Neighbors seem to think I work for them, incredibly rude, I've had it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Use leadership and negotiation skills. If people can run nations and organizations, you can successfully manage few people and a small venture.

they get paid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone comes to you with an issue, thank them for volunteering to lead up the subcommittee looking into the issue. It is after all a community organization of volunteers and it takes a village. Ask them to create a draft report to present to you, and you will consider offering it at the next meeting. Most won't follow through. If they do, return the draft to them with a ton of follow up questions, and ask for an accounting of what this and that will cost.

+1 Exactly this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There can be this "savior" mentality with these public service jobs despite the fact these saviors might in fact be part of the problem. Being held accountable is not the same as being rude, but the saviors often confuse the two.

This is the sort of ungrateful person that volunteers often have to deal with. It's why you should never volunteer to lead an HOA. Let someone else step up, or better yet, hire a professional management company. My HOA has, over the years, tried to recruit me to serve on the board, and each time, I have declined. I'd rather have dues go up than be paid nothing to deal with people complaining about things like parking and landscaping.

[Anonymous]

Be very very careful telling new homeowners to “lie low for six months until they see how the place works”, you are infringing on their right to freely participate in the running of the place where they have purchased a home.
A
All you have to do is tell them when and where they can express their opinions. Just because “we’ve never needed that before” doesn’t mean they can’t express what they’d like for what is now their community. It’s still yours, of course, you can always vote against them, you just can’t tell them or anybody else to essentially stay quiet. I personally would love additional recycling pickups in our neighborhood, so far it hasn’t been done, I don’t think it ever has, but I’m not wrong for suggesting it. If you told me to wait, I’d sue you for something, I’m not sure what, but I’d find a lawyer to make sure you understood that you couldn’t silence me which is what you are doing to your neighbors, and which is what you are suggesting publicly as an HOA president. Be careful, op.

If this family is made up of a protected class, race, disability, whatever, you and the HOA may be sued, I’d sue the hell out of our HOA if they told me I couldn’t participate fully.. I have a disability. There’d be no way I’d stand for your arbitrary “wait six months” ban. Even if your behavior had nothing to do with my disability, I’d have no way to know that, nobody who is going to discriminate is going to ever say “I hate (fill in whatever group they don’t like), they’ll do it in a way that makes it sound viable “just be patient” “just give us time” “Just let us get things set up”.
It really sounds like you’re done being the president. Don’t worry about the HOA, someone will take your position, and if they don’t, state law will kick in. The world will still turn and you will still be riding on it.

I’m also surprised that this is the first time you’ve ever seen HOA members treat you like this. It’s common, many people don’t know how an HOA works. I find it difficult to believe that these neighbors are the first people you’ve ever dealt with who treat you like an employee. Just refer them to the meetings and go about your day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you told me to wait, I’d sue you for something, I’m not sure what, but I’d find a lawyer to make sure you understood that you couldn’t silence me which is what you are doing to your neighbors, and which is what you are suggesting publicly as an HOA president.

Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you told me to wait, I’d sue you for something, I’m not sure what, but I’d find a lawyer to make sure you understood that you couldn’t silence me which is what you are doing to your neighbors, and which is what you are suggesting publicly as an HOA president.

Wow.

We found the nightmare neighbor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Term limits would solve this issue.

I am not poster but I am on year 9 in my position and we are supposed to have annual elections. Have not had one on three years as cant get quorum at meetings. We even have to go door to door getting proxies. We also have folks who don’t share info at all.

So if I quit just no one does it. They do like to complain verbally to people over flowers, gossip etc but not actually helpful. And a few of them are crooks who join board and leave. Like the guy who owned a snowplow company wanted is to use his firm and we explain we have RFP process and to bid to insured and license business and he wanted his uses at double cost. One meeting.

Then good people get burnt out.

I posted upthread regarding this. yes, if you quit, and no one steps up, there is a process in place via state law - at least in VA, probably similar in other states - on next steps. Basically, a third party can be appointed. I know this because it almost came to that in our condo HOA in the past 2 years. Eventually new people decided to run, and they only filled the necessary positions.

My experience over the years owning in several places with HOA boards -

way too much worry about enforcing rules because it's the easiest thing to do and requires little skill

budgeting and fees is overwhelming for most volunteers and gets worse the larger the association size and budget; they make the best decision they can but most decisions are made without a complete understanding of what going on; part of this is related to the fact that some board positions change out every few years

many volunteers fall into the part time employed or retirees; being on the Board gives them a job so they like doing it

and lastly the single biggest problem - equating the length of time one has been doing a job with quality. a person can be the HOA president for 10 years and do a poor job for 10 years; then again, a person can be HOA president for 1 year and do an amazing job

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you told me to wait, I’d sue you for something, I’m not sure what, but I’d find a lawyer to make sure you understood that you couldn’t silence me which is what you are doing to your neighbors, and which is what you are suggesting publicly as an HOA president.

Wow.

+1. I mean, holy cow, suing an HOA on bogus discrimination grounds because you want an extra recycling pickup? This thread is validating everyone's nightmares about living in HOA communities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is affirming my decision never ever to live anywhere with an HOA.

We made a stupid decision to live in a community with an HOA when we bought our first house. Went to one meeting and it was full of crap like what's mentioned in this thread.

I will never ever again live in a community with an HOA.

