Owner's Associations. Or, as I call them, Condo Nazis.

[arbusto_baboso]

I really hate the time and waste of human spirit that is required being a member of my condo association board. But due to the current board's financial irresponsibility (one could even say malfeasance), it looks like I'll have to run again and waste another year of my life.

Seems the current board decided they didn't want to abide by reserve requirements under state regs, and also decided that despite the current foreclosure problem and a high vacancy rate, we needed to do cosmetic improvement projects. Presumably to "protect resale value" Odd, since no one in the complex has successfully sold a unit in over 6 months. So, they depleted the reserves to do painting and landscape work.

I don't know what happens to associations when they go bankrupt, but I bet NOTHING gets done when they go under. Which is where the current board of fuckwits is leading us...

[Amerigo Vespucci]

1. They seem to attract the worst of the worst...

...Über-nerds, people who are both physically and emotionally unattractive and who seem to have deep, troubling issues with power.

I've lived in three townhomes in my life, and in each, the homeowners associations were 100% staffed with mutants and misfits.

[arbusto_baboso]

2. You forgot one important demographic.

The type of person who seeks a board membership because he/she feels they have no power in any other area of their lives. Said person then proceeds to exercise board "power" to harass and intimidate others, or get money spent on their pet projects. They are almost always ALL Republicans, too.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

7. AND...

...they are DEEPLY resentful of ANY power wielded by fellow board members.

I lived in a townhome in Campbell. The guy directly across from me was a board member, the "on site representative"...

...they re-paved the entire driveway / parking lot, and the contractors failed to live up to their promised times of removing barricades so that residents could drive on the new surface.

So I called the guy in charge of the HOA.

And the guy across the way NEVER SPOKE TO ME AGAIN because I "went over his head."

HE WASN'T THERE! I WENT TO THE GUY WHO WAS AVAILABLE!

I've got hundreds of other stories...some like this one, some a lot worse. In the San Jose townhome I lived in, I had another board member directly across from me. She was a lot like Kathy Bates' character in "Misery." She had black hair, was overweight, and had perpetual dandruff flakes the size of shaved Parmesan cheese. I always had to look her directly in the eyes, without wavering, like people do when they don;t want to stare at someone's huge mole or other facial feature.

[arbusto_baboso]

12. Yeah. I see less animosity between Dems and Repukes in Congress...

than I do between squabbling board members.

Just found out that there are 6 candidates this year, and 5 positions. So my chances are pretty good. Dammit.

It's not that I WANT a board position. I just don't think the inmates should run the asylum anymore...

[CreekDog]

20. I've told my neighbors I'm the president in case they want any input

I've also said that I'm not an HOA cop and that I don't want them looking over their shoulder because they see me.

Some homeowners have told me that they are behind on their dues and I tell them that I let the accountant handle that.

I need homeowners to feel like they can trust me and speak to me and not be scared or else I won't get the feedback that our board desperately needs to do its job well.

[Blue_Tires]

14. always

i used to be a community reporter for a small paper, and would cover the meeting and issues of larger neighborhood/homeowner associations...

without a doubt, the most fascist, petty, vindictive, evil, power hungry, revenge minded people it's ever been my displeasure to meet...In most of them, half of the laws they passed wouldn't last 30 seconds in court if anyone dared challenge them...


who was it that said the smaller the office, the dirtier the politics?? SGA student elections back in college were pretty Rovian as well...We had a famous case where some dirty tricksters tried to steal the ENTIRE run (between 5,000-10,000)of the campus daily paper the morning it was running a damaging story on a candidate...

[taterguy]

3. Does your Owner's Association send people to gas chambers?

If not,

they're not Nazis.

[arbusto_baboso]

4. It's a figure of speech.

And we're in The Lounge, not GD, okay?

[taterguy]

5. It's not a very good figure of speech

You chose to live in a condo.

Some of your neighbors might be dicks.

Didn't you consider that possibility before you moved in?

[arbusto_baboso]

6. Economically, my "choice" was very limited.

Why do have a hard-on about this?

[taterguy]

8. Because Nazis did genuinely horrible things

And I doubt that anything your Condo Board does is comparable.

But I'm open-minded so prove me wrong.

[arbusto_baboso]

10. Unless you had a family member killed in the Holocaust...

You are WAY overreacting to my OP. Especially for a Lounge post.

[taterguy]

13. We are all family

So I guess I'm not overreacting.

[arbusto_baboso]

17. Justify your overreaction however you need to.

Just don't be upset if I don't buy into your guilt-trip bullshit.

[trof]

9. The tales I could tell.

I was the association treasurer.
She was the diva wealthy rich bitch (in every sense of the word) president.
(Some in my neighborhood are wealthy. Some, like me, are retirees on fixed and very limited incomes.)

She would buy things 'for the association', with no approval from the board of directors, and present me with the bill.

Once for $1500 for a new 'welcome' sign for the subdivision.
I told her we needed board approval for an expenditure of this size.
Two days later she told me she'd called board members and they approved it.
I cut the check.
I'll take you at your word until I find you're lying to me.

She lied.
I talked to some other board members and they hadn't talked to her about this.
We're still running low on funds because of her.
I'll never serve on the board again.
:-(

[arbusto_baboso]

11. How about awarding contracts to companies run by buddies?

Think any kickbacks are happening?

Shit, I'd be shocked if they weren't.

[jxnmsdemguy65]

15. Get this...

The 70 plus year old husband of one of our board members has the exclusive contract to do all the yard work at our townhouse development. I always tell folks that these are exactly they kind of people that put Hitler in power ... the kind that get their kicks listening to police scanners so they know all the dirt in the neighborhood and can gossip about it.

[Lionel Mandrake]

16. Been there, done that. Never again! .. nt

[AsahinaKimi]

18. Your post reminded me of Phil Hendrie's radio show bits..

I don't even know if he is around anymore, but he had some funny bits he did with the Home Owner Association stuff. Some of his stuff was quite funny, other stuff was just lame.

Boobie Dooley:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uUV3jlGrRM

Part two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PJYJWtNbNM&feature=related


For those of you, who didn't know Phil Hendrie would often use his talented voice to create
outragious characters (that he created himself)to shock his radio viewers into calling. Most people who called in never realized that the show wasn't real. It was all entertainment. A kind of parody of talk shows.

[CreekDog]

19. I'm an HOA president and in just 3 years, we changed things around a bit

we finally have money and are on track to have decent reserves all the while being able to paint and so forth --which are sorely needed.

my difficulty with being president of a board is getting board members to recognize "decision points" where we have to get together, focus on an issue and see if we can come up with a decision among us on it --and not wander aimlessly into tangents.

the other difficulty is getting board members to agree to and focus on priority issues throughout the year and not just flit from one thing to another. i'd like us to have a top 5 or top 10 list and just focus on addressing them and let the property manager handle everything else that comes up. the fact is that with quarterly meetings and email, we simply cannot handle many issues well in a given year and must be shrewd.

the final issue is that though the board members are mostly retired, i get little help and i would like some and ask for some. ironically the one that gives the most input, tries to address questions at hand directly and stays on point pretty well --he works full time.

i keep wanting to quit, but something comes up and i stick around.

but i'll put this experience on my resume --it's every bit a job.