Kentucky 75-year-old's house seized, sold over $288 unpaid HOA dues

[IrishAyes]

86. Normally I avoid a HOA like the plague.

However, I did belong to one in California, in an extremely low population area. It was voluntary and open to everyone including renters. No dues. Because the tiny town of a few hundred people had no actual city government, our little HOA served as a sort of unofficial substitute advisory board. By and large it dealt with problems people had with the county if those problems had community consequences. Nobody got paid a dime, not even the town 'mayor'. We basically left individuals alone so long as nobody else was endangered, such as by a meth lab.

Meetings were more like parties unless someone from the county showed up, and then all bets were off. Our members got quite a reputation for defiance. One county supervisor called us a bunch of vigilantes (undeserved in its modern sense), and somebody shouted back, "If you'd send a sheriff in less than 24 hours when we call you, we'd be a lot more agreeable."

Our critical community value proved itself when Union Carbide, the company that blew up half of Bhopal, India, declared its intention of building a facility just barely outside town. They got their permission from the county, but not from us. At the meeting when they showed up to announce their intentions, all hell broke out. Some of the men openly threatened to blow up anything they tried to build. Since I sat on the board and was generally outspoken, I told the Union Carbide people that although I personally could not endorse the threats, I assured them that the guys weren't bluffing. And even if I couldn't blow up anything myself, I'd definitely watch the door for the others.

That was the last we saw of Union Carbide.