Man Sets House On Fire, Dies In It, After Losing Home To..........

[Perknose]

Really? you have a non-HOA neighborhood with all of these amenities? Around here even 95% of the HOA's don't offer these. Which is why we are interested in only a particular HOA community.

Within 4 miles of my house, and except for the dedicated cross-country ski trails, yes, we have ALL that PLUS a lake that offers free boating and fishing plus very cheap sail and paddle boat rentals.

But people can and do cross-country ski across and through linked farmer's field here, anyway.

Not to mention that we have several nature preserves, with trails and a nature center building in at least two.

Hell, I can fish in the stream that runs through my back yard.

In addition, we have several extremely low cost but quite high quality live community theatres -- 6 within a 20 mile radius, and a community supported "art house" movie theatre 4 miles away from my home.

We have a long history in this area of supporting the arts in general. My county, Bucks County, has a years long tradition of electing a Poet Laureate each year, as voted on by the county commissioners. The winner gets a ceremony, $500, and a ton of public recognition the year long.

We also have hunting. Before my dog Cinnamon passed I would regularly encounter them walking in the woods during the various hunting seasons. I have venison in my freezer right now from friends. Does your HOA provide hunting?

Actual skiing is 40 minutes away in the Poconos. The Ocean and a plethora of beaches are as close as an hour, fifteen minutes away.

I am also blessed to live in an area with world class universities and hospitals.

Big time night life is found in Philly, an hour away, and New York City, just two hours away.

My area is also suffused with American history. I live less than 20 minutes away from where Washington crossed the Delaware. Every year there is a re-enactment. Just down the street from me is a restaurant that claims it was founded in 1715. Less than a mile from me is a Quaker meeting house from the early 1700's.

Let's not forget my signal point, the freedom from intrusive, asshole HOA's.

I love where I live.

 

[Perknose]

Honestly though, I actually don't see much hypocrisy in this attitude.
I am similar in that I am against big-government, but that doesn't mean people like us are necessarily against governing and organizations. Organizations are just great, at the local level.

I don't think I'll ever want to live in an HOA, but they can provide a certain style of "local governance" that actually represents exactly what people desire. Personally I am very pro-community, but my goal will be a home in a community-centric location without the actual organization; a loose HOA-style approach that doesn't actually have authority. Whether I will ever find such a place that is actually affordable... that's the challenge.

You always have an elaborate opinion, even if you're not always sure what it is.

Pro Fact: North Korea is the largest extant HOA. They manage to achieve a level of community conformity the envy of every busybody little would be HOA board member everywhere. :awe:

 

[kyrax12]

You know this could cause the economy a lot of damage.
What your house is foreclose and if you are suicidal your burn the house down with you.

Subtle terrorist act lol.

 

[boomhower]

I agree HOA's are evil, but he agreed to live there under their rules and regulations. If he didn't like them he shouldn't have bought the house in the first place.

 

[Jumpem]

Within 4 miles of my house, and except for the dedicated cross-country ski trails, yes, we have ALL that PLUS a lake that offers free boating and fishing plus very cheap sail and paddle boat rentals.

But people can and do cross-country ski across and through linked farmer's field here, anyway.

Not to mention that we have several nature preserves, with trails and a nature center building in at least two.

Hell, I can fish in the stream that runs through my back yard.

In addition, we have several extremely low cost but quite high quality live community theatres -- 6 within a 20 mile radius, and a community supported "art house" movie theatre 4 miles away from my home.

We have a long history in this area of supporting the arts in general. My county, Bucks County, has a years long tradition of electing a Poet Laureate each year, as voted on by the county commissioners. The winner gets a ceremony, $500, and a ton of public recognition the year long.

We also have hunting. Before my dog Cinnamon passed I would regularly encounter them walking in the woods during the various hunting seasons. I have venison in my freezer right now from friends. Does your HOA provide hunting?

