[HN Gopher] Grandpa's Basement House
___________________________________________________________________
Grandpa's Basement House
Author : cubix
Score : 134 points
Date : 2022-05-22 17:09 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.granolashotgun.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.granolashotgun.com)
| armadsen wrote:
| There was one of these basement houses in my neighborhood (mostly
| built in the 40s) until a few months ago when it was flipped and
| they built a top floor on it making it look like a completely
| different (and unremarkable) house.
| k__ wrote:
| _" Minimum square footage requirements have been put in place to
| filter out the riffraff who can't afford larger homes"_
|
| Disgusting.
| [deleted]
| gorgoiler wrote:
| The idea of HOAs having any kind of say feels so undemocratic,
| but not in a standard way. We should not tolerate purely popular
| democracies. We allow representative democracies, and part of
| that public contract is for our leaders to represent all those in
| their constituency, not just those who voted for them.
|
| That means those in the minority. The crazy guy growing gourds
| instead of a lawn. The loon with the purple house. The
| impoverished who can't paint their house every other year. Those
| kinds of folk need representation the most.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I suspect HOAs are even less democratic than you describe. My
| wife was president of a small HOA for the last 5 years or so.
| Most of the community wasn't involved at all. My wife's main
| job was to work with the management company to keep things sane
| and the few other people who were involved in check and
| preventing overreach. At the same time it's hard to change the
| existing HOA rules. I don't even know where the HOA comes from.
| It predates almost everyone who still lives here. I suspect the
| developers put it in place. So likely none of the current
| residents had any input in the rules and bylaws. At one point
| someone pushed for dissolving the HOA. That was quickly
| abandoned one the management company laid out the legal process
| which was overwhelming and didn't seem worth it to anyone
| tomcam wrote:
| > Those kinds of folk need representation the most.
|
| An understandable sentiment. How much are you willing to pay
| for it? If you have a $1.5 million mortgage and that loon shows
| up next door and paints their house purple, your house might
| lose $300,000 in value. Same with the other neighbors, who also
| pay mortgages but aren't as compassionate as you.
|
| What happens when your spouse gets a sudden offer to relocate
| and you can't make your money back on the house?
| watwut wrote:
| The root issue here is that you frame it as you paying
| something for him. What is actually happening is that you
| demand that everyone else pay for your mortgage by subjecting
| themselves to your restrictions.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Shocking how quickly peoples opinions change on this stuff
| when an eccentric next door can lower the value of their own
| investments
| sokoloff wrote:
| Since they paid their money to buy the property, they can
| paint their house whatever color they damn well please,
| IMO.
| tomcam wrote:
| If there's an HOA, they probably agreed not to.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Maybe we shouldn't think about housing as an investment
| adventured wrote:
| Maybe we shouldn't try to control people, including what
| they think, in such an authoritarian manner.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Who's being authoritarian? I'm suggesting changing how we
| think about housing
| tomcam wrote:
| There's nothing authoritarian about entering a contractor
| voluntarily
| tomcam wrote:
| Agree completely
| tomcam wrote:
| Which is why I no longer live in a place with an HOA
| mattnewton wrote:
| I think the root of this is treating housing an asset, which
| justifies all kinds of arguments. My house would probably
| increase in value a lot if I bulldozed all the others and
| replaced them with public gardens. The sane place for me to
| draw the line is where the property ends.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| What a great answer to losing a great deal of money: just
| don't treat it as an asset! Just ignore the loss, who
| cares! Sure it's nice being wealthy, ain't it.
| quesera wrote:
| > your house might lose $300,000 in value
|
| Dramatic license aside, I'd hate to live anywhere where
| property value (or residents' senses of well-being) was so
| fragile that it couldn't handle a purple house.
| tomcam wrote:
| I have literally seen that happen, although the house was
| electric blue and not purple. I did in fact put my money
| where my mouth is and moved to a farm without an HOA.
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| They would hate to live in Tobermory I suppose: https://com
| mons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tobermory_Main_Stree...
| fader wrote:
| Or indeed, Boston:
| https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/victorian-houses-in-
| cambri...
|
| Tangentially, Victorian houses were frequently very
| colorful. The lack of color photography leads people to
| think of them as drab, depressing shades of gray. But
| nothing could be further from the truth. HOAs that
| restrict colors to a boring beige are doing a disservice
| to their neighborhoods.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > that loon shows up next door and paints their house purple
|
| HOAs started as a way to handle common infrastructure, like
| drainage. They allow a few homes to share drainage, without
| sticking all of the costs of maintenance to the homeowner who
| happens to have the pipe on their property.
|
| In my case, my HOA carries property insurance for undeveloped
| land, maintains a grassy cul-de-sac, and maintains a fire
| road. (I personally spend about 2 hours a year trimming
| growth on the fire road because so many people walk on it.)
|
| As far as saying that an HOA is to keep the loons out, we did
| have a hoarder live around the corner from the HOA. The
| people who lived across the street couldn't sell their home.
| (They had kids and wanted a larger house.) Could the HOA
| really do anything about the hoarder? I know the people who
| lived around the hoarder all put a lot of pressure on hee,
| the town condemned the house, and eventually it burnt to the
| ground. At least my with HOA, there isn't any good way to
| "evict" a loon who makes a mess.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Can't you fine them to death then foreclosure for the
| ammount due when it's not paid
| seryoiupfurds wrote:
| One of the most desirable neighbourhoods in my city has
| houses painted all sorts of different colours, including
| purple. Somehow the property values survive.
