Your mom's a HOA...

When I bought my townhouse, one of the things I liked was that the Homeowner's Association dues were cheap - around $35 a month. Other townhouse communities I looked at were in the $60-$100 a month range. Plus, the HOA didn't seem overly concerned about things - while they mentioned in the documents when I bought the house that I needed shutters around my front door, they never enforced it. I figured I had the laziest HOA around - perfect.

But there is a problem with lazy. For one thing, they don't always send me bills for dues, and when I do get them, they have late fees for not paying the bills they never sent me. I missed the last two, and the latest one came with a letter from the HOA lawyer. I guess in the future I need to just guess how much I owe (dues include water and common area utilities, so they aren't a fixed amount) and send them a check every three months.

And yesterday, I got a letter in my mailbox about violations I need to correct... including the shutters around the door, plus the back gutters on my house are loose.

The gutters do need to be done, although I hate having to take another day off from work to get it done. Luckily, bsom had them done recently, so I figure I can just use whoever he used. It would be nice to get gutter helmets installed.

I have no idea how to install shutters, or who to have install them - it's not like there's a listing for shutter hangers in the phone book. (Well, maybe there is - I haven't checked, and I'm not even sure where my phone book is). Supposedly, they are in my attic - which doesn't have an actual floor, so I'm a little leery about going up there.

I've heard a lot of people grumble about HOAs, and I've always said "well, mine's OK". Well, that's not really true anymore, and if I ever buy another house, I'd probably look for one without a HOA. I don't know that I would avoid one because of a HOA, but if it came down to two similar houses and one had one and the other didn't, I'd definitely go with the latter.