OP, just quit. It's a thankless job that you clearly are done with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Be very very careful telling new homeowners to “lie low for six months until they see how the place works”, you are infringing on their right to freely participate in the running of the place where they have purchased a home.
A
All you have to do is tell them when and where they can express their opinions. Just because “we’ve never needed that before” doesn’t mean they can’t express what they’d like for what is now their community. It’s still yours, of course, you can always vote against them, you just can’t tell them or anybody else to essentially stay quiet. I personally would love additional recycling pickups in our neighborhood, so far it hasn’t been done, I don’t think it ever has, but I’m not wrong for suggesting it. If you told me to wait, I’d sue you for something, I’m not sure what, but I’d find a lawyer to make sure you understood that you couldn’t silence me which is what you are doing to your neighbors, and which is what you are suggesting publicly as an HOA president. Be careful, op.

If this family is made up of a protected class, race, disability, whatever, you and the HOA may be sued, I’d sue the hell out of our HOA if they told me I couldn’t participate fully.. I have a disability. There’d be no way I’d stand for your arbitrary “wait six months” ban. Even if your behavior had nothing to do with my disability, I’d have no way to know that, nobody who is going to discriminate is going to ever say “I hate (fill in whatever group they don’t like), they’ll do it in a way that makes it sound viable “just be patient” “just give us time” “Just let us get things set up”.
It really sounds like you’re done being the president. Don’t worry about the HOA, someone will take your position, and if they don’t, state law will kick in. The world will still turn and you will still be riding on it.

I’m also surprised that this is the first time you’ve ever seen HOA members treat you like this. It’s common, many people don’t know how an HOA works. I find it difficult to believe that these neighbors are the first people you’ve ever dealt with who treat you like an employee. Just refer them to the meetings and go about your day.

So if she tells them to wait for the next meeting in six months would you still sue her? The meetings ARE the method to express grievances, this is not what these neighbors are doing, they are coming up to her as things happen and expecting fixes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion here. Serving on the HOA and small town elected bodies (which are basically the same thing) are thankless jobs. Those who serve on them can be, but not always, have a weird arrogance where they claim to have some special knowledge and talk down to people.

I doubt you're that person, but be aware this perception exists and can lead people to become very demanding because their investment is not going to decline at the whims of your perceived dismissiveness.

Np here. I think you've got it backwards. Every single thing I've volunteered for or lead since living in this area has meant I deal with people like op's neighbor often. People are horrible. I'm friendly and a pushover. Every team, every class, every neighborhood event someone will complain as if I'm not doing enough. The more strapped you are for helpers, the more likely you will deal with abuse. There were zero parents involved for one sports team my kid was on. I occasionally showed up and brought snacks. At one of the last games, a couple who never showed up berated me in front of the coach for not doing a better job organizing snacks.. My kid had actually organized it with an email chain that included parents. They all ignored it. This is typical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Be very very careful telling new homeowners to “lie low for six months until they see how the place works”, you are infringing on their right to freely participate in the running of the place where they have purchased a home.
A
All you have to do is tell them when and where they can express their opinions. Just because “we’ve never needed that before” doesn’t mean they can’t express what they’d like for what is now their community. It’s still yours, of course, you can always vote against them, you just can’t tell them or anybody else to essentially stay quiet. I personally would love additional recycling pickups in our neighborhood, so far it hasn’t been done, I don’t think it ever has, but I’m not wrong for suggesting it. If you told me to wait, I’d sue you for something, I’m not sure what, but I’d find a lawyer to make sure you understood that you couldn’t silence me which is what you are doing to your neighbors, and which is what you are suggesting publicly as an HOA president. Be careful, op.

If this family is made up of a protected class, race, disability, whatever, you and the HOA may be sued, I’d sue the hell out of our HOA if they told me I couldn’t participate fully.. I have a disability. There’d be no way I’d stand for your arbitrary “wait six months” ban. Even if your behavior had nothing to do with my disability, I’d have no way to know that, nobody who is going to discriminate is going to ever say “I hate (fill in whatever group they don’t like), they’ll do it in a way that makes it sound viable “just be patient” “just give us time” “Just let us get things set up”.
It really sounds like you’re done being the president. Don’t worry about the HOA, someone will take your position, and if they don’t, state law will kick in. The world will still turn and you will still be riding on it.

I’m also surprised that this is the first time you’ve ever seen HOA members treat you like this. It’s common, many people don’t know how an HOA works. I find it difficult to believe that these neighbors are the first people you’ve ever dealt with who treat you like an employee. Just refer them to the meetings and go about your day.

I'm an advocate for people with disabilities and you are awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you told me to wait, I’d sue you for something, I’m not sure what, but I’d find a lawyer to make sure you understood that you couldn’t silence me which is what you are doing to your neighbors, and which is what you are suggesting publicly as an HOA president.

Wow.

+1. I mean, holy cow, suing an HOA on bogus discrimination grounds because you want an extra recycling pickup? This thread is validating everyone's nightmares about living in HOA communities.

or just validating how horribly entitled and angry people WANT to be. This is a virus that spreads more easily than the rona.

[Anonymous]

By law my condo has the minimum one open meeting to condo. We book well in advance. It is in town hall directly across building after work. We can’t get many people to show up. Or even give their vote. Sadly that is a sign things are going well. Apathy among owners in good times.

In bad times they scream and yell and don’t offer to help