HOAs Strike Again

[MillauFr]

Texas couple losing their home because they wanted to feed the ducks. Good grief. Explain to me again why HOAs exist?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/hoa-ducks-foreclosure/

 

[kymom99]

I couldn’t read this article because of a pay wall. I found another from a different source. They aren’t technically losing their home. They could be fined so they are selling it. The ducks are a nuisance in the neighborhood. I don’t live in an hoa and probably never will. But those who do, know what they are signing on for.

 

[sam_gordon]

Texas couple losing their home because they wanted to feed the ducks. Good grief. Explain to me again why HOAs exist?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/hoa-ducks-foreclosure/

HOAs exist because home owners have elected to have a set of rules that determine what can be on the property. HOAs are only as powerful as the homeowners want them to be. If you don't like the rules, either fight to change them, or don't move into the property. In my mind it's like suing Disney because they won't let me wear my Jiminy Cricket costume into the park.

 

[Minnie1222]

I was acquainted with a woman who ran the HOA in her neighborhood. Every year we received a Christmas card along with a lengthy report on her husband's financial success and her toddler's intelligence. This made me feel so inferior that I had to abruptly end the "friendship".

 

[HopperFan]

Texas couple losing their home because they wanted to feed the ducks. Good grief. Explain to me again why HOAs exist?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/hoa-ducks-foreclosure/

There are some really good HOAs, there are some really bad HOAs and there are some that are completely indifferent which can also be frustrating.

I have homes in two HOAs. One extremely active (and I'm glad) and one (which I've been on board many times) is mildly active. I'm probably someone people would complain about because I did enforce a couple times major rules broken.

The point is to maintain a neighborhood standard that keeps our property values high. To make sure that one resident isn't imposing on the other residents with their properties. I could give a list of things that we have had to be addressed. Often you have to get any outside additions/changes approved by the HOA to maintain an architecture standard.

Feeding ducks ... if you don't feed them they will likely stay on the pond or find somewhere else to hang out. AND often what people feed ducks is not healthy for them. Ducks can be aggressive, destructive and in this case unwelcome by the neighborhood. This couple could have just stopped feeding them and/or stop, sell your home and move where they can feed them. They moved into an HOA neighborhood .... when I was looking I always read the HOA rules and stopped looking at some because of overreach.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

If you're going to create a thread about bad HOAs at least present it accurately.

1) We all know not to feed wildlife and we know now more than ever how that can become a problem. Didn't we have a thread about wild turkeys? A lot of people were like "get rid of them". These ducks (or most wildlife) will stick around the more human interaction they have. Feeding the ducks conditions it to stay around looking for food and we now know so much of what we thought was acceptable food for ducks isn't really such as bread. Even if this woman thinks many of the ducks were pet store ones just dumped you get in contact with your local wildlife specialist for further guidance. She doesn't know how many of them are new ducks as a result of breeding.

2) They aren't losing their home. An HOA can fine a homeowner for violations within the covenants. Should you not pay those fines that can result in other consequences.

In a nutshell regardless of the HOA's involvement or not the counter aspect is lame. "there's worse in this world"..uhh yeah isn't that the case for so many things? Couldn't you say there's worse things in this world than this woman NOT choosing to feed animals just because she thinks it's best? The attorney also says she'd like to continue living there and feeding the ducks..oh well okay selfish woman you go continue feeding ducks because you seem to know best. Yeah okay...

If she feels this is therapeutic why doesn't she try working with a local wildlife sanctuary or place that she can go to channel that energy? Her only option is to do this which can be very harmful to the very ducks she's feeding? It's about what's good for her not for the ducks.

 

[fla4fun]

I am a firm believer that if you don’t like a rule or law, you work to get it changed. You don’t disobey just because you disagree. I would have had more sympathy for them if they hadn’t been told multiple times that it was against the rules and they needed to stop, and they had agreed to stop but did not. At that point, I feel you are willing to accept whatever consequences you receive for your actions. It’s sad that it’s come to this, but they have no one to blame but themselves.