Actual skiing is 40 minutes away in the Poconos. The Ocean and a plethora of beaches are as close as an hour, fifteen minutes away.

I am also blessed to live in an area with world class universities and hospitals.

Big time night life is found in Philly, an hour away, and New York City, just two hours away.

My area is also suffused with American history. I live less than 20 minutes away from where Washington crossed the Delaware. Every year there is a re-enactment. Just down the street from me is a restaurant that claims it was founded in 1715. Less than a mile from me is a Quaker meeting house from the early 1700's.

Let's not forget my signal point, the freedom from intrusive, asshole HOA's.

I love where I live.

Within 4 miles though. I want all of it it right outside my door. Within walking distance for my kids and the dog.

 

[Engineer]

Within 4 miles though. I want all of it it right outside my door. Within walking distance for my kids and the dog.

You can't walk 4 miles? Pussy!

If I want a park, I go across the street to the school....or just walk a few blocks to the next neighborhood and enjoy their HOA park! :biggrin:

 

[destrekor]

You always have an elaborate opinion, even if you're not always sure what it is.

Truth.

and

:biggrin:

 

[Lifted]

What a beautiful community. Every house looks alike. I think it's great that there is so much land in the US that people with such wonderful taste can all go live together, far away from me.

He should have built an electrified, barbed wire fence around the entire community to keep them from infecting the surrounding areas. A 10 foot tall concrete wall would have improved the view from outside as well.

 

[Eli]

What a beautiful community. Every house looks alike. I think it's great that there is so much land in the US that people with such wonderful taste can all go live together, far away from me.

He should have built an electrified, barbed wire fence around the entire community to keep them from infecting the surrounding areas. A 10 foot tall concrete wall would have improved the view from outside as well.

LOL, my thoughts exactly. I've always been disgusted by cookie cutter neighborhoods. Ugh.

If I lived in a neighborhood where everyone had the same style house, painted the same color with a white picket fence and a nicely landscaped yard, I would paint my house fluorescent blue with green trim, rip out the fence, tear up the grass and build a rock garden with water feature. Oh, and I would put a greenhouse in the front yard. With a bright neon flashing "OPEN" sign, where I sell vegetables and herbs to the local sheeple.

 

[zerocool84]

What sucks is that you're home could be voted into a HOA without you even being able to do anything about it.

It's my damn home. If I want to fly an American Flag, I'll fly it. If I want to paint my house orange, I'll do it. I'll never live somewhere that someone else is telling me what I can or can't do to my own home. I feel sad for people that WANT someone else control over your own home.

 

[sourceninja]

I don't see an HOA as keeping me from doing something. I see it as them keeping my neighbors from doing stupid things.

Yes HOA's have restrictions. But if you can live with them, they keep communities looking nice. My wife and I plan to buy our next house in a HOA neighborhood. It is very nice there. All of the lawns and ladscaping are perfect, the houses are all well maintained, no sheds in the yards, no junk cars or crap in driveways.

The HOA neighborhood also has alot of amenities that other places do not provide. Walking trails, bike paths, cross country ski trails, golf course, tennis courts, baseball and basketball fields, playgrounds, pons, a large pool, community center.

I find that most HOA's either have really bad rules, or even worse then having bad rules they just repeat the county laws.

My HOA is just like that. It is very easy to deal with, but it is a waste of money? Why, because if you are breaking any HOA rule, you are breaking a county law, so they call the county and the county comes out and tells you to knock it off. I could do that myself, I don't need to pay money every year for someone to do that for me.

Seriously, the county has a law that you can't have a fence higher then 6 foot. So does the HOA. I built a new fence. It turns out that due to the slope of the land and my desire to have the top of the fence level (I think level to the top is nicer looking then level to the ground so it's all jagged at the top) my fence turned out to be 6' 4" tall in a 3 foot section. This is a section that faces nothing, but some busy body has to walk around my house and measure the fence (when I was not home or I would have chased him off) and then reported us. Now the county came out and said it was fine, but the HOA still wanted me to fix it. Fortunately their current rules have no recourse to actually take me to court or do anything if I don't fix it. All they can do is bitch and call the county.

