbors.

/This is why I like condos.

Yes, and my point is, so what?

What right do you have to control someone else's legal actions on their own property? We already have laws to cover things like public indecency and whatnot, or unsafe construction, or a host of other things, we don't need an HOA to provide additional rules.

lilplatinum: They aren't laws, they are contractual rules you agree to - and the reason for them is because if you white trash up your house it farks up your neighbors property value.

If it were a free and open choice, I'd have no problem with it. The issue is that I'm supposedly buying a house. If I could buy the house and THEN, if I chose to, enter into an HOA agreement, then I'd see no argument. But they're stuck right on the lease.

It's like if you bought a car but the dealership said "okay, you can't buy gas anywhere but Esso, use any tires but Michelin, and you'll bring it in to the dealership 4 times a year for a mandatory servicing. If you fail on any of these you will be fined monthly and it the fines accumulate enough we'll repossess the vehicle".

If you want to control what the person living in a house does to the property, the relationship you're looking for is landlord/tenant. Rent the houses. If you're selling them, you should be giving up all right to control what the tenant does to the property. If they choose to bulldoze the entire place and build a brand-new house on the property in a completely different style, there should be ABSOLUTELY NOTHING any neighbour can do so long as the house abides by the zoning and construction laws for the city. If I paint if with fuschia polka dots and cover the entire lawn with a rock garden, tough. Deal. if any of this hurts your property values, not my problem.

If you don't want to be subjected to insane rules and busy-body-ing, don't buy a house with a HOA. Yeah, you might get a car up on blocks on your block. Pick your poison.

/I prefer cars up on blocks.

Vangor: jayphat: Ed Willy: jayphat: Oh you bought a house in a HOA? This is how many farks I give.........

Why don't Republicans pushing "right-to-work" laws also push "right-to- live" laws that let you buy a house without joining the HOA?

Holy Fark. As someone who leans conservative, why the fark have I NEVER thought of that?

This is a rather awesome idea, actually.

Except for the fact that buying a house with an HOA is 100% VOLUNTARY. I've probably closed 5,000 home loans in 25 years and never, ever once did I see a buyer have a gun held to their head when they accepted the deed to their newly acquired property and the attached covenants and restrictions that come with being a member of the HOA.

Not once.

Thorak: The ONLY reason for laws about lawn length or paint colors or what you can park in your driveway is busybodies who want to get in touch with their inner fascist.

They aren't laws, they are contractual rules you agree to - and the reason for them is because if you white trash up your house it farks up your neighbors property value.

SpiderQueenDemon: My mom and dad brought me up in a home with an HOA.

When they objected to the pink flamingo I'd insisted on 'adopting' from the dollar store, named and treated as a pet (couldn't have a real one thanks to my stupid baby brother's allergies,) Mom simply put tennis balls on the ends of Agador's wire legs and he moved inside with us. (I'd seen 'The Birdcage' as a child, because Mom and Dad are cool.) She also let me take him, on his leash, to the monthly HOA meeting and made the Board explain to four-year-old me, in front of everyone, why they hated Agador and I could not have him as a pet. They caved at once and gave him a special exception, but by then he was quite happy in my room and only went outside again for walks.

When they objected to the marigolds I'd planted for a first-grade project, Mom pointed out that there were many other households who had them and that if they wanted to explain to Channel Four why there were preschoolers crying about the mean old men taking away their flowers on the evening news, one of her bridesmaids was an anchorwoman and it'd been a slow news week. They caved and agreed to add marigolds to the list of 'approved flowers.'

When Dad's car broke down and he and I were fixing it ourselves (age eight, I mainly handed him wrenches,) they send a nasty letter the third day it was up on jack stands, saying that junk cars would be subject to a $10-per-day fine for EACH day spent up on blocks. Dad and Mom were both working two jobs and alternators are a little tricky to replace when you only have an eight-year-old helping you and just one hour free a day. He used one of his rare days off and we got it fixed, then Dad drove me to the HOA building, still covered in engine grease and wearing my most adorable too-big coveralls and let me walk in all by myself with their letter, throw it on the desk and say "It's done, are you happy now?!" (It was the first time I'd ever been authorized to be rude to adults and the memory still makes me grin.) ...

