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HOAs are crap. After receiving notice number 2 recently regaring my "improperly stored trashcan" ... I decided to fight back. The letter said the the trashcan needed to be stored further back along the side of my house out of the view of passersby. Here's the catch ... on the side of the house that I keep it on, my AC unit and that of the neighbor are too close to each other for the big plastic trashcan provided by the city to fit between. On the other side of the house (more visible to passersby), the grade is too steep and would cause the trashcan to fall over. HOA rep suggested the patio or the garage. So I moved at least the recycle container to the patio hoping to appease them. That's when I got this 2nd notice which included a notice of a citation if I don't comply. So I immediately sent an email stating that due to family time spent on the patio, along with patio furniture and a grill and the recycle container, I've got no available room left there. I also stated that I don't have room in my garage, nor do I want flies, maggots, stench or rats following the trashcan into that location. I closed by telling them that I've done what I can do and that if they want to issue a citation, I would contest it. I also told them that I don't appreciate that all the money I'm throwing into the HOA is going to things like trashcan patrol. They responded by saying they understood the situation and that I would receive no more letters from them on this issue.

So, I guess I win? Or will the next thing I get be a citation? I'm just waiting now ........

So, half of your neighborhood got nice paved roads at taxpayer expense, while the other half is stuck on crappy gravel roads.

And the response of those who received the largesse of the government is to get mad at the half who did not.

If your entire neighborhood was still gravel, your maintenance costs would be double, driving up your dues. By getting the state to take over some roads, you ALL saved money.

We go through this a lot with our pool. People who don’t have kids, or who don’t use the pool, who have access to other pools, want to pay less in dues because they don’t need the pool.

Last year a developer approached us about adding his small neighborhood into our association. It would essentially have been free money for us, because our pool is underutilized anyway. But his homes were going to have street lights (we don’t), and so a PORTION of the dues from those new houses would have paid for the operation and maintenance of the street lights. We still would have come out ahead.

But there was an outcry because the new homes would have street lights that “we were all paying for”, while the rest of the homes were also stuck paying for their own house lamps on poles.

I think the development fell apart anyway, but we had people ready to give up free money because they perceived an “unfairness”.

i was in the process of purchasing a lake lot when just by chance the president of the homeowners association drove up. This lot was next to a trailer house on one side and a dilapidated house on the other side. At this chance meeting I was informed that the rules said I had to build a three bedroom brick house with a two car garage. Any one already an owner were grandfathered in. So these aholes voted these new standards in which makes their property values sky rocket and forces any new buyers to over build their lots. Needless to say I backed out of that deal.

PS!! If any of you have any ideas,

People are solving the problems with their HOA all the time - they move.

Be a dark day in .... before I'd move where ANYbody gets to watch and control what I do on my property - and make me pay through the nose for the privilege.

I'd rather have half the house (I do) and many times the land (I do) and not one neighbor who can even see my yard - a 40' buffer of forest between me and the road.

In the summertime I sunbathe in my hammock and get a tan with no tan lines...

I mow my lawn when I want to, not when someone measures the grass and says it 1/4" to high.

I would not, NOT, make a good neighbor in a Socialist gulag.

We took the best advice offered on this thread, and several of us decided to run for board position. This is the response by the board:

NOTE: The board has voted to NOT allow candidates to state their positions on any business related to KRCE. They will only publish a biography of the candidate. This is outside the perimeters of California law.

This is the wording of the board in the April, 2008 Klamagram:
“Biographical statements may not advocate any particular position on any issue, nor can they contain campaign statements. The Association shall not edit or redact any Biographical statement content but will REJECT those statements that contain prohibited items”

The ONLY way to interpret this is that the Board does not want you to know what you’re voting for. Ask them their positions on issues important to all of us. One man stated that he didn’t need to know about issues, he just wants to know the candidates education, business background.....YES, well that is why we have terrible politicians in our government! If you don’t care about issues, what do you care about?

1363.03. ELECTIONS; RULES AND PROCEDURES. (Operative July 1, 2006)

(a) An association shall adopt rules, in accordance with the procedures prescribed by Article 4 (commencing with Section 1357.100) of Chapter 2, that do all of the following:

(1) Ensure that any candidate or member advocating a point of view is provided access to association media, newsletters, or Internet Web sites during a campaign, for purposes that are reasonably related to that election. Equal access shall be provided to all candidates and members advocating a point of view, including those not endorsed by the board, for purposes that are reasonably related to the election. The association shall not edit or redact any content from these communications, but may include a statement specifying that the candidate or member, and not the association, is responsible for that content.

http://krcehoamembers.blogspot.com/2008/05/california-election-law-hoas-by-condo.html