In defense of HOAs

[Anonymous]

I’ve lived in a non HOA community form20 years. For the first 10 years everything was well maintained. Since then, there have been numerous problems with no way to address those that agent actual code violations.

[Anonymous]

I once bought a piece of furniture off of Craigslist from someone in an HOA where every house was required to be painted the exact same shade of greige. It was like something out of the Giver!

[Anonymous]

God, I lived in a neighborhood once where one neighbor was a hoarder and stuff was literally piling up so much that it was breaking out of their front living room windows and piling into the yard. Another neighbor made a permanent laminated display of her art hanging up on a clothes line right at the edge of her front lawn. It looked like a kindergarten hallway on steroids right in the middle of the neighborhood. She also had two big signs in her driveway with huge graffiti sprayed all over it saying STOP KONY. God bless HOAs for eliminating this trash

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:God, I lived in a neighborhood once where one neighbor was a hoarder and stuff was literally piling up so much that it was breaking out of their front living room windows and piling into the yard. Another neighbor made a permanent laminated display of her art hanging up on a clothes line right at the edge of her front lawn. It looked like a kindergarten hallway on steroids right in the middle of the neighborhood. She also had two big signs in her driveway with huge graffiti sprayed all over it saying STOP KONY. God bless HOAs for eliminating this trash

BTW this was in CHEVY CHASE MD

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, I lived in a neighborhood once where one neighbor was a hoarder and stuff was literally piling up so much that it was breaking out of their front living room windows and piling into the yard. Another neighbor made a permanent laminated display of her art hanging up on a clothes line right at the edge of her front lawn. It looked like a kindergarten hallway on steroids right in the middle of the neighborhood. She also had two big signs in her driveway with huge graffiti sprayed all over it saying STOP KONY. God bless HOAs for eliminating this trash

BTW this was in CHEVY CHASE MD

You don't need a HOA in CHEVY CHASE MD. You have a town government.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friend lives in a no HOA neighborhood and his neighbor built a two story tall aviary and filled it with screaming parrots.

That's amazing. Why would you want to live in a neighborhood that regulates the frequency of your lawn-mowing instead of a neighborhood with a two-story aviary with parrots?

Because I would like to live in a clean neighborhood where lawns are well kept. I don't want to live in a neighborhood infested with rats and parrots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no defense. HOAs suck and are an infringement on everyone's constitutional rights.

Do you know what a HOA is? As a owner you are part of the HOA. This is a private association and you can get into the board and convince members to rewrite the do's/don'ts rules.
You and your fellows members of the HOA make the rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friend lives in a no HOA neighborhood and his neighbor built a two story tall aviary and filled it with screaming parrots.

That's amazing. Why would you want to live in a neighborhood that regulates the frequency of your lawn-mowing instead of a neighborhood with a two-story aviary with parrots?

Because I would like to live in a clean neighborhood where lawns are well kept. I don't want to live in a neighborhood infested with rats and parrots.

Parrots are pretty cool though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friend lives in a no HOA neighborhood and his neighbor built a two story tall aviary and filled it with screaming parrots.

That's amazing. Why would you want to live in a neighborhood that regulates the frequency of your lawn-mowing instead of a neighborhood with a two-story aviary with parrots?

Because I would like to live in a clean neighborhood where lawns are well kept. I don't want to live in a neighborhood infested with rats and parrots.

Parrots are pretty cool though.

Yeah, I would love to live in a parrot-infested neighborhood. Or cockatoos, or even parakeets.

Also, tall grass doesn't spontaneously generate rats.

[Anonymous]

I hated the HOA we had. So many dumb rules about where your fence needed to be, you were not allowed to change the color of your house/door/shutters EVER, etc. It was also literally impossible to change the HOA rules. It was drafted by an idiot, and there was no way to get the necessary votes to change anything (it required mortgage holders to vote, which obviously no mortgage holder would ever do). The HOA didn't really have the money to sue anyone though, so if you were willing to just ignore them, there was not much they could do about it. I was SO glad to move into a neighborhood with an HOA, and I'm glad to have people who have a diversity of taste about how they want their houses and yards to look. There's maybe one or two that don't maintain well, but it's not a big deal at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody doing any cool stuff? HOAs are anathema to cool stuff.

Tell me about it. Our HOA just denied my appeal for a very obviously temporary structure at the front of our house.
I do appreciate the HOA in general because without it, people would have 10 cars in their front yard. But it burns my toast that they have so much say over what you can and cannot do. I guess there is no winning.

I'm happy to allow people to have 10 cars in their front yard (which, actually, people do not do in my non-HOA neighborhood) if it means I can do the stuff an HOA wouldn't allow me to do. Like paint my front door whatever color I want, put vegetables in the front yard if I want, or take down holiday decorations on my schedule instead of theirs.

Our HOA is very very loose. I think they vary wildly

[Anonymous]

We used to live in a painfully boring perfectly manicured HOA neighborhood. We now live in a decidedly non-HOA neighborhood where houses all look different, some yards are perfectly manicured and some are “bee friendly” weed fests, wildflowers and fruit trees are all over, and there are actual bumblebees wandering around to all the many flowering plants and bushes. Each yard looks different. I absolutely love it and am thrilled to death I no longer have to cough up $350/yr for the privilege of having to get approval to plant a local bush or receiving neighborhood-wide nasty notes about weeding or barking dogs.

HOAs are all about uniformity and conformity. My non-HOA neighborhood is eclectic AND has much higher property values than our former HOA ‘hood of nouveau riche.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friend lives in a no HOA neighborhood and his neighbor built a two story tall aviary and filled it with screaming parrots.

That's amazing. Why would you want to live in a neighborhood that regulates the frequency of your lawn-mowing instead of a neighborhood with a two-story aviary with parrots?

Because I would like to live in a clean neighborhood where lawns are well kept. I don't want to live in a neighborhood infested with rats and parrots.

Parrots are pretty cool though.

Yeah, I would love to live in a parrot-infested neighborhood. Or cockatoos, or even parakeets.

Also, tall grass doesn't spontaneously generate rats.

Pasadena!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread just convinces there are no upsides to HOAs

This. I’d rather have the motorcycle tinkerer be my neighbor than any HOA apologist.

+1

Some people just want to be hall monitors forever.

[Anonymous]

I like it. Gives some recourse if the neighbors do crazy stuff; someone to fix community areas like rails, foot paths, etc; and I love having a community pool and amenities.

- Burke Centre resident.