| harshalizee wrote:
| >What happens when your spouse gets a sudden offer to
| relocate and you can't make your money back on the house?
|
| How is that someone else's problem? Ironically, in some areas
| around me properties without HOAs are priced and selling a
| couple of 100ks higher than ones within HOAs.
| tomcam wrote:
| Where did I say it is someone else's problem?
| giantg2 wrote:
| "that public contract is for our leaders to represent all those
| in their constituency, not just those who voted for them."
|
| That's the statement, but it's never worked that way. Of course
| minority groups have been steamrolled
| technothrasher wrote:
| > We should not tolerate purely popular democracies.
|
| Open town meetings, which are pure democracies, have been
| working pretty well in New England for quite a long time now,
| with the biggest issues in modern times being low attendence
| and committee overstep.
| mmh0000 wrote:
| When I bought my first house, I purposefully avoided any
| neighborhood with an HOA because of all the internet scare
| mongering I had heard over the years.
|
| After ten years of one neighbor parking cars on their lawn,
| another growing more weeds than blades of grass, and another
| with 8 vehicles parked along the street I was done.
|
| When I bought my second house I specifically wanted an HOA.
| After another 6 years, I couldn't be happier. Yes the HOA
| prevents me from doing a handful of things, things that aren't
| really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. While the HOA
| keeps the entire neighborhood looking nice and slaps people on
| the wrist when they need it.
| bee_rider wrote:
| HOAs effect the members living situation, so they have the
| _potential_ to generate some real horror stories. But it just
| seems like a particularly dramatic version of "people with
| happy situation don't post about them online."
|
| My neighborhood growing up had a HOA that just maintained a
| little shared beach. They had a couple rules for yards, but
| nothing too onerous (don't have someone stay in a camper in
| your front yard -- a rule we actually broke, but just for a
| weekend or so, family visit with not enough rooms in the
| house). Annoying neighbors will find a way to be annoying,
| reasonable ones will find a way to be reasonable, the HOA is
| just a medium for this sort of behavior.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Two factors are at play:
|
| HOA or not
|
| Good folks or not
|
| The balance between the two is nuanced and it sounds like you
| landed on a different side of the debate to me. I'm sorry to
| hear that, and I respect that, as a result, you have a
| different view of HOAs to me. Peace.
| mattnewton wrote:
| For the first two I just can't get that worked up over it,
| and for the last one it's the use of shared reasource (the
| street) that bothers me.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Yeah, I get people wanting HOAs to maintain property values
| (Though I am not one of them, I chose a neighborhood with
| no HOA on purpose). I don't get people who genuinely care
| for its own sake about their neighbors lawn having weeds.
| Or the house having an unusual paint color. Who cares??
| com2kid wrote:
| > I don't get people who genuinely care for its own sake
| about their neighbors lawn having weeds.
|
| Certain types of invasive plans are noxious, outright
| poisonous, encourage hay fever, or just spread so fast
| that they can end up destroying neighbor's yards as well.
|
| Plants don't obey property lines.
|
| Edit: Unkempt yards can also be breeding ground for
| pests. From mosquitoes in still water to hoards of rats.
| Most people don't want to put up with those styles of
| annoyances that are trivially avoidable if everyone in
| the area cares just a little.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Hay fever comes from grass. Less grass makes me more
| comfortable at home.
|
| Rats come from having edible garbage available and fruit
| trees dropping fruit.
|
| The most annoying things about neighbors are dogs that
| bark all day, and the leafblowers and lawnmowers.
| lupire wrote:
| These are all already torts or illegal under municipal
| law.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Unfortunately, the court system is not friction-less
| enough for "your weeds got in my yard" to be a remotely
| workable reason to go to court. It would be nice to live
| in a society where justice flowed as freely as municipal
| water and common law obviated the need for all other
| forms of organization or regulation, but in the real
| world going to court is so expensive and time-consuming
| that we need a lot of other forms of power around to
| avoid overusing that method.
|
| If you have a plan for reforming the local judiciary to
| be so effective that HOAs are no longer necessary I am
| all ears, but I have not heard any proposals for doing
| that.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Weed seeds blow across property lines and create problems
| for other people. It creates an undue burden on those
| that want to maintain a garden or other curated flora.
| lupire wrote:
| Maybe going to war against natural native plants is a
| losing battle...
| vmladenov wrote:
| Why do you assume the weeds in question are native and
| not invasive?
| WalterBright wrote:
| The bad weeds around here are spread by bird poop. Not
| much to be done about that, except mow them down.
| jzb wrote:
| Depending on where you live and how bad a yard gets, it
| can be a real problem. Here, for example, it can be an
| invitation to snakes or other wildlife that aren't
| confined to that property.
|
| That said, I'm -1 on HOAs. I've heard far too many
| complaints and too few people happy with them to deal
| with one.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've had quail, deer, mice, raccoons, coyotes, moles,
| hawks, snakes, lizards, bees, wabbits, squirrels, gophers
| ground beavers, bobcats, owls, and even eagles hanging
| out on my property. I'm in the middle of the metropolitan
| area, too. I don't mind them :-/ A couple years ago a
| coyote mom decided the front yard was the perfect place
| for her to watch her 7 pups grow up. She'd keep a weather
| eye on me, and I enjoyed watching them.
