On 09/14/05 04:25 pm Dick tossed the following ingredients into the
ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

As someone who lives near Ocala and has to visit a lot of these gated
communities run by HOAs, I find most of them to be jerks who are only
interested in holding onto their perceived power at any cost. The fact
that it hurts others doesn't matter to them. Another HOA in the area
told a retired couple move out, or send their 17 year old grand daughter
away after she lost both of her parents in an accident. She had a few
months till she was to graduate from high school and no other relatives
but it didn't matter to the HOA. People like that are scum, no matter
how expensive their home, or what they drive.

Its just too damn bad you can't tar and feather them and then run
them out of town, like the good old days! ;-)

I am actually quite peaceable and believe in living and letting live in most
cases. Who I allow in my home is up to me and whom I refuse entry is not
the purvey of HOA Nazis. And, again, it is why I chose an older home
(1956) with plenty of room, almost ZERO crime, and NO
HOA's

That's why it is important to READ the CC&R's before you move into a
housing development with an HOA. If you have read them, and move in
anyway, you have no one to complain to except yourself. One good way
to temper what you refer to as HOA Nazis is to become a board member
yourself and do something about it. Having been an HOA board member,
I was disgusted with all the constant complainers at the meetings, but
not one of them was willing to lift a finger to help. Some people
apparently were just born to complain. HOA's can serve a useful
function, unless you are the type that enjoys living on a street with
dozens of junk cars that don't run, and weeds 4-feet high. People
agree to have HOA's so they can have a reasonably nice area in which
to live and raise their children. The protection of property values
is a prime consideration. No one forces someone to live in an area
with a HOA. From what I have seen, in several cities, most are not
as restrictive as those given in these examples.

It's all very well to tell people not to buy houses with CC&Rs and HOAs,
but probably anything recent (last 20 years or so) has them. I've read
that the financial institutions that fund the developments insist on
them; they may not dictate every detail, but I think there are "model
rules" around that the developers copy, and these rules just about
require an application in triplicate 3 months in advance before you can
get permission to sneeze.

Perce