They are trying to change their rules this year. They need 95% of the people in the area to approve the new rules. The main drive is they are lowering dues by 10%. I'm going to run my own petition this year. It lowers the dues by 100% by dissolving the HOA.

 

[God Mode]

What a beautiful community. Every house looks alike. I think it's great that there is so much land in the US that people with such wonderful taste can all go live together, far away from me.

He should have built an electrified, barbed wire fence around the entire community to keep them from infecting the surrounding areas. A 10 foot tall concrete wall would have improved the view from outside as well.

Why do you think your tastes are better? Some people just want to live in a quiet mediocre neighborhood where things are plain. You're just as bad as any HOA with that condescending attitude.

 

[paulney]

I'm sure it's nice to live in a single residence house out in the boonies removed from civilization by acres of land. However as metropolitan areas grow and population increases you have to accept the fact, that there simply isn't enough space to build single family homes any more.

In Bay Area, I believe, developers are no longer building single family homes - it's all townhouses now. We also live in a townhouse, and it's a conscious tradeoff that we made to be living fairly close to downtown and keep commute times short to pretty much anywhere as opposed to sitting for hours every day on 101 commuting to Gilroy or Morgan Hill where we could have had a full house for the same kind of money.

We do live in an HOA, and before we joined, we carefully look at the rules. There was nothing draconian about them - just common sense. The people that run the HOA are our neighbors, they actually live in the community as opposed to some 3rd party managing the stuff. All they want is the betterment of the place we live in.

So far, as part of the regular maintenance, the HOA has repainted all the houses, replaced all rotten sidings, repaved the driveways and takes care of all the plants. This summer it was decided that we had to do fumigation on all the houses, because spot treatments were ineffectual, and in the long run would have cost the HOA much more.

Said and done, right? Wrong. One of the houses was sold to an Asian lady who has some white dude mooching off her. He doesn't work, has no rights to the house, he is, by all metrics a fucking bum, but he is certifiably crazy. He managed, through persistent brainwashing of another neighbor to convince her (and his sugar mama) that fumigation will cause immediate death, brain cancer, genetic mutation, plague and cholera. As a result they refused to do the fumigation 5 days before it was supposed to happen.

Now our house did not get fumigated (it's a duplex with a gullible neighbor), and neither did the mama-sans and her neighbor. Where do all the termites go now? That's right, our buildings.

Now HOA is working on legal action against the douche, and by all means I will join in and request a special permission to kick the guy in the nuts along with all the fines and special assessments they get hit with.

I'll also make sure he doesn't set the house on fire by cutting his arms off.

 

[IronWing]

HOAs demonstrate that there are folks in the world who read A Wrinkle in Time and thought "I want to live there!"

 

[Eli]

I find that most HOA's either have really bad rules, or even worse then having bad rules they just repeat the county laws.

My HOA is just like that. It is very easy to deal with, but it is a waste of money? Why, because if you are breaking any HOA rule, you are breaking a county law, so they call the county and the county comes out and tells you to knock it off. I could do that myself, I don't need to pay money every year for someone to do that for me.

Seriously, the county has a law that you can't have a fence higher then 6 foot. So does the HOA. I built a new fence. It turns out that due to the slope of the land and my desire to have the top of the fence level (I think level to the top is nicer looking then level to the ground so it's all jagged at the top) my fence turned out to be 6' 4" tall in a 3 foot section. This is a section that faces nothing, but some busy body has to walk around my house and measure the fence (when I was not home or I would have chased him off) and then reported us. Now the county came out and said it was fine, but the HOA still wanted me to fix it. Fortunately their current rules have no recourse to actually take me to court or do anything if I don't fix it. All they can do is bitch and call the county.