|
| A couple months ago a coyote decided to poop on my front
| door. Obviously, it was sending a message, but I'm not
| sure what it was.
| quesera wrote:
| Keep in mind that some HOAs are cooperative organizations,
| and some are run by very damaged people.
|
| Also keep in mind that getting together to organize a set of
| common standards and restrictions is the basis for all
| exclusive communities. That's OK if you are on the casual
| compliance side of the rules, or if you get to write them to
| suit your preferences. But it is discriminatory. Similar
| covenants have been used to keep out ethnic minorities
| (because of the way they live, like animals!).
|
| Being for or against HOAs is like being for or against laws.
| It's meaningless without context.
|
| Some HOAs are traffic lights. Some HOAs are civil forfeiture.
|
| An HOA can morph from tolerable into unconscionable. Deny the
| HOA the right to exist in the first place, and it will never
| go bad. This is an appealing tradeoff for many.
| walrus01 wrote:
| While I agree with you for the most part, the problem comes
| when you have an HOA led by some Karen who decides to fine
| you and make your life miserable for doing something like
| having the audacity to fly a pride flag. You got lucky that
| the handful of things you want to do aren't a big deal, or
| your local HOA doesn't consist of any overly zealous
| busybodies with nothing better to do than become the
| neighborhood stasi.
| rayiner wrote:
| The road example I get, but why do you care what other people
| do on their property?
|
| We bought our house in 2016, next to an old tear down house.
| (I'm talking about plants growing inside because the roof
| doesn't keep the water out.) Recently someone bought the
| house, tore it down, and built a million dollar house in its
| place. The other day, he gets into a fight with my wife--over
| various things, but among them the fact that he's mad we
| won't clean our porch. I told him that he's the idiot who
| built a million dollar house next to people who were happy
| living next to a tear down for years.
|
| Now before, I felt a little guilty for keeping the pool toys
| out there all year, but now I'm definitely not going to put
| them away.
| gardenmwm wrote:
| Because other peoples property effects my my property, in
| value and enjoyment.
| [deleted]
| harryh wrote:
| So what? Those other people aren't obligated to do things
| that lead to your enjoyment. Please.
| Etheryte wrote:
| This is absurd. Other people don't have to live their
| life a certain way just because that makes you happy.
| bentcorner wrote:
| Should I be allowed to disregard all others in the
| pursuit of my happiness?
| whatshisface wrote:
| If in a system of perfect liberty two people have a right
| to enter in to a contract, and three people have a right
| to enter in to a contract, and, inductively, as many
| people who want to live in a housing division have a
| right to enter in to a contract, then yes, yes they do.
| gardenmwm wrote:
| No, but common courtesy and cleanliness is something that
| makes me happy. I've lived in neighborhoods that have had
| rat problems because of a single home that kept trash
| everywhere. Should I be inconvenienced because someone
| doesn't want to do the bare minimum to upkeep their
| property? Would you be ok if I moved next door to you and
| hung nazi flags (this has happened to me as well)? When
| people behave in ways that infringe upon my life, yeah I
| can be irritated and want to live in an area that they
| aren't allowed to do that. People who won't respect
| others can continue to live in areas that let them get
| away with it. I won't live like that anymore.
| op00to wrote:
| What if they enjoy cars?
| eej71 wrote:
| Some of you might enjoy the X-Files episode about an HOA with
| a sinister side.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0751076/
| fader wrote:
| I similarly heard all the horror stories and was nervous
| buying my current house because it has an HOA.
|
| My partner and I started sending yearly thank you gifts to
| the HOA board after our first year here. They manage
| contractors and landscapers to handle upkeep and repairs on
| the property, coordinate information among neighbors,
| contract and negotiate with service providers, and even pass
| along helpful maintenance tips. (Most recently it was "most
| people still have their original hot water tanks and several
| people have had theirs start to fail -- it's a good idea to
| start replacing yours before it becomes a problem" which, as
| someone newly moved in, I hadn't thought about but sincerely
| appreciated.) It's like having an advisor on hand who cares
| as much as we do because they live there too.
|
| I still side-eye the idea of HOAs, but I'm coming around.
| People talk about the horror stories but "everything is fine
| with my HOA" doesn't make for exciting reading.
| rayiner wrote:
| > My partner and I started sending yearly thank you gifts
| to the HOA board after our first year here.
|
| I'm a pretty big pushover but even I couldn't bring myself
| to do that. Where is your dignity.
| fader wrote:
| Thanking people for the work that they've done -- unpaid
| -- that has benefited me directly and saved me money just
| feels like the right thing to do. I was raised to
| appreciate efforts that others take on my behalf and it's
| served me well so far.
|
| I hope your approach is working as well for you.
| peckrob wrote:
| Very similar experience here. Like you, I'd heard my fair
| share of HOA horror stories, so my first home was in a non-
| HOA neighborhood.
|
| * One house near the entrance was bordering on being
| uninhabitable; rotting roof with tarps covering the holes,
| rotting siding, gutters hanging half on. Always shocked the
| city didn't declare it a public hazard.
