Monthly Archives: April 2014

Abuse, Stress

Ward Lucas

The most effective way of breaking up a larger concentration of power is to “divide and conquer” or “divide and rule”.  And one of the easiest ways of doing that is through the use of fear. It is no secret that many HOA homeowners live in fear.  The statutory powers associations have been given across the country puts the owners at a huge disadvantage.  And associations have been known to use, and in some cases, abuse those powers.  
 
Sometimes all it takes is making an example of one homeowner in a neighborhood to ensure that everyone toes the line without any problems.   That is the Fear factor.  But do the neighbors have a duty to get involved or should they just roll over and hope things blow over soon?
 
Joining us On The Commons this week is Ward Lucas.  Ward is an award winning investigative journalist who found himself tangled up in the HOA web.  So what does an investigative journalist do when he thinks something smells bad?  He investigates associations and when he discovered that he was not alone, he wrote a book called Neighbors at War.  He then started a blog by the same name neighborsatwar.com  We’ll talk to Ward about his book, his blog and get a feel of what is going on around the country.  We’ll also talk about what it takes to stand up to the neighborhood bullies and why, even though there are more homeowners than association employees, the homeowners are losing the battle.  

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HOA Syndrome, Stress

Gary Solomon

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The horror stories  and tales of abuse in America’s HOAs keep pouring in and there seems to be no end to the sheer gall and stupidity of some Homeowner association board members and managers. The alleged violations range from the ridiculous to the heartless to the absurd. 
 
Beyond the petty peeves of the small minded nits in the neighborhood, another emerging characteristic, or by product, of these ‘hoods appears to be verging in the barbaric.  In a recent story out of Florida, an 80 year old gentleman was evicted by the HOA for planting vegetables in his small garden patch.  The stress of being alone and homeless sent him to the hospital with heart problems.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, the neighbors actually cheered when they heard the news.  
What makes people in kontrolled kommunities react with glee at a neighbor’s misfortune?  In the days before these new fangled “ghettos” became as common as muck, neighbors were friends and pitched in to help.  They had real communities.
 
Joining us On The Commons this week is Dr. Gary Solomon.  Dr Solomon, a psychologist in Nevada,  noticed that something was amiss in the shiny “community” he moved into.  While the grounds may have looked manicured, the residents did not appear to be particularly happy and he wondered why.  His research led him to write a couple of papers on HOAs, the HOA Syndrome and Elder Abuse.  And since then he has been cautioning us about the harmful affects HOAs have on our health.  We talk about the health issues and the potential for further abuses with new technology that could make America’s kontrolled kommunities, or ghettos, as Dr. Solomon calls them,  even more stressful. 
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