• Margot Robbie@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    That reminds me, I used to think getting that haircut would make me look all cool and badass.

    I really don’t know what I was thinking.

  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    HOAs just like unions and governments are as good as the people that involve themselves in them and the less people represented in the democracy the more power you have in it so if you’re not happy then get involved.

    • meseek #2982@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      In my experience the people that “involve” themselves are raging clowns with superiority complexes.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        And they have control because they don’t have opposition from people who aren’t like them… Welcome to politics, it’s the same thing at all levels. Get involved or shut up. You don’t vote? Then you agree with whatever the people who do decided.

        • explodicle@local106.com
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          10 months ago

          Or just don’t agree, and get a house that’s not part of an HOA. With individual houses at least, you can realistically opt out of a system where the 51% of Karens accept management company bribes.

            • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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              10 months ago

              You didn’t understand what they said… You’re free to purchase a house somewhere where there’s no HOA if you disagree with HOAs and don’t want to get involved in them. That’s how you have the freedom to opt out.

              • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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                10 months ago

                In the US these homes are increasingly rare. Pretty much any neighborhood built since the 70s comes with HOA bullshit attached

                • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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                  10 months ago

                  74% of the housing market doesn’t have an HOA in the USA, worst case put pressure on the higher level of government to get them regulated, it’s a US issue, you don’t see that anywhere else.

              • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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                10 months ago

                I understand their point, it’s just a bad one. So much of where we live depends on job, educational, financial, and familial circumstances that it’s just outright ludicrous to pretend HOAs are the only factor to consider for a home purchase. Or even an important one.

                Especially when so much of what makes them frustrating to deal with is created by bad HOA members, not even necessarily the contract itself. You will not know it’s a problem until it becomes one, in all likelihood.

                Yes, you are technically free to not buy into a HOA neighborhood, like you’re also free to deliberately send your kid to a shitty school as you live in a van.

                • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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                  10 months ago

                  Three quarters of US citizens live somewhere without an HOA, doesn’t seem so hard not to have to deal with one and if you do, as I already mentioned, just get involved and improve things.

    • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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      10 months ago

      True in theory, and while I realize that this is purely anecdotal, in my experience as a contractor, HOAs are invariably a giant pain in the ass to deal with.

      What you want as a contractor is a professional property management company that’s used to dealing with construction contractors and is familiar with industry standards and basic reality.

      Fortunately I don’t work in residential construction anymore.

    • CoderKat@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      I kinda agree with you. In theory, they definitely are. But at the same time, in practice, the already bad reputation of HOAs seems to attract the worst kind of people. It’s a political position and suffers just like any other political position. The kinds of people who’d be best at it often don’t want to do it because it’s toxic.

  • kamen@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    The word “homeowner” contains the word “meow” in it; now you can’t read “homeowner” in any other way.

  • uis@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    While in USA Karens are relatively yong, in post-Soviet countries they are…

    A group of them called Grannys Near Entrance or Grannyguards

    • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de
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      10 months ago

      The younger babushkas (60-70) run flat associations (HOAs for blocks of flats) in my country. Very strict about what you can put on your door, mailbox etc.

  • makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    We don’t have them in Australia that I’m aware of, but they do sound atrocious. What happened to that land of the free?

    • thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com
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      10 months ago

      They’re basically just groups that are supposed to help prevent one person tanking everyone’s property value by letting their home go to shit.

      The problem is that typically the only people who get involved in them are retired busy bodies who want to assert what little power they have. Good ones too exist, though.

      • CoderKat@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        Yeah. The idea of what is bad for properties values is extremely subjective and some people take it to such extremes as to not let there ever be something they don’t like.

        Eg, houses can only be painted a very select few shades. Lawns have to be trimmed short and even a short vacation could get you a fine. Cars can’t be parked on driveways overnight. You must have at least 3 flower beds of a minimum size. Trash bins can only be brought out in the morning and not the night before. Etc etc. Anything you can imagine a cranky neighborhood complaining about, some HOA probably has a rule for.