|
| * The people behind me would drag their TV and sofa out in
| the front yard every time the state's football team was
| playing, be noisy and would leave discarded beer cans all
| over the lawn.
|
| * The people in front of me left a disabled car in the road
| for more than a year. Suspension shot, tires flat, windows
| busted out and left in the rain. After a year I finally
| called the city, who sent a code enforcement officer out. The
| person's response was to push the car out of the road ...
| into the front yard.
|
| * My next door neighbor mowed his yard about 4 times a year.
| I even offered on several occasions to mow it for him, just
| because I didn't want to look at it.
|
| My current neighborhood has _none_ of the above problems. We
| have a low-BS HOA that basically exists just to be sure the
| common areas are maintained and that the homes are maintained
| to a minimum standard as specified in the rules. Otherwise,
| they stay out of your life. I was even on the board for a few
| years; we issued a grand total of about 8 warnings and zero
| fines in that entire time - and IIRC all of the warnings
| related to parking. Often, just _having_ rules and an
| enforcement mechanism is enough to ensure minimum standards
| are maintained by the vast majority of people.
|
| Also, an underrated HOA benefit we discovered is that they
| are great for collectively getting the city's attention when
| we need something fixed. We've had problems with potholes
| forming in some of the roads and, for a long time, the issue
| was ignored by the city despite numerous homeowners
| complaining. Until we got our HOA's legal representative to
| draft a letter to the city. The _next week_ all the potholes
| were fixed.
|
| I have never had a problem with the HOA preventing me from
| doing something, even if it was technically against the
| rules. Last year our HVAC went out and it was going to be a
| week before we could get it replaced. The HVAC contractor
| loaned us some window units to keep the house cool until
| everything could be ordered. Technically window units are
| against the bylaws. I didn't even run it by the HOA, just put
| a sign in the window above it saying it was temporary until
| next week. No issues at all.
|
| The key with HOAs is to _be involved_! Think of them as mini-
| municipalities, like a town within a town. And, as an owner,
| you are entitled to attend the meetings, introduce measurs to
| change the bylaws, vote on business and hold office in them.
| This is why "Karens" tend to get and retain power - because
| no one opposes them. In our HOA, about 60% of the houses
| never voted and most rarely attended meetings. Sometimes it
| was hard to even get quorum, and elections were often
| uncontested. The way I ended up as secretary was because
| literally no one ran for it. Don't like the way your HOA is
| being run? Change it. There's a pretty fair chance you'll
| succeed.
|
| I know the Internet largely hates HOAs, and it is true that
| there are a fair number of really bad overbearing HOAs out
| there. A friend of mine once got cited for having grass a
| half-inch too high. But I think people focus too much on the
| extreme; there are actually a lot of fairly nice, low BS HOAs
| out there as well.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah I had a neighbor who decided it was time to open his in
| home auto repair shop.
|
| Fortunately the HoA board didn't look kindly on it for a
| variety of reasons/ issues.
|
| He eventually moved. I hope he found a good place with a big
| garage and fewer neighbors to do that thing.
|
| Same with the rental party house (before the days of air
| bnb(but same issues)).
| lupire wrote:
| Aren't those cases covered by zoning laws?
| duxup wrote:
| Depends how obvious it is .
|
| Put a car repair sign up then yeah. Be more "quiet" about
| it and claim and you are fixing a friends car and it
| becomes less easy / an ordeal for the city or county to
| act. Unfortunately the car repair guy was not honest and
| that was an issue.
|
| Party house was a bit of an ordeal.
|
| HOAs tend to fill a lot of zoning gaps.
| JackFr wrote:
| It turns out comprehensive zoning laws are not universal.
| HOAs are typically a response to inadequate (or at least
| perceived inadequate) zoning regulation.
|
| However the concept of nuisance has existed in the common
| law for centuries and insofar as someone's behavior might
| be a nuisance it has always been actionable.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuisance_in_English_law
| rdtwo wrote:
| They are but enforcement can be lacking. The hoa can
| nickel and dime a person enough that they will take the
| 10% property value hit to move
| woah wrote:
| What's wrong with a guy repairing cars?
| [deleted]
| guerrilla wrote:
| How is it undemocratic? They agreed to the terms of the HOA
| when they bought the place... They move to some place and then
| are upset when people don't like them doing certain things?
| This is a weirdly entitled view.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| fencepost wrote:
| My wife recently pointed out a real estate listing for a basement
| home very like the flat roof variant in the first part of the
| article. Not sure where she saw it, while in the same state it's
| rural.
|
| I'd actually figured it as someone making the best of what was
| left after a tornado or other disaster.
| drewg123 wrote:
| The farm my father bought in rural Ohio for his retirement had a
| house that started life as a basement house. It was built in the
| 50s, and the basement had a kitchen, full bath, a very nice
| fireplace, and a few other rooms. Plus the garage. The ground
| floor basically re-did it all. My father's theory was that they
| did the basement first, then built the rest of the house later. I
| hadn't realized such a thing was common.
| djvdq wrote:
| > Growing vegetables on what should be a lawn is verboten in many
| locations, if not by the government than by private association
| bylaws.
