(The writer lives in Gainesville, Florida)

February 07, 2002

By Angela V. Woodhull (View author info)

About 40 years ago, there was an Alfred Hitchcock television episode that made such an impact on me that I can still recall the details.

In that episode, a couple is trapped in a mortuary vault by the folks who reside in a white house that overlooks the cemetery. The trapped couple spend most of the episode trying, in vein, to find a way to get free. Finally, the man remembers that his dead uncle installed a telephone inside his casket.

They pry open the vault and dial the operator. Ecstatic relief washes over them as the operator promises to send the police. As they hang up the phone and embrace one another, the camera switches to the other end of the phone line - the people in the white house laugh hysterically; the phone line was directed exclusively to them.

Recently, I spent weeks investigating homeowners' associations. Many people like me reside in deed-restricted areas in which mandatory membership to a homeowners' association is demanded. Having contacted most of my neighbors, I discovered that the majority of residents would like to dissolve the homeowners' association.

There are residents with home-based businesses who live in perpetual fear that they will be discovered and, consequently, fined and (their livelihood) shut down; there are people who are livid because they were fined for having an upscale boat, a business-related trailer, or some other possession that is forbidden by the plethora of association rules. There are neighbors who are fed up with arbitrary, selective enforcement of the rules.

In the beginning, homeowners' associations sounded like an excellent idea, in theory. Residents would share jogging trails, swimming pools, club houses, etc., and pay a fee for these mutually shared benefits.

But in my neighborhood none of these benefits even exist. There is only a dilapidated playground that contains two rusty swings, a teeter totter, a picnic table (donated by one of the residents), and a basketball hoop with no net.

To dissolve the association requires 2/3 vote in writing, but (and here's the macabre Catch 22), a significant portion of the properties are owned by the folks who run the show. In the end, our "homeowners' association" is simply a means for a real estate company to do business and allow busy bodies of the neighborhood to tattle violations to the association, which is all too happy to levy fines and write threatening letters and, thereby, collect more fees.

Homeowners' associations are forms of government that cannot be dissolved. They can add increasingly restrictive rules at their whim, raise the annual dues, and even foreclose on your home if fines and dues are not paid in full. Many neighbors informed me that they did not even realize until after their closings that they were now the unwitting members of an association.

If you are looking to buy a house, please, read your documents carefully before closing and learn how your "neighborhood association" operates. Checking the Internet, I discovered that many other persons who have researched this topic say they would never buy a property within the domain of a homeowners' association ever again. You'll read true stories of people who lost their houses, spent thousands in court battles, and even a few who committed suicide as a result of being harassed by a homeowners' association.

Our Bill of Rights has been deeply violated and practically erased with the creation of these entities that dictate your lawn, the type of flowers you can grow, the dog breed you can have, and even, in many cases, the type of vehicle you can own. There is no government recourse because these plots of land are self-governed by the association board.

Trust has been replaced with caution and suspicion. Where there once were neighbors who associated, now there is only a hostile and controlling neighborhood "association."

And when one attempts to dissolve these associations, one quickly discovers that they've only been connected to the white house that overlooks the cemetery.