        There’s lots of common sense rules you could have. It’s easy to picture a stereotypical crack den that you wouldn’t want in your neighbourhood. But there’s also a lot of people whose idea of a good neighborhood is cookie cutter white suburbia with no personality.

      • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        …groups that are supposed to help prevent one person tanking everyone’s property value by…

        By being black. Or otherwise a minority.

        • thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com
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          10 months ago

          No, a redneck with a car on cinder blocks in their front yard will tank property values way more than a black person living in the neighborhood.

        • thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com
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          10 months ago

          If a law isn’t enforced, then it’s not illegal. Most cities don’t have the budget to hire enough people to enforce the municipal code, which is where HOAs step in.

    • Pregnenolone@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      They’re basically stratas and body corporations in Australia, except the laws basically make them not as powerful as HOAs

    • Anyolduser@lemmynsfw.com
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      10 months ago

      They are far from ubiquitous here. You’ll typically find HOAs in new housing developments.

      Most (single family) homes in the US leave the owner beholden only to governments. Some places are “unincorporated” and don’t even have a municipal government at all.

      HOAs exist to serve a specific subset of the population who want to own a single family home but lack the ability or willingness to do major maintenance.

      My best friend just bought an HOA home against my advice, but he’s terrified of doing anything with tools despite my offers to teach him. Of the dozen or so friends and family members I know who bought a home in the past decade he is the only one who was not actively repulsed by the idea of buying a home with an HOA.

      • ngdev@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        What? This is completely wrong. HOAs do not maintain your home for you, that’s wild that you think that’s the reason for HOAs. I live in an HOA and they don’t do anything besides make sure everyone’s house is presentable (like no missing fence pickets) and upkeep the HOA center + pool.

        • TyrionsNose@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          It’s for the opposite of what that person said. It’s for the people who also want their neighbors to maintain their property. Whether that’s through hiring contractors or doing it themselves.

          • HubertManne@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            many towns pretty much require builders to make them so they don’t have to pay for the local infrastructure like roads and fire hydrants and they can require flood management and such.

      • The_Biggest_Cum@lemmynsfw.com
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        10 months ago

        I own a home in an unincorporated area that also has an HOA, but ours is only for 3 things:

        1. Yearly fire inspections (California)

        2. Negotiating with the local trash company for service cost

        3. Negotiating with the local propane company for lower cost

        My super anti-government neighbors are still working to dissolve it, but it doesn’t even have any rules that aren’t “see county laws and fire code”, they just don’t like the $50/year fee

        I’m aware my experience isn’t the norm, though

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Some places are “unincorporated” and don’t even have a municipal government at all.

        The way you phrased that sort of implies municipal-government things just don’t get done in unincorporated places, but that’s not the case. Instead, it’s just that the county government handles everything directly. And of course, everywhere in the US is part of a county. (Except Louisiana, I guess, where they’re called “parishes” instead. And maybe Native American reservations too, IDK?)

        HOAs exist to serve a specific subset of the population who want to own a single family home but lack the ability or willingness to do major maintenance.

        There are two major purposes of HOAs:

        1. To handle maintenance of shared or collectively-owned property, such as exteriors and common areas of condominium buildings, neighborhood swimming pools, private streets, etc.

        2. As the last tactic of segregation: once de-jure segregation was abolished (1917), property owners switched to using racist CC&Rs (deed restrictions) to keep out minorities. The first HOAs (at least for single-family house neighborhoods with little or no shared property) were created to enforce those restrictions. Even after those were ruled unenforceable (1948), HOAs remained popular as a means of creating ostensibly non-racist rules and then selectively enforcing them to harass non-white residents.


        And I hate to break it to some of the folks in this thread who think their HOA is innocuous and is just there to make sure everybody’s single-family house is presentable: if it isn’t reason #1, then it is reason #2. You were just too innocent to realize it.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        American crime writer, Karin Slaughter, threw a cute little Easter Egg into one of her books. One of the busybody residents in an upscale neighborhood is named Alison Hendrickson.

  • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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    10 months ago

    I’m not in any way familiar with HOA’s but… in my mind they should be filled with at least a proprotion of bored boomers.

    Karen’s can be boomers, butcan they be male?