|
| So again, USA is country with most freedom? Freedom(tm), but you
| can't grow vegetables on your own property. Or you will be
| punished for having too long grass. Lmao
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I specifically chose my neighborhood based on the HOA. I like
| that every yard has a lawn and that I don't have to listen to
| neighbors chickens. I like knowing no one is allowed to paint
| giant murals on the siding or drill for oil on their front
| lawn.
|
| The only way to guarantee things like this don't happen is with
| some sort of rules in place.
|
| If that means I hate freedom, oh well.
| aftbit wrote:
| I wish lawns produced something useful. Half of the grass
| clippings in my neighborhood end up going out with the trash
| on Monday night. If only they could be used to produce food
| or fuel locally.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think HOAs are an elegant way to segregate the population
| into "people who want to live under HOAs" and "people who
| would hate to live under HOAs".
|
| Nobody is likely to be happy when these two groups have to
| live next to each other, so it's an elegant solution to sort
| the population into more compatible subsets. Everybody wins.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Also helps with those diversity problems... keeping "them"
| out whoever "they" happen to be at this time in history.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| What the author is describing are rules of homeowner's
| associations and other similar organizations.
|
| Individuals _freely_ enter agreements with homeowner 's
| associations which dictate land use. One is also free to choose
| to live in a place not governed by these rules. But, they are
| not the law of the land and they do not implicate a lack of
| freedom in the U.S. relative to other countries. Its quite
| silly to suggest as much.
| philips wrote:
| A problem I have with HOAs is that towns and Counties will
| often invest significantly in new construction areas that
| have HOAs from initial development. The government builds new
| parks, schools, etc directly adjacent to HOA neighborhoods.
| If you want close access to these public amenities you need
| to buy in the HOA.
|
| So, in a way HOAs are sort of endorsed/franchised by the
| towns and counties which create them.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| There are some issues with the word "freely" because in many
| cities all new construction is HOA-encumbered. So you have
| the choice between new construction with an HOA and old
| (quite possibly run-down) and no HOA. That's not a free
| choice, it's Hobson's choice.
|
| It's about as free as entering into an arbitration agreement.
| You freely decide to get yourself a cellphone or credit card,
| and there aren't any on the market where you don't have to
| sign your rights away. It approaches shrinkwrap license
| territory.
| rdtwo wrote:
| The HOA is used by the developer to retain control while
| they sell off all the new construction. They can milk it
| for fees because they have controlling interest
| djvdq wrote:
| Simple question - if you want to leave HOA and after that
| grow vegetables, can you do that? If not - it has nothing to
| do with freedom. It's only propaganda of having the most
| freedom when citizens of a lot of "non free" countries (by
| American standards) will laugh at your absurds.
|
| I'm not saying USA is not free country - of course you are
| free. I'm only saying that telling that you have the most
| freedom is at least funny.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| > if you want to leave HOA and after that grow vegetables,
| can you do that?
|
| No. The contract you freely enter into governs this. This
| is sort of like asking, "Can I decide not to pay you, per
| our contract, after you've rendered services?" No. And that
| restraint doesn't make me "less free". Not by any common
| understanding of the word "freedom", anyway.
|
| The U.S. has some 300+ million citizens. I'm not sure we
| can make monolithic statements about how each of us views
| the relative freedom of our country. Personally, I wouldn't
| know how to make such a comparison. However, I strongly
| suspect we're "more free" than, say, a person living in
| Iran.
| pvg wrote:
| "most freedom" is a thing you brought up yourself to start
| a silly flamewar. This stuff is in the guidelines:
|
| _Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and
| generic tangents._
|
| _Be kind. Don 't be snarky. Have curious conversation;
| don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't
| sneer, including at the rest of the community._
| rvba wrote:
| Looking at the /r/fuckhoa subreddit it seems that those
| homeovner associations are on level of North Korea and
| Soviet Russia - someone can come to your property (didnt
| happen in Eastern Europe even during communism), spy on
| you, fine you for not parking your car at the garage, fine
| you 500 dollars for putting a motorcycle outside your
| house, fine you for having drapes of different color, fine
| you for having a dog... and many more.
|
| I cant figure out how this works in a country with more
| guns than people. If those egomaniac HOA people enter
| someone's property - wont they get shot?
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I received two letters recently from my HOA:
|
| 1. Trash can was outside more than 24 hours after trash
| pickup. Do it again and you'll be fined.
|
| 2. Outdoor Christmas lights in a tree more than 30 days
| after Christmas. Remove within 10 days or get fined.
| Those lights have been there for years from the previous
| owners. I never turn them on and just ignore them. Well,
| they are gone now.
| macinjosh wrote:
| > I cant figure out how this works in a country with more
| guns than people. If those egomaniac HOA people enter
| someone's property - wont they get shot?
|
| 1. This is just bigotry. You have been fed lies from
| culture and the media about what American's with guns are
| like. The vast, vast majority of gun-owning Americans are
| responsible and level-headed. Despite what most people
| gather from the news and pop culture people don't just
| take potshots at people entering their property.
|
| 2. People enter into these associations _voluntarily_.
| People who start to complain about the rules after
| agreeing to them just didn't read anything they were
| agreeing to. And no, this is not fine print. Every HOA
| I've been a part of provides a binder and a website with
| all the info you need to make the right choice.
|
| 3. Freedom, including gun and home ownership, are about
| personal responsibility. It is an important cultural
| value in the US and I understand that it is not something
| that is valued elsewhere. Which is why people like you
| end up so confused.
