Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 04:50:49 AM
According to some (including a former poster here), I'm now the center of all that is evil and wrong in the world today.
So, to keep up everyone's expectations, I immediately disbanded the rest of the board and seized the property of all immigrants in the community.
It's going to be a good year...
Post by: El Tejon on March 28, 2006, 04:55:50 AM
Did you confiscate the crops of the peasants and force them to eat the bark and leaves of the trees so you could sell the crops for tanks and missles?
Keep up the good work. As long as you ban hilljacks from parking on their lawns, send notices about leaving trash cans out overnight and send the secret police out after people who leave Christmas lights out after January 6th, I will support whatever crimes, er, I mean reforms you institute. Power to the Soviets!
Na Zapat,
Mech Stalina, Barsook
Post by: RevDisk on March 28, 2006, 04:59:52 AM
Post by: mtnbkr on March 28, 2006, 05:04:44 AM
El T, like most communists, he's a hypocrite, he comes to my house (different HOA) to change his oil rather than doing it in his own parking space (mumbling something about setting an example, Lord knows what example that is...). In retaliation, I'm going to park my truck on his postage stamp front yard (it'll cover every inch). I should've kept the Nissan for that task though, not only is it ugly, it leaks several fluids. Perfect for white trash photo ops.
Chris
Post by: Scout26 on March 28, 2006, 05:05:50 AM
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 05:08:12 AM
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 05:11:29 AM
I change my oil in your driveway because anything I spill actually adds to the protective coating that the Altima laid down.
I'd not care one whit if you were to park your truck on my lawn.
Except....
that you'd have to park on top of my Japanese Maple tree.
No one, under any circumstances, EFFS with my Japanese Maple.
"mumbling something about setting an example, Lord knows what example that is..."
Actually, the example I'm setting is the example that I don't have a driveway. My parking lot is association property, and no, there are no car repairs or maintenance on association property. That's one thing I actually agree with. I find it to be just inconvenient as all hell, but I agree with it.
Chris' driveway, on the other hand, is HIS driveway. It's not HOA property.
But let's be completely honest...
The reason I change my oil at his place?
Why not do my work in the barrio, and leave the upscale communities, such as mine, looking nice and neat and proper...
Post by: mtnbkr on March 28, 2006, 05:19:31 AM
Quote
send the secret police out after people who leave Christmas lights out after January 6th
That's my wife's pet peeve. Personally, I have better things to worry about, but my wife, being a stay at home mom, spends her time watching TV and eating bon bons.
Chris
Post by: Brad Johnson on March 28, 2006, 05:23:34 AM
Brad
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 05:30:56 AM
Post by: charby on March 28, 2006, 05:31:47 AM
Quote from: El Tejon
Keep up the good work. As long as you ban hilljacks from parking on their lawns, send notices about leaving trash cans out overnight and send the secret police out after people who leave Christmas lights out after January 6th, I will support whatever crimes, er, I mean reforms you institute. Power to the Soviets!
sounds like target practice for the Irwin Red Army that will be invading your HOA in the near future.Take no pink flamingos or yard globes prisoner.
Actually shooting out (PC Alert) late December lights sounds like fun.
C
Post by: RevDisk on March 28, 2006, 05:35:57 AM
Quote from: mtnbkr
You were the center of all that's evil before you became dictator, I mean President, for life...
El T, like most communists, he's a hypocrite, he comes to my house (different HOA) to change his oil rather than doing it in his own parking space (mumbling something about setting an example, Lord knows what example that is...). In retaliation, I'm going to park my truck on his postage stamp front yard (it'll cover every inch). I should've kept the Nissan for that task though, not only is it ugly, it leaks several fluids. Perfect for white trash photo ops.
Chris
You dare speak of the Glorious Leader like that? Counterrevolutionary scum! The Glorious Leader was honouring your house, and you dare threaten his Japanese Maple tree? If you beg for mercy, perhaps you will be let off easy with a few decades in the gulags. The Glorious Leader is merciful, as well as wise and victorious. All hail the Glorious Leader!
El T, like most communists, he's a hypocrite, he comes to my house (different HOA) to change his oil rather than doing it in his own parking space (mumbling something about setting an example, Lord knows what example that is...). In retaliation, I'm going to park my truck on his postage stamp front yard (it'll cover every inch). I should've kept the Nissan for that task though, not only is it ugly, it leaks several fluids. Perfect for white trash photo ops.
Chris
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 05:38:50 AM
When I become emperor, your death will be quick and painless.
Post by: mtnbkr on March 28, 2006, 05:41:36 AM
Chris
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 05:45:15 AM
Post by: mtnbkr on March 28, 2006, 05:49:41 AM
Chris
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 05:55:14 AM
It truly makes me shudder to think of the people with whom I associated before I became the exaulted leader.
