HOA Wants Homeowners To Maintain The Common Area Instead Of Hiring Someone, But Most Neighbors Aren’t Helping
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Most HOAs collect dues to pay for things like maintenance of the common areas. Would you rather pay a higher monthly fee to pay for someone to do the maintenance or a lower monthly fee and chip in with your neighbors to do the maintenance yourselves?
Personally, I’d rather pay more and hire someone. I’m not exactly a huge fan of yard work, and more than that, I know how group projects often work out. Poorly. That’s how they work out.
Some people will do all the work while others slack off. It’s not fair.
That’s exactly what’s happening in this story. Let’s read all about it.
My HOA sucks
I bought a great place in the city a couple of months ago.
The building is a TIC (like a co-op but in San Francisco) and is shared between a handful of other units.
The HOA decided that they were not going to hire any professionals for the maintenance and upkeep of the building, instead saying we would all pitch it and contribute our fair share voluntarily.
I wasn’t particularly on board with this idea since I know how group projects go but decided to give it a try.
This plan is a disaster.
Fast forward a few months and my partner and I, along with another unit, been the only ones maintaining the yard and cleaning the common areas.
It’s been a thankless job and I’m starting to feel resentful of the neighbors who aren’t pulling their weight.
What is really aggravating me is the fact that the unhelpful neighbors are using the common areas but aren’t cleaning up or maintaining the yard at all.
I’m going to push the idea of hiring someone at the next meeting, and if that fails, I’ll recommend that we create a schedule for maintenance but I’m wondering if anyone has had this issue in their building and if they have any wise words they would like to impart.
They really need to hire someone to do the maintenance. The neighbors will never equally maintain anything. There will always be some neighbors who do more than their fair share and others who do nothing.
Let’s see if Reddit agrees.
This person has a theory and a suggestion.
Here’s another vote for not doing any maintenance work.
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This person has the same idea.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a neighbor who documented times of noise spikes and turned their neighbor into a model tenant.
But another person would handle it differently.
The best solution is the do nothing solution. Simply do nothing. Stop maintaining anything, and either another neighbor will step up, or it’ll be painfully obvious that the HOA needs to hire someone.
Group projects are never a good idea especially among neighbors.
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