| Merad wrote:
| I'm going to assume you aren't American, because it
| sounds like you're working off of some fairly skewed
| views of the country. The vast majority of gun owners are
| pretty much normal people who don't want to shoot anyone
| for any reason. The vast majority of HoA's are not
| overbearing or crazy. The Venn diagram of "crazy gun
| owners willing to shoot anyone on their property" and
| "over the top HoA's" is going to show essentially no
| overlap. The former almost always live in rural areas and
| the latter are usually found in upper class suburban
| neighborhoods.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| > it seems that those homeovner associations are on level
| of North Korea and Soviet Russia
|
| The HOA is an agreement that is designed to keep a
| neighborhood from going downhill by residents parking on
| the street, or turning their yard into a parking lot, or
| from painting their house some atrocious color. As
| normally designed, they are little more than a
| codification of "don't be a jerk."
|
| The problem comes when people get involved. The sort of
| person who really, really wants to be on the governing
| board of the HOA is exactly the sort of person who should
| NEVER be allowed anywhere near a lever of power. These
| are the sorts of people who are out on the street with
| calipers to see if your lawn is over the prescribed
| length, or measuring the height of your mailbox. They
| take great joy in meddling with other people's lives, and
| they hide behind the veil of "I'm just enforcing the HOA
| contract!" to be douchemobiles.
|
| Whether this is an improvement over "either get your car
| out of your yard or I'm gonna punch you in the nose," is
| an exercise left to the reader.
| watwut wrote:
| I can assure you that places without HOA generally don't
| have all that many atrocious houses. Nor do they have
| whole yards turned into park lots.
| rdtwo wrote:
| The HOA is just a leftover flavor of Jim Crow and
| redlining. They can't legally keep blacks out but they
| can still enforce whiteness
| yurtol wrote:
| flomo wrote:
| You shouldn't take reddit creative writing seriously.
| macinjosh wrote:
| You have an incredibly narrow minded and immature view of
| freedom.
|
| Some people _like_ living in neighborhoods with these
| bylaws/HOAs. You are fully made aware of the bylaws before
| you purchase the property and you can decide for yourself
| whether or not it works for you.
|
| I live in the US and in my immediate area there are
| neighborhoods without these bylaws, some with, and there is
| even agricultural use land mixed in. So if you don't like
| the places with the bylaws there are many other options. In
| the US you have the freedom to choose among many different
| ways of life.
|
| Freedom isn't about being able to do whatever you want,
| wherever you want, at anyone's expense. It is about being
| able to find and construct a life that makes you and those
| around you happy. The _only_ way to do that is to not have
| one over-bearing set of rules (even if the rule is there
| are no rules), but to allow people to voluntarily set up
| their own systems of rules in their own communities.
| djvdq wrote:
| > In the US you have the freedom to choose among many
| different ways of life.
|
| So... like in almost any other country in the world.
| iamevn wrote:
| Unsure is the emphasis on "freely" is sarcasm but people
| absolutely don't have freedom when it comes to accepting HOA
| terms. If the house you can get has a shitty HOA then you're
| stuck with it. It took us dozens of offers (all well over
| asking price) before we finally had one that got through and
| there's no way we'd be able to be picky about HOA.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| You are conflating "free choice" with options that
| perfectly align with your preferences. I made no such
| claim. You are absolutely free to not buy a house.
|
| And, I promise you, you can find a home to purchase that is
| non-HOA. It just might not be in the area that meets all of
| your other preferences. But this is your choice. This is
| not evidence of a lack of freedom. You are not coerced into
| buying any house.
| quesera wrote:
| > people absolutely don't have freedom when it comes to
| accepting HOA terms
|
| Of course they do.
|
| If you don't like income tax, move to WA. If you don't like
| sales tax, move to OR. (If you like them both, move to
| CA!). These choices have inherent compromises.
|
| If you don't like HOAs, choose a different neighborhood.
| Again, inherent compromises.
|
| But freedom of movement is guaranteed to all (non-
| incarcerated) US citizens. If you choose not to exercise
| it, that's 100% on you and your choices of prioritization.
| djvdq wrote:
| Freedom of movement is only one kind of freedom. Freedom
| of growing your own carrot on your own property is
| another.
|
| Just don't say that you Americans are more free than
| other nations. Because you are simply not.
| adventured wrote:
| And what was the point of coming into this thread and
| pushing that attack specifically at the US? The world is
| overflowing with highly regulated economies, including
| all across affluent Europe. The article didn't claim the
| US was more free than xyz, people in this thread weren't
| claiming that either. You set up a straw issue so you
| could knock it down.
|
| You're relatively new here, so here's a tip: what you're
| doing (trying to incite, posting flamebait) is
| specifically against HN's guidelines.
| quesera wrote:
| You are responding to the wrong person.
|
| And also mischaracterizing the state of things. Some HOAs
| say you must have a lawn, not a garden, in your front (or
| street-facing) yard. They do not prohibit you from
| growing carrots in your back yard. They do prohibit other
| things.
|
| I'm not a fan of HOAs. But HOAs are _voluntary
| communities_. You sign the contract, you are bound by the
| terms. That 's true in your country too.
|
| And as for American Freedom.. It's just part of the
| exceptionalism mythology. Just like the One True God, or
| the World Champions of Sport, or what have you.