They are trying to change their rules this year. They need 95% of the people in the area to approve the new rules. The main drive is they are lowering dues by 10%. I'm going to run my own petition this year. It lowers the dues by 100% by dissolving the HOA.

See... Man.. just reading about that makes me rage. If that actually happened to me, I would be so utterly pissed off that I would probably fix the fence, but paint it bright pink or something. Whats better, asshole, a fence that is four inches too tall, or one that is an eyesore?

Not to mention slap whoever bothered to come and measure my fence. I honestly don't know how ANYONE could put up with that. I don't care if you want to follow the rules and have a nice neighborhood, but nobody should be okay with the idea of a neighbor coming over and measuring your new construction to see if it's within spec. That is absurd. If we were talking about parenting, none of this would fly.

An RCA? Raising Children Association? Haha. I'd like to see that. It would end in all the board members dead every month..

 

[Mossimo142]

I don't see an HOA as keeping me from doing something. I see it as them keeping my neighbors from doing stupid things.

Yes HOA's have restrictions. But if you can live with them, they keep communities looking nice. My wife and I plan to buy our next house in a HOA neighborhood. It is very nice there. All of the lawns and ladscaping are perfect, the houses are all well maintained, no sheds in the yards, no junk cars or crap in driveways.

The HOA neighborhood also has alot of amenities that other places do not provide. Walking trails, bike paths, cross country ski trails, golf course, tennis courts, baseball and basketball fields, playgrounds, pons, a large pool, community center.

You know what else provides those exact same amenities.... the city in which the HOA is usually located within. Why the need for segregated amenities? Most of the time the pool isn't large enough to accomodate the mass #'s of people who live in the HOA's. At least that's the case here. THey cram as many houses as they can withing like 3 feet of each other.

Edit - Well it looks like this was addressed on page 2 so I was late to the party, but valid statement nonetheless.

 

[Colt45]

I never understood how HOAs became so prevalent in the US. Seems very counter to american ideals. Well, at least old american ideals.

 

[Eli]

I'm sure it's nice to live in a single residence house out in the boonies removed from civilization by acres of land. However as metropolitan areas grow and population increases you have to accept the fact, that there simply isn't enough space to build single family homes any more.

In Bay Area, I believe, developers are no longer building single family homes - it's all townhouses now. We also live in a townhouse, and it's a conscious tradeoff that we made to be living fairly close to downtown and keep commute times short to pretty much anywhere as opposed to sitting for hours every day on 101 commuting to Gilroy or Morgan Hill where we could have had a full house for the same kind of money.

We do live in an HOA, and before we joined, we carefully look at the rules. There was nothing draconian about them - just common sense. The people that run the HOA are our neighbors, they actually live in the community as opposed to some 3rd party managing the stuff. All they want is the betterment of the place we live in.

So far, as part of the regular maintenance, the HOA has repainted all the houses, replaced all rotten sidings, repaved the driveways and takes care of all the plants. This summer it was decided that we had to do fumigation on all the houses, because spot treatments were ineffectual, and in the long run would have cost the HOA much more.

Said and done, right? Wrong. One of the houses was sold to an Asian lady who has some white dude mooching off her. He doesn't work, has no rights to the house, he is, by all metrics a fucking bum, but he is certifiably crazy. He managed, through persistent brainwashing of another neighbor to convince her (and his sugar mama) that fumigation will cause immediate death, brain cancer, genetic mutation, plague and cholera. As a result they refused to do the fumigation 5 days before it was supposed to happen.

Now our house did not get fumigated (it's a duplex with a gullible neighbor), and neither did the mama-sans and her neighbor. Where do all the termites go now? That's right, our buildings.

Now HOA is working on legal action against the douche, and by all means I will join in and request a special permission to kick the guy in the nuts along with all the fines and special assessments they get hit with.

I'll also make sure he doesn't set the house on fire by cutting his arms off.

Scary, man, scary. If I don't want pesticides sprayed all around my home, that is my choice and you have no right to say otherwise.

