this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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Lefty Memes
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You're correct in that you never said they were immigrants. You said they were a family living 10 people to a two bedroom and running a restaurant that sells food out the window. This is an extremely common immigration tactic, and doesn't occur much outside of that scenario, but okay I will withdraw my assumption. The rest, however, remains the same. These people weren't stealing cars, they weren't stealing anything from anyone. Their water use wasn't stealing. Their water use didn't take water out of your house and it didn't adversely affect anyone or anything aside from a poorly planned HOA water monitoring system. Like you said, these units are owned primarily by single owners. Why shouldn't they have individual meters? $180 a month is a miserable HOA fee and a high water bill for a single person in a condo alone as well. I don't know why they'd have to pay for their own meter or monitoring service, that's never been the case anywhere I've ever lived, but I'm positive they saved money in the long run assuming the HOA reflected the change in their monthly dues. But again, they didn't steal and they didn't fuck over their neighbors. They fed people, boosted the local economy, and shone a light on shitty HOA practices.
So any system that has functioned historically should never be reconsidered or replaced? Who exactly was it working for? Are you worried about the bottom line of your HOA?
I've gotta say, it sounds like the only ones doing the fucking over here are the HOA to it's tenants, then using the totally not migrant renters as a scapegoat. pretty typical HOA stuff in my experience.
Just gonna point out, if the HOA owns the water system for the neighborhood privately, then submetered utilities will need to be measured and reported by the HOA or a third party in contract with the HOA. Thus, submetering service costs increases an individual's monthly cost of water (though they were like also overpaying for the water before, so that the HOA funds have a buffer).
Also the $180 HOA fee certainly was not just for water.
Wow that is incredibly racist
Who do you think pays the HOA? It's not an outside entity, it's a democratically elected board of homeowners. The funds for the HOA come from homeowners. Overusing resources from a common community fund hurts the community.
Well before 2008 it was apartments and a developer bought it up to convert into low cost condos. At that time the apartments had sub-metering, but when the developer bought it he let go of the sub-metering because adding a middle man service increases costs such as service and metering fees. When you pay for services as a group it's generally cheaper as a whole than everyone doing it themselves.
$185 a month covered all outdoor grounds keeping, the parking lot, the pool, the club house, the outside building maintenance (siding, shutters, etc), the roof, and the water bill. That's an absolutely phenomenal rate and you don't know what you're talking about.
Well I don't know what to tell you, but it's generally the case for any surprise bills at every HOA I've heard of. It's called a Special Assessment.
The HOA at this point had not raised rates in 5 years and they were due to do so. The water usage issue was further exacerbating the issue. The HOA board proposed either raising rates to $225 and doing no metering changes or installing sub-metering and only raising rates to $200. I can't be certain, but I wouldn't be surprised if it came out as a wash for sub-metering.
Do you not know what an HOA is? The HOA didn't have any tenants, it's an elected board of people who live in the community and make business decisions for them. HOAs are popular in the US because their goal is to take care of communal needs efficiently and to preserve the value of everyone's property. HOAs get a lot of crap because of nosey neighbors and Karens with a god complex, but almost any new neighborhood/condo/community you buy into will have an HOA for the communal benefit. People have horror stories, but they are still the most popular option for new home buyers.
The tenants were because about 35% of the units were owned by individuals who then privately rented them out. This HOA had a restriction that no more than 40% of units could be rented out and no one could own more than 2 units. Most of the landlords were people who had previously lived there and moved elsewhere, not major organizations.
Maybe you're thinking of property management companies?
Yes, as a property owner living in an HOA community I was concerned about the bottom line of the HOA community fund. If your HOA doesn't have adequate savings and contributions to a savings account they lose FHA compliance and it becomes infinitely harder to sell your property when the time comes. If your HOA doesn't meet FHA requirements your property value will plummet. What do you think an HOA does?