 

[Sinder]

I'm not a fan of HOAs and would never live in a place that had one.
These people do, that means they agree to follow whatever rules the HOA sets. If they don't like them they can move which it sounds like they are doing.
This is a non issue

 

[Colleen27]

You know, I'm usually quite anti-HOA but when it comes to nuisance wildlife I can see where they might have a role. Feeding ducks (or worse, geese or swans) creates aggressive animals and disgusting conditions in the area where they become conditioned to look for food hand-outs, plus it is extremely unhealthy for the animals themselves. I wish our city had a means of cracking down on the people who think it is cute to feed the waterfowl to the point that our parks and beach become minefields of geese poo and younger kids end up afraid to play because of the birds approaching them looking for handouts.

 

[RedAngie]

Texas couple losing their home because they wanted to feed the ducks. Good grief. Explain to me again why HOAs exist?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/hoa-ducks-foreclosure/

Because many people enjoy living a Stepford Wives lifestyle.

I do live in a HOA community but they’re pretty laissez-faire. As long as you don’t paint your house pink with purple polka dots they leave you alone.

 

[LuvOrlando]

I never say never but would need to be in a serious situation to buy in such a place, its weird to OWN and have to tolerate other people's quirky directives and flex moves. There is a condo community near our home and the people who run it were drunk with power, banning children's outdoor items and even pepper shapes holiday lights & who knows what else, plus they can arbitrarily pick pricey projects that everyone is forced to pay into because so-and-so thinks the siding is too blue or whatever. The Seinfeld episodes were enough.

 

[cvjw]

We moved out of a non-HOA neighborhood into an HOA neighborhood about a mile away. The non-HOA neighborhood was anything goes. Want to park a huge, dilapidated boat in your driveway? Go for it. Don’t want to take down a massive dead oak in your yard? Your choice. Want to park your 18 wheeler on the street? Who are we to judge? It was awful. With that mind set, almost no one kept their house or yard up.

Love my HOA neighborhood. We know that everyone has to keep their house and yard up to a certain standard, or they get a violation citation. We enjoy living around others that also take care of their properties.

 

[MillauFr]

The less rules and regulations the better.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The less rules and regulations the better.

A balance is more like it.

When you have it either too lax or too tight you the increased likelihood of issues, that's for speaking about rules and regulations in general not about HOAs in specifics.

If you're against HOAs as a matter of principle it's not really going to matter what news story you pop up. This one of feeding the ducks isn't one to probably use if you want people to be all anti-HOA. The woman here is more the issue than the HOA. It could be the city instead of an HOA it wouldn't change that this woman wants to do as she pleases.

 

[BrianL]

According to the article she has been feeding the ducks for a decade and only recently has the HOA made that verboten. I mean, whatever, the HOA can have their rules, but I think it's a silly thing to try to foreclose on someone's house over. If it was that big of a problem, then it should have been addressed from the very start. And, yeah, maybe it's better to not feed the ducks, but is it really that big of a deal?

 

[tcufrog]

There are good HOAs and bad ones. When we first moved into our HOA I was annoyed by some of the rules until I learned about why they exist. For example, I was annoyed by the list of forbidden plants until I learned that list was an effort to prevent the spread of invasive species and plant diseases. The tree pruning rules exist because the neighborhood gets very high winds and dead limbs can be torn off and damage your neighbors’ homes or trees.

I was also unhappy with the dues until I lived there and saw carefully and sensibly the money is spent. The HOA dues pay to maintain the community gardens, walking trails, the neighborhood roads, street lights, and a security patrol. There’s also lots of neighborhood events covered by the dues.

 

[tvguy]

HOAs exist because home owners have elected to have a set of rules that determine what can be on the property. HOAs are only as powerful as the homeowners want them to be. If you don't like the rules, either fight to change them, or don't move into the property. In my mind it's like suing Disney because they won't let me wear my Jiminy Cricket costume into the park.