| Intelligent people have a more nuanced view.
| Unintelligent people are more common, alas. And so the
| world turns...
| alistairSH wrote:
| Except for the part where nearly 70% of new development is
| within HOA-controlled subdivisions.
|
| Sure, you can avoid them if you want to live in a rural area
| or buy an older home. But almost anything in the suburbs
| built since the 1970s is in an HOA.
|
| HOAs can be good. But many of them are run by narrow minded
| petty despots. Or worse, outsourced to a corporate management
| company.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Another wrinkle is that many more areas are technically
| cities; which usually comes with rules like no bees,
| chickens, goats, etc. Yet just a block or two away and one
| could live in a township which rarely has such rules.
|
| Generally though I think your point stands, the USA is big
| enough and varied enough one can usually chose a nearby
| location which permits hobby farming.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Suppose it's the 1960s, and you want to buy something to eat.
| Your choices are "Go home and make food." and "Go to a smoke-
| filled restaurant and buy food." The choice of "Go to a non-
| smoking restaurant and buy food." doesn't exist in that
| environment, because there are no such restaurants. It would
| be silly to state that this is a free choice indicating a
| preference for smoke-filled restaurants, because there is no
| alternative that maintains the option of going to a
| restaurant.
|
| Depending on the location, the only houses available may have
| mandatory HOA membership. If the choice is "Join an HOA or
| add 30 minutes to your commute.", that isn't a free choice.
| If the choice is "Join an HOA or find a job in another
| city.", that isn't a free choice. Depending on the area,
| mandated HOA membership may be the de facto law of the land,
| even if it isn't the de jure law of the land.
|
| Choices must always be compared to their alternative, and
| using a non-existent Hobbesian state of nature as the
| alternative is overly simplistic.
| bin_bash wrote:
| That rule about vegetables I've only ever heard applied to
| front yards which on American front yards looks pretty weird
| anyways. Most of our homes have backyards where it makes a lot
| more sense to put vegetables.
|
| If you look at this article about it I think you can see why it
| would be banned: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/illegal-
| kitchen-garden_n_1687...
| [deleted]
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| There are plenty of rural areas of the US where there are
| little to no building codes. Cities and municipalities of
| course do, but if freedom to build what you want, how you want
| is desired, you can find those areas easily.
| ddoran wrote:
| A basement house featured on Zillow Gone Wild this week [1] .
| According to the same account it went sale pending after 1 day on
| the market.
|
| [1] -
| https://twitter.com/zillowgonewild/status/152662553013669478...
| kasey_junk wrote:
| "I asked why and was told that by the 1950s it was clear that the
| national economy had re-centered away from agriculture and small
| farm towns to a handful of big cities."
|
| You were told wrong by more than 30 years. The US was officially
| more urban than rural by the 1920 census but the demographic
| trend had been going on for 50 years before that.
|
| By 1900 1 in 10 Americans lived in just 5 cities (NYC, Chicago,
| Philly, St Louis & Boston).
| giantg2 wrote:
| They aren't wrong, and neither are you. Population growth was
| large in the cities due to immigration. And if you had many
| children on a farm, you couldn't divide the land for the next
| generation and still be profitable, so they had to move to
| cities. What happened from the 50s-80s were small farms being
| given up because they weren't economical.
|
| The machinery during the 50s-60s eliminated a lot of
| agricultural jobs, and drive down prices. Not just for farmers,
| but also in processing agricultural products.
| rayiner wrote:
| Note that, the census considers many "small farm towns" to be
| "urban areas." For example, Sibley, Iowa, where my wife grew
| up. It qualifies because it's population is 3,000 people (over
| the 2,500 limit the census bureau uses). But it's not what most
| people would consider to be an "urban area."
| ghaff wrote:
| I own a number of acres. One neighbor has an orchard and a
| horse pasture. Another has a Christmas tree farm. We're
| adjacent to a fairly large conservation property. We're urban
| according to the US Census. And we certainly have no
| practical way to shop by either walking or public
| transportation.
| pintxo wrote:
| This style of incremental building seems to be still in existence
| in Southern Europe.
|
| It's not uncommon to see unfinished concrete structures.
| Basically the raw skeleton often with exposed rebar at the top or
| sides, indicating future work.
|
| They may stay in this state for years. As apparently everything
| is paid in cash and so building only advances whenever the owners
| have enough at hand.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| In Spain it also related to planning permission. Once the
| building work has finished, you need to have the planning
| permission paper work in order. Therefore they often leave one
| small room unfinished (exposed on the outside wall) to claim
| work is still in progress.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I read something similar but in Egypt. Leaving the home
| unfinished avoided either taxes or planning paperwork or
| both.
| gkop wrote:
| I saw a good documentary on shell construction in South America
| as a means to improve access to home ownership, as well as to
| allow homeowners to significantly customize the homes over
| time. We don't see this much in the US but it makes sense to
| me.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Pro tip: don't build your house in a swamp. It'll sink.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Pro-pro tip: anything buried will bubble up. (re: Nola
| graveyards)
| [deleted]
| geoffeg wrote:
| > Growing vegetables on what should be a lawn is verboten in many
| locations, if not by the government than by private association
| bylaws.
