HOA, HOA, HOA… And Now The Rest of Story

As if this blog is becoming the CNN of Homeowners Associations (aka HOAs), I felt a little more compelled to add my two cents since it arrives from a different perspective, and, unfortunately, a different outcome. This one involved boisterous altercations, parking stickers, and the police, as well as one restraining order to be issued sometime within the next 24-48 hours.


I’m the HOA president of our community in Silver Spring (yes, boo hiss, I’m a suburbanite), and arrived at that designation by attrition, and, somewhat, by lack of interest by other board members. I ran for the board at the edging of my wife, but also a heartfelt desire to help improve the community, and give the perspective of a new resident on the board (at the time, I had been a resident for less than 6 months). I ran, which included a personal statement, as well as going door to door to try and talk to the residents in our mixed housing community of single-family homes and townhomes.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
I arrived at the restraining order against one of our residents due to an issue regarding parking regulations, much like the post by Don, where we were attempting to enforce a non-commercial provision in our bylaws. Besides our work vans, we get cabbies and other commercial trucks parking both on the county road (allowed) and the private cul-du-sacs (prohibited). Unfortunately, during an evening where some parking violation stickers were applied, one happened to land on the window of, what I consider now, a very paranoid resident.


The first message I got was an e-mail from our community manager (a private firm we contract to do the books and other coordination) asking who stickered a black SUV. As I didn’t sticker an SUV, and black one regardless, I figured the van that was stickered moved the sticker. So the following evening it was restickered. Only then did I receive a call from the resident (I believe in public information to communicate among residents) already heated from discovering a sticker again. She wanted an apology, even after I explained what rule was being enforced and why, and that she was not singled out as she claimed. She wondered why we couldn’t enforce other things in the community (which we do) and some other odd items, which I also said we are in the process of reviewing and fixing.


From then, explicitives ensured from her and a threat to sue was issued by her towards myself and the HOA. Regardless, when she showed up on a early Sunday morning at my door (already rousted awake by her incessant knocking), I had but to show up in a T-shirt and boxers a the door to answer. Besides the sneer of “oh, how classy”, the same tirade was launched again by her, and my same response ensured. She said she’d show up at the next HOA meeting (which she never did).


Today, this Saturday, and ambush of sorts was launched by her, which included seeing my wife and I leave the house for an errand, me stopping by the mailbox, not recognizing at first, and once again, and again, hearing the same comments from her regarding her sticker (this is about 3 months after the event). I replied in the same and walked away towards my house and wife. At that point she started launching a tirade at my wife, including saying that she was my “trophy wife” (yes, we snickered about it later.. we live in a townhouse for goodness sake), which my wife asked for clarification on from her. As my wife turned away, and another HOA board member showed up (my next door Russian neighbor), I told her again about her vehicles and that they were classified as commercial by the manufacturer, and at that point, i felt and heard a loud slap as she whacked me across the left side of my face with her right hand.


She did what?!


She stood back and challenged my “what are you going to do big HOA president”. I stood there, mainly in shock, but also trying to figure out in my head what to do next. At that point my wife called me back to the house, and was going in to call the police. My neighbor tried to calm her down, and said he smelled alcohol on her breath. She then made fun of his Russian-affected pronunciation of the word alcohol. Which I turned to her and said “he smells alcohol on your breath, have you been drinking?”. With that she yelled some more explicitives and stormed away. The remaining folks talked about what happened (confirmed we had witnesses), the police came, I filed a report…and saddled off on our errand, but included a not-so quick stop at the Rockville’s County Commissioners Office (and jail) to file a “Peace Order” (Mont. Co.’s version of a restraining order). Four hours and two depositions later, there is a Sheriff on the prowl to issue the paperwork for that order to a resident. I decided for the order to avoid pressing charges, which, irregardless of this being an HOA matter, I was in my right to do.


Once thing for folks to take away from this is, for me, even as a volunteer, don’t expect everybody to think that your work is appreciated. We’ve had larger issues to contend with recently, including vandalism and more seriously, a spate of car break-ins and thefts from the street I live on. We’ve been pursuing those ex-parte from our normal duties as HOA board members. Why, because we take an interest in the safety of the community (I even walked notices door to door when the first theft occurred over a month ago). So, HOA Boards are not the evil that you may always think, and take crap from folks who may be off the deep-end (including our crazy garden lady), just to try to help.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Computer Geek, Music Junkie, Movie Fanatic, Beer Aficionado, Part-Time Amateur Photographer… Amélie has lived in D.C. off-and-on for the past 23 years, always calling the National Capitol region her home. She’s also probably one of those types of odd-folks with realms of useless trivia you’d like to have on your side during a pub quiz.

Comments are closed.