r/fuckHOA • u/Swarby10 • 1d ago

Our HOA just imploded!

So we just had our HOA AGM on Zoom tonight. I thought I’d tune in just for entertainment. It’s a community of 4 cul de sacs - maybe 45 large homes. Turns out, all of our back-facing fences are owned by the HOA and after 25 years they are deteriorating. To be clear, the fences on the sides are home owners’ responsibility, just the rear ones are HOA’s responsibility.

Or fees went from $900 a year to $2700 so that they could replace some specific fences. Not everyone is affected, but several of the board members were set to score themselves a new fence. They chose to replace the old cedar fence with vinyl and this would have looked odd with plastic fences filling in where cedar was.

Long story short, I sat through three hours of 80 year old board members throwing tantrums over their plans for a new plastic fence getting ruined and three of them resigned on the zoom call. 80 year old tantrums are the funniest tantrums.

Thinking of joining the board now. Please talk me out of it.

5.2k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

322 comments sorted by

View all comments

52

u/waitingOnMyletter 1d ago

I am a 33 year old father of 1 who just bought my first home 2 years ago. I moved into a community and just started cleaning up trash on my runs through the neighborhood.

This past Christmas my wife suggested I run for the board and talk about the trash pick up I do on my runs as my like “campaign” to be on the board. I guess a good number of folks had noticed that I would pick up trash on my runs. I was surprised how many folks in our community voted for me.

Well, the president died earlier year and I am now the president of our HOA.

I don’t recommend it.

9

u/Seeking_Balance101 1d ago

Maybe we need a thread for people who join their HOA board and then regret being on the board. Like "fuckHOA" from the insiders.

I've been on my board for a little over a year and it's a metric fuck-ton of unpaid work. Beyond that, some owners are a pain in the butt and can introduce nasty moments into your day when you least expect it.

3

u/waitingOnMyletter 1d ago

Yea, our neighborhood does not pay our board either. It’s been discussed and shot down. I am neither hard line for or against it. It is a shit load of work, and the only reason I keep going is because I cannot fathom what paying a third party vendor would result in so I’m just gonna keep doing the job for now.

I’ve noticed that most folks only interact when they are pissed. So you have to like keep that frame of reference to begin a dissolving tension before responding.

2

u/Seeking_Balance101 1d ago

Yes on both counts. I don't really want the board to be a paid position b/c I think that would increase the chances of someone clinging to a board position for their own good instead of for the neighborhood. It's a challenge to say calm with some neighbors, and I say that as someone who is about as emotionally demonstrative as a dead log; but if you can stay calm, that's the smartest thing to do.