I was on your side until the last paragraph. You, your family, the pastor, and your Dad's old friends became bigger dicks than the HOA.

My mom and dad brought me up in a home with an HOA.

When they objected to the pink flamingo I'd insisted on 'adopting' from the dollar store, named and treated as a pet (couldn't have a real one thanks to my stupid baby brother's allergies,) Mom simply put tennis balls on the ends of Agador's wire legs and he moved inside with us. (I'd seen 'The Birdcage' as a child, because Mom and Dad are cool.) She also let me take him, on his leash, to the monthly HOA meeting and made the Board explain to four-year-old me, in front of everyone, why they hated Agador and I could not have him as a pet. They caved at once and gave him a special exception, but by then he was quite happy in my room and only went outside again for walks.

When they objected to the marigolds I'd planted for a first-grade project, Mom pointed out that there were many other households who had them and that if they wanted to explain to Channel Four why there were preschoolers crying about the mean old men taking away their flowers on the evening news, one of her bridesmaids was an anchorwoman and it'd been a slow news week. They caved and agreed to add marigolds to the list of 'approved flowers.'

When Dad's car broke down and he and I were fixing it ourselves (age eight, I mainly handed him wrenches,) they send a nasty letter the third day it was up on jack stands, saying that junk cars would be subject to a $10-per-day fine for EACH day spent up on blocks. Dad and Mom were both working two jobs and alternators are a little tricky to replace when you only have an eight-year-old helping you and just one hour free a day. He used one of his rare days off and we got it fixed, then Dad drove me to the HOA building, still covered in engine grease and wearing my most adorable too-big coveralls and let me walk in all by myself with their letter, throw it on the desk and say "It's done, are you happy now?!" (It was the first time I'd ever been authorized to be rude to adults and the memory still makes me grin.) We weren't charged a dime and the Board member on duty actually apologized.

When my baby sister arrived, the HOA objected to the 'It's a Girl' wreath on the front door that Mom's coworkers had sent. My uncles had also sent my brother and I a BB gun each, since we were older siblings now and would need to protect the family. Mom and Dad provided cast-iron alibis backed up by the pastor who lived next door after the HOA Board's tires and windshields were all inexplicably shot out. Amusingly enough, the local Safelite and Firestone guys were old friends of Dad's and the entire Board wound up being fined $140 each for having broken windshields for two weeks, their 'junk' cars were towed and were kicked off the Board for unpaid fines.

My parents freakin' rock.

Thorak: hey have zero business whatsoever making any "regulations" about private property use in any way.

If you have 10 acres out in the boonies, fine.

However, if I can see your magenta door and fusca shutters from my front steps, it bothers me.

It seems absurd, but some people in small 1/4 acre lot neighborhoods do some crazy, hideous things to their houses, and that affects the property value of their neighbors.

/This is why I like condos.

I'm not into HOAs but I have to say if you live in an area with a 'common' area, why would you encourage your kid to do their thing in that particular area? Don't you have a patio/porch/garden/etc in your space to let your kid do his or her thing?

Not to mention that okay, maybe you thought people would think it's cute what your kid was doing. But now you know you are annoying people. Why not stop?

The only legitimate purpose HOAs have is covered under management/maintenance of common areas that are not publicly owned; if there's a private park or the like, or they pay for their own snow clearing for everyone in the community, road and driveways and sidewalks.

They have zero business whatsoever making any "regulations" about private property use in any way. They should not have the authority to say "boo" if I park 4 work trucks in my driveway, if I paint my house neon pink with green roofing and accents, if I let my lawn go "wild", etc.

Those things are covered under city bylaw. If it's not illegal according to city bylaw, you can fark right off. If it is, we don't need the HOA for that in the first place.

The ONLY reason for laws about lawn length or paint colors or what you can park in your driveway is busybodies who want to get in touch with their inner fascist.

What sort of bitter, evil twat has a problem with kids drawing in chalk on the pavement?