I'll have to have the historians do a little "adjustment" on the official record. Stalin had the right idea. If someone pisses you off, eliminate their existence...
Post by: El Tejon on March 28, 2006, 06:20:21 AM
Mech Irwinova!
Post by: mtnbkr on March 28, 2006, 06:31:08 AM
Quote
you only need two people to cook a cassoulet, and my secret police are many in number
True, but we saw how much you could put away, you'll need legions to maintain that pace...Quote
what is mine is mine, what is yours, we share!
Been talking to my daughter?Chris
Post by: El Tejon on March 28, 2006, 06:32:45 AM
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 06:56:07 AM
The only mortal that the exaulted, great, magnificent, beloved leader fears...
Post by: charby on March 28, 2006, 07:07:26 AM
Post by: Jamisjockey on March 28, 2006, 07:10:12 AM
I'm going to hijack this thread!
Hey mtnbkr:
Aren't you in Manassas?
coupla q's for ya:
Firstly, what zips are good to live in there? Any areas to stay away from?
From afar it looks like the market is tanking out there. What's the reality on the ground?
Also, not directly related to your area, per se.....
If one were to buy some land within about 3 hours or so....recreational hunting/fishing/cabin type land....what areas would one look at? Just morbid curiousity.
Back on topic....HOA's are communist organizations, but you know its there when you move in, so I've no sympathy. Its like buying from Walmart and then complaing about outsourcing....or driving a lifted SUV and complaining about the cost of gas.
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 07:23:51 AM
Spoken truly as someone who has no concept about how HOAs are organized or run.
So sorry, try again.
And, if you're planning on moving to Northern Virginia, good luck in avoiding HOAs.
Post by: charby on March 28, 2006, 07:28:33 AM
Quote from: Mike Irwin
"HOA's are communist organizations"
Spoken truly as someone who has no concept about how HOAs are organized or run.
So sorry, try again.
And, if you're planning on moving to Northern Virginia, good luck in avoiding HOAs.
I used to think the same thing until I moved in to my current neighborhood, junked cars in people's backyards, mobile home added on to to make a house, things like that that make the neighborhood look like crap. HOA aren't a bunch of Nazis they are a organization that sets up standards for how the neighboor/development will look, etc. These rules can be all sorts of levels, not all HOA are the same. Spoken truly as someone who has no concept about how HOAs are organized or run.
So sorry, try again.
And, if you're planning on moving to Northern Virginia, good luck in avoiding HOAs.
Charby
Post by: Jamisjockey on March 28, 2006, 07:40:35 AM
Quote from: Mike Irwin
"HOA's are communist organizations"
Spoken truly as someone who has no concept about how HOAs are organized or run.
So sorry, try again.
And, if you're planning on moving to Northern Virginia, good luck in avoiding HOAs.
Its more of a nasty comment just for the sake of being nasty. In reality, HOA's are more of a republic. Officals are appointed/voted in, and then they pass and enforce rules in a representitive fashion. Does that come a little closer'?Spoken truly as someone who has no concept about how HOAs are organized or run.
So sorry, try again.
And, if you're planning on moving to Northern Virginia, good luck in avoiding HOAs.
I don't like people having bushes growing onto the sidewalk, and 1978 Camaros on blocks leaking oil onto the driveway one bit. I do, however, believe in private property rights. But alas, if the HOA is there and one moves in...tough dookie.....
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 07:53:07 AM
In Virginia, the HOA structure most closely resembles a representative republic form of government. The powers accorded to HOAs in many ways closely match those accorded to other forms of government in the Commonwealth.
The biggest challenge facing many HOAs is not an out-of-control board ruling the community as its own personal feifdom, it's getting enough people actually interested in participating in the community to the point where it can function at a practical and a legal level.
That's what has faced my HOA for years. We had a core group of people who did everything. We did have a bookkeeper who took some of the financial pressure off, but running even a small community without employees or major infrastructure was time consuming and extremely frustrating.
Getting enough people to attend the annual meetings was a challenge. That's one day a year. Getting people to volunteer to be on the architectural review, grounds, contracts, and other committees? You'd have more success doing brain surgery on yourself.
The one thing that people could do, would do, did do, and in fact loved to do?
BITCH.
At the top of their lungs, bitch about what a horrible job the board was doing. OK, Mr. XXX, you have some pretty strong opinions on what the board is and isn't doing, how about standing for election or serving on one of the committees?
"WHAT??? I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT! I'M A BUSY MAN!"