I am glad that I don't want to live in the city. If convenience means having to live with sheeple, I think I'll pass. If convenience means being told how to live, then it's no wonder I don't want to live in town.

I am my own unique person. I don't want to live like everyone else.

The suburbs are fine with me. Actually, it's kinda frightening how many houses out in BFE have no HOA, but do have CC&R's. Ugh. If this is where America is heading, I'm buying 100 acres and erecting a 20 foot concrete wall around the whole thing.. lol.

 

[IronWing]

I never understood how HOAs became so prevalent in the US. Seems very counter to american ideals. Well, at least old american ideals.

Developers wanted to build substandard infrastructure because it's cheaper. Local governments refused to accept said garbage into the local road/utility systems because they didn't want to have to repair/replace said substandard crap. Developers had to find an entity to foist this crap on as the developers had no intentions of sticking around to maintain it. Voila! The HOA was born. Developers create the HOA, build and sell the garbage, bequeath the common areas such as roads, detention basins, and parks on the HOA, and 30 seconds after the last lot sells, dissolve the LLC they used to build the development. "Leave No Trace"

 

[Capt Caveman]

I never understood how HOAs became so prevalent in the US. Seems very counter to american ideals. Well, at least old american ideals.

I believe most were created by the developers who bought the land and built all of the housing in that area. Any amenities created would be the responsibility of the HOA and not the town/city. In order to help maintain property values, rules were created on the exterior of houses.

 

[Jumpem]

You know what else provides those exact same amenities.... the city in which the HOA is usually located within. Why the need for segregated amenities? Most of the time the pool isn't large enough to accomodate the mass #'s of people who live in the HOA's. At least that's the case here. THey cram as many houses as they can withing like 3 feet of each other.

Edit - Well it looks like this was addressed on page 2 so I was late to the party, but valid statement nonetheless.

No the city does not. Not at all. If anything you get a mediocre park or two miles from home.

 

[BassBomb]

hoa's are a hot issue on atot

 

[Arkaign]

I believe most were created by the developers who bought the land and built all of the housing in that area. Any amenities created would be the responsibility of the HOA and not the town/city. In order to help maintain property values, rules were created on the exterior of houses.

Yeah, there has been a long subtle change over the past 100 years, from homes being places to live to places that people see as personal banking accounts and investments. This is definitely a double-edged sword, as when market bubbles happen it can have some positive economic benefits but at the same time drive all home prices up due to speculators and flippers turning what was an $80k house into a $130k house. Then the young family going to buy their first house has to pay a crapton, and if they get an ARM (dumb, should be illegal) they suddenly get their mortgage payment jacked to the moon, and as was recently the case, their home value might drop back to $80k while they're paying a huge percentage more per month in mortgage now. Bingo, mega forecloseure rates, along with the speculators who bought 10 homes thinking things were going to go up forever. HOAs as a structure are generally designed to try to keep home prices up. This can be a decent thiing for people who are fully aware of the big picture and want what this deal offers, but at the same time I have to think :

Isn't the primary function of a home to serve as a place to live? Why then do we go through so much trouble to make it so expensive as a society? Would be better for many people if home prices were 1/4 of what they are now, If people were paying $250/mo in mortgage rather than $1500/mo, there would be more $ for consumer spending and actual savings.

 

[moshquerade]

He sure showed them.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Isn't the primary function of a home to serve as a place to live? Why then do we go through so much trouble to make it so expensive as a society?

Low-end housing does exist. Your land and house can also be viewed as a status symbol and added creature comforts. It is the same reason luxury cars exist. The Ford Focus, Aerostar and Ranger would all be cheaper if they were the only vehicles Ford produced. After all, the primary function of a car is to get you to work, the primary job of a minivan is to get your kids to school and the primary job of a truck is to haul stuff, right?

As a matter of fact, if all houses were identical and used the same components, we could make housing even less expensive to society! I think you might be on to something, sir!