Like most people who have purchased a new home in Northern Virginia in the past 10 years or so, the townhouse where my wife and I live is governed by a homeowners association. In principle, HOA’s seem like a good thing. The idea that the people who live in a neighborhood are best able to come up with the rules necessary to live there goes back to the American Revolution and, as a libertarian, I am believer in the right of people to enter into contracts to govern their relationships. The effectiveness of an HOA, however, is governed by the quality of the people running the organization and the willingness of the rest of the community to get involved enough to make sure the officers are actually doing their job. A bad board and an apathetic community make for a bad HOA.
And that’s precisely the situation we’ve got here:
On the whole, our neighborhood is a good one. Most of the neighbors are friendly. The community itself is safe and generally clean. That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems that need to be dealt with. Trash is a persistent problem, the landscaping contractor barely does their job in maintaing the common areas, and there are neighbors who are flagrantly violating HOA rules in a way that makes the community as a whole look bad. Emails sent to the board and the property manager are routinely ignored.
The HOA Board holds meetings on a monthly basis but attendance is so sparse that they are apparently considering having meetings only every other month.
I don’t see the community going downhill, and the continued real estate boom around here can only be good news for all of us, but I see things going on around here that I don’t like and nobody willing to do anything about them.