Last year's annual meeting was a perfect example. The board was ambushed by several owners who decided that they didn't like the pine trees growing behind their properties, and had been demanding that the board remove healthy pine trees that have been there for decades, which quickly devolved into a general screed about the amount of money the board was allocating on trees and grounds in general. It was extremely ugly.
Several of the biggest whiners were essentially forced to sign up to form a grounds committee that would survey and make recommendations to the board about the grounds. The board gave them a very clear mandate of what it was to do. The chair of the committee was hugely gung-ho, and promised a report to the HOA board by August.
At that point, the committee collapsed. The biggest whiners didn't go to committee meetings, the chair apparently alienated other members. August came and went. We told the chair that in order to allocate money to address major concerns posed by the grounds committee we would have to have the report by December 1, which put a serious crimp in the Board's budget process.
We finally, in FEBRUARY, got a largely unintelligible, 4-page report that met NONE of the mandate that the board had give them at the annual meeting.
It's a good thing that the report was such a complete and total flop, because the board had approved the 2006 budget months before, and there was no way to go back and reallocate funds.
At the annual meeting last month? The people who were most vocal about the trees and the horrible job that the board was doing? Think they could be bothered to come? *expletive deleted*it no.
To anyone who thinks that HOAs are nothing more than communistic organization incarnate, I submit this to you...
The bad HOAs, the ones you hear about, the MINORITY of HOAs that garner the majority of the attention (sounds like bad stories about guns, right?), the ones that are abusive of their power?
They generally all have something very, very important in common...
The board of directors didn't seize power and declare itself to be the ruling junta.
The indolence, ignorance, laziness, and disinterest of the HOA members ALLOWED those boards to turn bad.
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 07:56:21 AM
I do have to wonder about this statement, though...
"I do, however, believe in private property rights."
What makes you think that you don't have rights of private property in an HOA?
If you are, however, talking about having the "right" to have a car up on blocks on your property, what makes you think that you actually do have that right at the expense of the rights of your neighbors to live in a community free of such eyesores, and their rights to be free of encumberances to the value of their property?
Post by: Harold Tuttle on March 28, 2006, 08:12:52 AM
Make sure there is no outdoor drying of laundry in your dominion.
That which is quaint in Lancaster for the Amish, is an abomination before the Board in WDC.
Molon Lawnball!
Post by: mtnbkr on March 28, 2006, 08:20:01 AM
Quote from: JamisJockey
Hijack!
Hey mtnbkr:
Aren't you in Manassas?
coupla q's for ya:
Firstly, what zips are good to live in there? Any areas to stay away from?
From afar it looks like the market is tanking out there. What's the reality on the ground?
Also, not directly related to your area, per se.....
If one were to buy some land within about 3 hours or so....recreational hunting/fishing/cabin type land....what areas would one look at? Just morbid curiousity.
Yes.Hey mtnbkr:
Aren't you in Manassas?
coupla q's for ya:
Firstly, what zips are good to live in there? Any areas to stay away from?
From afar it looks like the market is tanking out there. What's the reality on the ground?
Also, not directly related to your area, per se.....
If one were to buy some land within about 3 hours or so....recreational hunting/fishing/cabin type land....what areas would one look at? Just morbid curiousity.
Dunno. One, I don't keep track of that sort of thing and two, it's hard to classify by zip because until you get into the higher end housing market, middle class neighborhoods (at least the townhomes, but sometimes the single family units) are interspersed with low-income housing. My own neighborhood is a good example. While my neighborhood is solidly middleclass in makeup and mentality, just 100yds up the road from me is Georgetown South, a true "hood" if there ever was one. For a family, I'd check out Fairfax Co (not Alexandria though), Loudoun Co (especially South Riding, Leesburg and Ashburn), and to a lesser extent Prince William Co (more for the lower cost of housing than any measure of quality).
I don't know if the market is tanking or not. It's slowing down, but prices haven't started to decline yet. You're still looking at a minimum of $350k for a decent townhome and $500k for a house. Those are Prince William/Manassas prices. Add $100k for Loudoun Co and probably more for Fairfax. Condos and Co-Ops are less expensive, but if you hate HOAs, you'll hate Condos/Co-Ops even more.
Land for hunting/fishing? Check out the Shenandoah Valley. Especially if you can find a parcel near the National Forest. About 7 years ago, I saw a 100acre parcel within spitting distance of the George Washington NF go for around $90k. That was less than 1.5hrs from my current home. 3hrs from NoVa puts you into Wv as well. A friend bought a place in Wardensville (other side of mtn from the parcel I mentioned above) with pool, DSL availability, 5 acres bording the NF, etc for about $250k, IIRC. Some of the NoVa "fringe" counties are pretty rural still. You might get the land for hunting/fishing AND a home for less than the cost of buying both separately. Faquier County and Stafford County are examples. Move quick though because that too is changing. The Yuppies are discovering country living and are building McMansions and Country Clubs in those places. They ruined Haymarket a few years ago (no HOAs when my friend moved there, but that changed before he left). I hear Nokesville is becoming gentry-fried as well.
