Friday, October 24, 2008

Don't ya just love HOA's!!!

I went to the annual HOA meeting in my neighborhood the other night. I was amazed how few people showed up. Out of 1087 homes in the HOA only 160 voted on the board member election and even fewer actually came to the meeting. We were told that our HOA is one of the most active in the area, but it seemed to me that very few home owners participated. Oh well, easier for me take over. Yes, I am going to take over my HOA. I'll get to that in minute. First I thought I'd tell you about some of the funny or disturbing things that happened at the meeting. The Sheriffs Dept. sent representatives to talk about safety and answer any questions. One women told us that she has been finding cats with their head severed and asked if that was gang related. The deputies said that it wasn't. They said that an animal had actually severed the heads of the cats and plays with it like a soccer ball. And that is why my cat stays inside. Then another home owner said that his house backed up to a street and asked why his fence is backwards. Apparently the horizontal slats are on the street side of the fence making it easier for one to climb into his yard and harder for him to climb out of his yard. Now that is great construction.
Then some how the fact that the fees for violating the by-laws had gone up considerably. One man was especially mad about that, because it was "interfering with a man making a living." From the sounds of it, his house was not well maintained and he was not able to pay for the violations. This brings me to why I am going to take over the HOA. On the day I went into labor with my son we received a violation for weeds in our front yard. The complaint was made over a week before we received it. Not to mention that the weeds had been mowed down the week before. So we sent a naste-a-graham with our response. A few weeks later we received another violation for hanging clothes in the tree in the backyard. The dryer wasn't drying and the tree had some perfect horizontal branches. Can we say 'petty'. I think we can. It might take me a few years, but I think I can pull it off with help from members of my ward. I would say that close to half of the HOA is made up of my ward members. So there you go, the first step to taking over the world... I mean HOA.

Thursday, October 9, 2008