I’ve had 2 and they were both far, far more than just overbearing (yes, I realize that I used that word in my previous comment). My first HOA had a pair of elderly sisters that were both on the board that would walk around the subdivision a few times a week with clipboards just looking for anything that they would come at you with. One time they had the board lawyer send me a threat of putting a lien on my property because I had left a paint can on my driveway for a few hours… while I was literally painting a room.
The only people that HOAs serve are authoritarians and people who only think of their home as an investment whose value is more important than anything else. I just won’t play that game anymore.
Respectfully, you’re painting with far too broad a brush. I don’t consider it authoritarian to not want my next door neighbor to turn their front lawn into a junkyard. Again, it really depends on the HOA. I know that goes against the Lemmy party line, but it’s my lived experience and the experience of millions of American homeowners.
I don’t consider it authoritarian to not want my next door neighbor to turn their front lawn into a junkyard.
That is authoritarian, regardless of how reasonable the desire is. If the only thing keeping your neighbor from turning their front yard into a junkyard is a threat of force, is that a relationship worth preserving?
I’ve had 2 and they were both far, far more than just overbearing (yes, I realize that I used that word in my previous comment). My first HOA had a pair of elderly sisters that were both on the board that would walk around the subdivision a few times a week with clipboards just looking for anything that they would come at you with. One time they had the board lawyer send me a threat of putting a lien on my property because I had left a paint can on my driveway for a few hours… while I was literally painting a room.
The only people that HOAs serve are authoritarians and people who only think of their home as an investment whose value is more important than anything else. I just won’t play that game anymore.
Respectfully, you’re painting with far too broad a brush. I don’t consider it authoritarian to not want my next door neighbor to turn their front lawn into a junkyard. Again, it really depends on the HOA. I know that goes against the Lemmy party line, but it’s my lived experience and the experience of millions of American homeowners.
That is authoritarian, regardless of how reasonable the desire is. If the only thing keeping your neighbor from turning their front yard into a junkyard is a threat of force, is that a relationship worth preserving?
I mean, you can masturbate about all laws, contracts, and agreements being a “threat of force,” but I don’t give such libertarian dogma any credence.