Regular readers may remember that I am still on the Board of Directors for my Condo’s HOA. Earlier this week we got the summary of letters that were mailed out to various owners (for whatever by-laws they were violating ). There was only [...]]]>

Looks like I may be getting out just in time!

Regular readers may remember that I am still on the Board of Directors for my Condo’s HOA. Earlier this week we got the summary of letters that were mailed out to various owners (for whatever by-laws they were violating ). There was only one. It was about busted pipes causing a leak. My first thought was — These buildings are only 7 years old… pipes should not be busted already!!!

Come to find out yesterday….. he owner of that unit ran off with a guy in October… and no one knows where she is. The heat was left off… and you can guess the rest! (Oh and she left her car too!)

So now I am worried that if she has been gone since October… has she been making her mortgage payments? Will her unit be getting foreclosed on soon?

Crazy!

I hope my condo sells fast…. I am way past ready to be gone from here!

I knew the HOA meeting last month went too smoothly. It was actually the best one ever!Anyway aside from BOD members (of which I am still one:P) 4 owners showed, including resigned BOD member (hereafter referred to as B). She was actually quiet throughout most of the meeting as we did our [...]]]>

And the fun continues…

I knew the HOA meeting last month went too smoothly. It was actually the best one ever!
Anyway aside from BOD members (of which I am still one:P) 4 owners showed, including resigned BOD member (hereafter referred to as B). She was actually quiet throughout most of the meeting as we did our business. Then at open forum time, she walked up to the BOD table and presented a list of 2 car license plat numbers that she said always parked in the same spot, she indicated 1 had expired plates and one had out-of-state plates (i guess in her mind it is a crime to have out of state plates !?) Anyway the Property manager indicated that she had Parking violation notices that she would give us and we could take care of this ourselves.

BOD member indicated she knew the owners of one of the cars and that she would followup, and the next day I figured out which car with out of state plates was being targeted, and indicated that the car does get driven, and I knew which building the owner lived in (so it was not a BOD issue anymore).

FF to this morning… the outside buzzer to my unit starts ringing at 5:20 am! ( I did not answer … I was up but was no where near ready to head out and was on a tight schedule to catch my MARC.)

BOD member caught up to me at MARC station a bout a half hour later….and indicates the following…

She was walking her dog this morning and noticed a towing notice on one of the cars (the one for the owners that she knows, not out-of-state plates)! She asked me if I put it there. I said no. She said it must have been B. I said well it could have been B’s friend. BOD member said no, B’s friend does not have a printer… this was a printed notice (as opposed to a professional form).

So now we need to go around and put out notices that these actions are not being taken by the BOD and are not approved by us! The property manger is sending the towing company an auth form which indicates who exactly can contact them about HOA related towing.

B is a complete B*tch and total hypocrite. She resigned from the BOD in March with the statement that she is too busy to be on the BOD, but she is walking around scoping out license plates and picking up used condoms! Oh and the best part… she doesn’t even live in the community. She used to , but moved about 4 years ago. Her and her husband do own a unit (not the one they lived in) where her elderly Aunt lives. B likes to go around making crap up so that she can send out violation letters… she wanted to send someone a letter because they keep their blinds pulled up all the way to the top, a few residents wanted to put stepping stones in as a path to their front units.. B was forcibly opposed and it was ultimately denied. Guess who ended up putting stepping stones in that led to her back unit ? Yep B! When I questioned it she said grass wasn’t growing there and the (old )Management Company gave her permission… well the Mgmt company is not the one who gives permission for stuff like that… its the BOD.

Fallout from this should be fun!

Before we did this we were told by the new Mgmt Co that regular owners should not notice any trouble and the only difference would be improved service! We (BOD members) were mainly concerned with owners being able to use the [...]]]>

The property manager didn’t want to give them to her (which was [...]]]>

Remember this fun post?

Well the implosion is complete! Way back in August a new person that was also questioning the way some things were being done joined the board are started requesting all kinds of documents….

The property manager didn’t want to give them to her (which was a huge red flag for me!) The HOA is paying this company for a service and they don’t want to answer our questions? Unacceptable! (Oh – and this property manager is completely incompetent – she creates work orders for building sthat don’t exist, she mailed out a meeting notice for a BOD meeting at my house where she spelled my name wrong and included the wrong address (another building that doesn’t exist).)

Around September I started asking for hard numbers/costs associated to a website that the mgmt company secured for us, but that no one was really using. They never provided the costs, and gave me some really odd graphs to try and indicate how may owners were using the website. I kept asking through November with no response. So then I did my Who Is search ( thanks UMBC — this is one thing that I actually learned there and still use today!) and found the technical contact for the company hosting the website ( they also made the software that was running on the site). I then asked “Do you have any canned reports for this website that I can run to see how many people are using the site?’ Reply “Yes, they are accessible from your site and you have access to them!” !!! Another red flag to me in regards to Mgmt Co, hiding info!

I ran the reports and found that aside from 3 members of the board no one was using it….needless to say we discontinued the website maintenance costs (they were charging us some outrageous amount to maintain the site, but the info on the site was over 2 years old!)

But because the Mgmt Co never game me the invoices for the costs associated to the website, I opened a BBB complaint against them

After that 1 board member wanted me removed from the board (oh yeah I was President at this time ), but the other 3 ( including the person that joined back in Aug who really pushed for me to stay) went with the option to only remove me as President !

After a meeting last March – The 1 board member resigned, and 2 of the other 3 are moving next month!

So now the Mgmt co has been ignoring me and the August person. Needless to say we terminated their contract with our HOA last night!

Woohoo!

Verizon may suck at customer service, but they sure can grow grass!

My subdivision is moving forward with FIOS installation and Verizon (or its Contractors ) has been doing work overthe past few weeks. They needed to do some digging and then re-seeded to replace the grass. This picture shows the results, lots of grass is [...]]]>

Last night I had an HOA meeting… and Verizon (contractors) came to make their FIOS Presentation! Board voted to proceed. Looks like Verizon needs to survey the site to find the best way to get FIOS into the buildings. 2 options – 1 terminal mounted to the side of each building [...]]]>

One step closer to FIOS!!

Last night I had an HOA meeting… and Verizon (contractors) came to make their FIOS Presentation! Board voted to proceed. Looks like Verizon needs to survey the site to find the best way to get FIOS into the buildings. 2 options – 1 terminal mounted to the side of each building OR 1 terminal in each unit, located in the storage closet. The issue with option 2 is that if you are on the 3rd floor, you need the owners of the units directly below you to grant Verizon access to their storage closet, even if they do not want the service. The issue with option 1 is that with every unit that signs on for FIOS sharing the same terminal there is decreased speed.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out.