Yes, on paper this is true. Unfortunately the individual board of directors may the biggest violators of the rules. My daughter looked at a condo with a very well organized system designed to make sure there was money available for normal upkeep. Complex is 30 years old and IF the various boards over the years hadn't decided each year to divert that money to other things, there would have been plenty of money available for new roofs. They didn't so each unit is being hit with a $10,000 special assessment for a new roofs. Lord knows how many dozens of different individuals were on the board over the years that made that irresponsible decision.
And good luck changing the rules. A friend got hit with a $500 fine for asking to change a rule. When he appealed the fine, he got hit with an additional $500 fine. He got an attorney who said if he wants to spend several thousand dollars, he could get the fines thrown out, but the legal costs would me more than the $1,000. Bottom line, he paid the fine and sold his home.

 

[Colleen27]

According to the article she has been feeding the ducks for a decade and only recently has the HOA made that verboten. I mean, whatever, the HOA can have their rules, but I think it's a silly thing to try to foreclose on someone's house over. If it was that big of a problem, then it should have been addressed from the very start. And, yeah, maybe it's better to not feed the ducks, but is it really that big of a deal?

Weirdly, I don't know of anyone who has a time machine to go back and do something like that. All we can do is try to address issues going forward if they cause problems. And I think on this particular topic, attitudes are changing as the knowledge of the negative impacts of feeding wildlife become better known to more people.

I also think "This is how it has been for years" is often the argument of last resort for people who can't defend their behavior on its own merits or refute the factual arguments made against it. A community near me banned the spraying of herbicides in canals to keep aquatic weeds down and that was basically the only argument anyone could mount against the ban. They couldn't argue that the chemicals are harmless, only that they can't possibly be bad enough to justify a ban or something would have been done years ago.

 

[Colleen27]

We moved out of a non-HOA neighborhood into an HOA neighborhood about a mile away. The non-HOA neighborhood was anything goes. Want to park a huge, dilapidated boat in your driveway? Go for it. Don’t want to take down a massive dead oak in your yard? Your choice. Want to park your 18 wheeler on the street? Who are we to judge? It was awful. With that mind set, almost no one kept their house or yard up.

Love my HOA neighborhood. We know that everyone has to keep their house and yard up to a certain standard, or they get a violation citation. We enjoy living around others that also take care of their properties.

I never realized until some of these conversations on the DIS how fortunate I've been to live mostly in cities where city code regulates major eyesores and safety hazards like you describe without the need for a HOA that might take issue with the color I paint my front door. Literally every situation you describe in the non-HOA neighborhood would get you a visit from the city code enforcer here, and there are city resources to help with things like taking down potentially hazardous trees for homeowners who might not be able to afford to hire someone. So the choices aren't free for all non-HOA vs. micro-managing HOA; we have a pretty reasonable middle ground without need for a clique of busybodies pondering paint colors or acceptable children's toys.

 

[kerry1379]

While this does seem to be a rather major escalation, if the woman is adamant that she won't stop and the other neighbors around her do not want the ducks setting up permanently there, what else is the HOA to do? We have geese that love a particular pond in our neighborhood. I was walking there once and saw a Mom, Dad and 2 baby geese right by the path. There was still down on the babies so they were still quite young. I skirted to the far side of the sidewalk since I know geese can be aggressive and I figured the babies would make them more so. The entire geese family followed me, with the babies leading the way. They wanted food and were not afraid to approach for it. While I thought they were super cute and grateful to be able to see them so up close, I recognize that this is not good for them. This puts them in a very dangerous position. I can sympathize with the woman grieving, but she needs to find a way to truly help the ducks. What she is doing is not helping them and upsetting the neighbors. (Though I do think the comment that the woman feeding the ducks has caused the Plantiff "imminent harm and irreparable injury" quite the reach. It sounds absurd.)