Chris
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 08:24:47 AM
No. I drive around in a tank shelling the hell out of peons who dare question my authority.
Post by: RevDisk on March 28, 2006, 08:48:22 AM
Quote from: Harold Tuttle
Do you have a stainless steel clip board and a GPS walkie talkie system so you can make proper inspections?
Make sure there is no outdoor drying of laundry in your dominion.
That which is quaint in Lancaster for the Amish, is an abomination before the Board in WDC.
Molon Lawnball!
Hey, I happen to live in Lancaster. We have enough problems with marauding Amish drug rings. And I'd like to see a dyer invented yet that can properly dry out quilts or other heavy cloth without doing damage. Plus the electric bill ain't exactly cheap, even with the megawatts put out by Three Mile Island.Make sure there is no outdoor drying of laundry in your dominion.
That which is quaint in Lancaster for the Amish, is an abomination before the Board in WDC.
Molon Lawnball!
Quote
No. I drive around in a tank shelling the hell out of peons who dare question my authority.
The Glorious Leader is indeed merciful, as well as wise and victorious.
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 08:56:22 AM
If it's not a 120mm smoothbore, it ain't crap!
Why is this suddenly sounding like the 9mm-45 auto wars?
The only problem with drying laundry in my back yard is that I have overhanging trees and birds with good aim.
Post by: Gewehr98 on March 28, 2006, 09:48:33 AM
Was there ever a resolution concerning the HOA in Jupiter, Florida that took a lein out on the former Marine (George Andres) who wouldn't take his non-HOA approved flagpole and flag down? I remember Jeb Bush promising to foot the bill for his legal defense, but things went quiet after that.
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 09:59:10 AM
That was in Jupiter, Florida...
Post by: grampster on March 28, 2006, 11:44:54 AM
Post by: Brad Johnson on March 28, 2006, 01:08:40 PM
Quote
No. I drive around in a tank shelling the hell out of peons who dare question my authority.
Respect my authorita!Brad
Post by: Justin on March 28, 2006, 01:12:54 PM
Quote
No one, under any circumstances, EFFS with my Japanese Maple.
This needs to be a line in a movie. Preferably uttered by Christopher Walken or Gary Busey.
Post by: SADShooter on March 28, 2006, 01:18:41 PM
Post by: K Frame on March 28, 2006, 03:30:57 PM
I needed a set of heads for bookends, and those two will do nicely. Only problem is it's getting DAMNED expensive to get heads shrunk. I don't care what they say about illegal immigrants, there just ain't enough Yanomani shamen to go around anymore!
Post by: grampster on March 28, 2006, 05:11:54 PM
Quick, look behind you!
Post by: Iain on March 29, 2006, 12:45:20 AM
Quote from: Mike Irwin
The indolence, ignorance, laziness, and disinterest of the HOA members ALLOWED those boards to turn bad.
We get the government we deserve. Perhaps the other members deserve Mr Irwin like I deserve Mr Blair.
Post by: tyme on March 29, 2006, 02:56:57 PM
Post by: Iain on March 29, 2006, 10:37:44 PM
Post by: K Frame on March 30, 2006, 05:14:19 AM
Lots of people talking very loud and very fast and very heatedly and not a lot getting done.
Post by: Iain on March 30, 2006, 05:42:16 AM
Post by: bermbuster on March 30, 2006, 05:47:04 AM
Quote from: Mike Irwin
Actually, a session of Parliament looks a LOT like the BS that went on at our last two annual meetings...
Lots of people talking very loud and very fast and very heatedly and not a lot getting done.
Every annual meeting I have ever attended was like that.
Lots of people talking very loud and very fast and very heatedly and not a lot getting done.
Post by: K Frame on March 30, 2006, 05:55:45 AM
2 years ago the gloves came off in a big way, and it was unfortunately precipitated by the wife of a board member (who couldn't be there due to illness). She came loaded for bear because she doesn't like the large pine trees that are on community property behind her house and has been demanding for years that we take them down with association money. Isn't going to happen. Those trees were there when she bought the house. The only way we remove trees is if they are either an imminent hazard or if they are diseased.
Once she got started, the other people at the meeting smelled blood in the water and it got ugly fast. That's why the grounds committee was set up in the first place.
Post by: roo_ster on March 31, 2006, 06:24:15 PM
Not all are compulsory.
Our HOA is voluntary and costs us $10/year.
Money well spent.