I Hope This is The End of The Drama
Miraculously, I found a home within a Homeowner’s Association that isn’t horrible! Unfortunately, Every HOA requires at least one Karen. Last year, I joined the HOA board for my neighborhood of townhomes. I wanted to finally have a say in what was happening in my community.
In this short time, I have learned that very few people bother reading anything about their HOA before buying a home. Because of this, I see endless issues where people don’t know what rules they have agreed to live by.
It now surprises me when somebody acts responsibly and contacts the HOA with an appropriate request. Two months ago, a responsible homeowner asked for approval to add a small patio to the grass in front of his home. This is a common landscaping feature in our neighborhood.
Our rules state that he is welcome to add the patio as long as it is identical to the others in the community. So of course, we approved the request. Now enters our neighborhood Karen. Karen lives next to this responsible homeowner. On Monday the construction began to install the patio.
Karen started a verbal altercation with the homeowner’s contractor. She demanded to see written approval and construction designs for everything. Karen was told to mind her own business. As a Karen, she then felt it was her responsibility to contact our HOA management company’s emergency line.
She berated the office staff for never calling or emailing her to ask permission to do the construction or inform her that it was approved. She felt that the space was close enough to her home that she had just as much right to it as her neighbor.
She also kept repeating that there were many other HOA violations without giving any details. Karen was transferred to the property manager’s mobile phone number to leave a message. Apparently, Karen said something concerning enough in the voicemail that I received an urgent call from the property manager.
She begged me to walk over to the responsible neighbor’s house, take a few pictures, and see if there was anything unusual about the construction work. She was worried that the patio may look different than the others in the neighborhood.
So, I packed my toddler in her stroller and took a walk down there. Ladies and gentlemen, what I saw made me so mad. Everything was perfectly normal. There were no problems. Worst of all, the construction was not occurring anywhere near Karen’s property.
I was baffled as to why Karen would feel she has some claim to the area that is on the opposite side of the neighbor’s house from her. A few hours ago, I learned Karen isn’t even the homeowner of the property next to the responsible neighbor.
She is the sister of the real homeowner. I learned this because the real homeowner went to our online resident portal to send the HOA a message.
She seems to be embarrassed by her sister’s behavior and stated that she actually read her homeowner documents and feels the HOA has done a great job of handling this situation. I am praying this is the end of this week’s drama.
Story credit: Reddit / KoalasAndPenguins