Lost_in_Oregon: HOAs do not have to grandfather changes no matter how long the old rule was in effect.
HOAs are not bound by the US Constitution as long as their rules are "reasonable."
HOAs can foreclose on you.
HOAs do not have to have open meetings.
HOAs drag things out in court because they're doing it with your money.
Fee-simple ownership does not mean they can't control what you do on your property.
Zoning Boards and Planning Commissions tend, in my experience, to side with the HOA.
Building Departments will (illegally) require a permission letter before they issue a building permit.

I lived under one once - it was my first house - back when HOAs were just getting started in New Jersey. By the time I left, 20 years latter, they were gunning for me - and I knew they would eventually win.

You already live in an HOA if you live in a town or city or county or state. Eminent domain.

Ed Willy: ph0rk: Vangor: jayphat: Ed Willy: jayphat: Oh you bought a house in a HOA? This is how many farks I give.........

Why don't Republicans pushing "right-to-work" laws also push "right-to- live" laws that let you buy a house without joining the HOA?

Holy Fark. As someone who leans conservative, why the fark have I NEVER thought of that?

This is a rather awesome idea, actually.

Seems to me to be as likely to undermine right-to-work support as to undermine HOAs.

People like those things, they really do.

Not all HOAs are terrible. I lived in a neighborhood that had a (voluntary) neighborhood association that existed mostly to fundraise for the local elementary school, throw the occasional block party, and make sure the streets were paved. The one big complaint about private property was getting the city to demolish an abandoned bakery, which helped get the Neighborhood association president elected to city council.

HOAs, like democracy, are really awesome when tell other people what to do... and OMGFASCIZM when they tell you what to do.

/the real problem is the incredible number of precious snowflakes that implode in a fit of drama whenever anyone says "no" to them
//living in a civilized society means you don't always get what you want

Draw on your own shiat? I'm all about fark the hoa's, but, really, just draw on your own shiat. Not everyone likes finding pictures of pee-pees and wee-wees on their sidewalks.

Vangor: ph0rk: Seems to me to be as likely to undermine right-to-work support as to undermine HOAs.

Both would be great ends. My issue with associations is having a separate contract foisted on someone in order to sign off on a contract to buy a house. I do not mind people who want to be in them, but I do mind when people are forced as a condition to purchase a house, which is obnoxious. This would be akin to forcing you to enter a Subaru club whenever you bought an Impreza or some nonsense.

Well, some place have common areas that need maintenance. Condos in particular need the buildings, roofs maintained, parking lot resurfaced, etc. That shiat isn't free, and a well managed HOA as a farkton better than assessments to finance that crap.

/Oh hi, $1700 for the building roof, due this month!

Tellingthem: I'm sorry if you willingly buy a place with an HOA then you must follow the rules no matter how silly there are. If you don't like your HOA then move. You would think after all these stories people would learn...

\I will never buy a place with one

Nothing personal, but Stuff a Sock innit.

When you ban children from drawing on the sidewalk with chalk, you are only a few years from watching the police draw around them in chalk on the very same spot.

I would break the little snot's arm if I caught her defacing a sidewalk

HOA's are right in step with the rapid loss of our freedoms. Dictators...every last one of them.

Ed Willy: jayphat: Oh you bought a house in a HOA? This is how many farks I give.........

Why don't Republicans pushing "right-to-work" laws also push "right-to- live" laws that let you buy a house without joining the HOA?

Holy Fark. As someone who leans conservative, why the fark have I NEVER thought of that?

Oh you bought a house in a HOA? This is how many farks I give.........

How come we never hear of the Tea Party opposing HOAs? I can't think of a more obnoxious group that makes such bullshiat rules.

I would rather live on an island all by my lonesome then put up with zoning laws and HOA. Without those illegitimate sons of adulterous female dogs-bastard sonsabiatches- trying to control my property, I would love to move to a quiet little town where I don't so much as need a car to get around.

/But, thanks to those onion-headed farkons my dream is now to find a peaceful place in the boondocks where I can damn well have a junk car for parts and paint my shed green if it behooves me.