|
| I'm aware that some HOAs limit (sometimes to what seems like an
| extreme) what can be done with the yard and lawn, but I wasn't
| aware of any governments that ban growing vegetables. Is that
| more common in water-restricted municipalities? (I live in
| midwestern US, where backyard gardens are very common.)
| duxup wrote:
| This is interesting/ strange to me. I grew up in the Midwest
| and a modest garden in the backyard was often the case. I've
| never heard of them being banned. I don't doubt they are some
| places.
|
| I'm sure some suburban guy decided to plow his front yard and
| be a corn farmer, but generally I find nobody minds a garden.
| iratewizard wrote:
| I've never heard of anything like that. Outside of HOAs, most
| regulations we see about the front are length of grass, what
| can and can't be done at the easement, public health issues,
| and maybe laws about invasive plant species. My wife used to
| work at a company that codified these laws, and she didn't know
| of anything either.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| My HOA defines the acceptable types of trees, plants, and
| shrubs that can be planted. I don't know if vegetables are
| restricted, but you cannot plant anything you want.
|
| This is common in colorado.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| What business does a bunch of Wikipedia admins have to rule
| what I can plant in my own backyard. Mind, I get concerns
| about invasive plants, water conservation or agricultural
| pathogens, but that's not what HOA's are usually about.
| They will tell you you can't paint your shed pink.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Wikipedia admins?
|
| I agree this restriction is ridiculous. I don't know the
| purpose except maybe to make the neighborhood all look
| the same.
| rmatt2000 wrote:
| The three sets Wikipedia admins, HOA board members, and
| Karens have an intersection with a large cardinality.
| vharuck wrote:
| My HOA prohibits any vegetable or fruit plants, except
| heirloom tomatoes. So I can guess somebody on the board has
| a particular hobby.
| yardie wrote:
| I know in Florida because of orange canker if one orange tree
| has it basically all orange trees within a 1-mile radius have
| to be destroyed. This is state law because of the orange
| produce farms lobbying.
|
| It's almost unheard of to see suburban or wild orange trees in
| south Florida anymore.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Idk we visited some folks that had oranges growing in their
| yard in a major urban area. Enforcement is probably not great
| bin_bash wrote:
| I could see front yards but not banning growing vegetable in
| back yards
| nicoburns wrote:
| I really don't se why this is a thing for front yards either.
| Growing vegetables are just as pretty as a lawn, and even if
| you don't think so, surely productive use of the land ought
| to take priority.
|
| I find it so strange that such restrictions only seem to
| exist in the US, where there is normally so much emphasis on
| individual freedom.
| Maursault wrote:
| > to filter out the riffraff who can't afford larger homes.
|
| When I was poor, I just wanted a home I could afford in a safe
| neighborhood. Now that I have money, I just want poor people to
| be homeless.
|
| /mockery
| rayiner wrote:
| Residential zoning is just so wrong. It's trendy on the left to
| say it's "racist" and it is that, but it's also classist and
| elitist and WASP supremacist (e.g. banning multigenerational
| families, which are common among both Hispanics and lower-tier
| whites).
|
| I live in a pre-zoning code suburb in Maryland. The current
| minimum lot size is 20,000 square feet. Our house and most of
| the neighboring houses are on 2,900 square foot lots. At least
| on this side of the neighborhood, nobody tattles on each other
| for doing unpermitted work. The result is real diversity and a
| tightly packed community. (Though as housing prices increase,
| our neighborhood, being so close to DC, is under threat from
| PMCs.)
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| IIRC, we call it racist without the scare-quotes because of
| it's disproportional effect. That's how that word works.
| rayiner wrote:
| > That's how that word works.
|
| Incorrect. In ordinary usage, "racism" means prejudice
| based on race. There are efforts by some to muddy its
| meaning, to encompass both racial prejudice and
| "disproportionate effect," but that's not the common usage.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _In ordinary usage, "racism" means prejudice based on
| race. There are efforts by some to muddy its meaning, to
| encompass both racial prejudice and "disproportionate
| effect," but that's not the common usage._
|
| Thank you. For some reason I've never been able to
| explain it so succinctly when two people I respect get
| into an obviously semantic argument around something
| being or not being racist and then getting lost in the
| weeds of the intentions of the long dead.
| [deleted]
| tomcam wrote:
| Felt like I read a wonderful book in 5 minutes. That was a (to my
| mind) politically neutral tour de force that captured the last
| 150 years of housing policy, grounding its thesis with
| fascinating images and writing.
| chiph wrote:
| I have a friend who lives in a rural area. He'd like to build a
| house on some land he owns that is unsuitable for farming (too
| steep) but he is unable to get a construction loan from the bank
| as they will not write a loan that is secured only by the
| property. Incremental construction might be the only way to do it
| (assuming the county will issue him a building permit that would
| span 5+ years).
|
| Being debt-free within a few years of the house being completed
| has a lot to be said for it. But when a loan payment is 80% or
| more interest at the start, that's a lot of profit for a lender
| to give up - they're not exactly going to be jumping at the
| opportunity to write those loans.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Banks don't Usually hold loans. The loans are typically
| packages and sold as bundles to institutional investors and
| banks get a cut of the deal with minimal risk. But to do that
| banks have to follow rules on what the packages look like so
| only certain products get loans and everything else isn't worth
| dealing with
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