I live in a subdivision that's about 10 yrs old and there's about 160 houses. I've been in my house a little over 5 yrs. Homeowners association dues are $120/yr, and I send in a check to some PO box every february. There is a HOA meeting once a year around that time... I've never attended.

The neighborhood has basically one main road that winds farther and farther back into the woods until it dead ends. This is a private road, not maintained by the city. HOA dues cover landscaping maintenance, snow removal, etc.

Earlier this year I came home to find that speed bumps had been installed, which I found incredibly annoying and I whined about it to friends etc but eventually got over it.

Last week I came home to find that extra asphalt has been added to each speed bump as well as several new ones. I now have to cross 8 ridiculously huge speed mountains to get to my house. My G35 has ~6" clearance on stock suspension and I scrape on several of the speed bumps, literally going like 2 mph over them.

I have no idea who runs my HOA, I have never seen a name or phone # on any of the mailings I've received in the past. I have found nothing on the internet about my HOA.

I'm concerned my car will be seriously damaged over time by these speed bumps. Any ideas on how I can go about getting these speed bumps reduced to a reasonable size?

I would rent a stump grinder and go to town.

how can you be so insensitive to all the lives that will be saved with the addition of these speed bumps

How 'bout dem Bobcats!?! WhOooooOo!

I have the exact same problem, they started with these prefab screw in bumps and people would take them out. One night I saw one guy come out to remove them and someone else already was. They moved to these monster asphalt ones three days after I bought a new Impreza.

If you really don't have any sort of contact.. Do they have a newsletter, annual meeting notes, etc that get sent to you? If not you could always send a letter to the po box to start explaining your problem. Unfortunately it's likely one person with a lot of friends wanted them and they voted on them so your SOL but at least look for a way to open up a discussion. Wow my method makes for a ****** thread maybe wait it out for a more entertaining answer.

There's probably one crazy mom who saw you speeding by her kids in your G35 that controls the HOA with Machiavellian efficiency. I guess you could campaign to get yourself on the HOA board, but I think it would be a waste of time. More likely resistance is futile and your only option is to move.

Did you receive a packet from the title company when you closed on the home? The HOA info should be in there. If your community has a website that info may be there.

It's a good idea to go to your HOA meetings. It's basically like a mini government and can suck if the members let petty *******s take control.

Find out who requested them to be added, most likely they were fortunate enough to get one right in front of their house. Every time you leave/ return to the neighborhood drive around their speed bump by going on their lawn.

The only way I know of to beat a HOA is to become the HOA yourself. That means contacting all the members, finding out if they're of your mind and, etc......so GL w/ that.

I had dinner w/ a friend the other night whose HOA was requiring all the homeowners to paint their houses the same color. He said it was going to cost $4,000 and he was livid. Plus, his house has a wall surrounding it and his lawn can't be seen from anywhere unless you go all the way down his driveway and look thru a gate and they sent him a demand to cut his grass shorter. So look at it this way: Be thankful you don't have HIS HOA to deal with.

grunch

Also, anyone who voluntarily decides to live under the regime of nazis basically deserves what they get. HOAs are pure ****ing evil.

You can't beat the HOA. Buy a truck.

my HOA is a ****ing nazi run **** institute as well

HOWEVER....$120/year, are you serious? must be nice lol $10/month.....must b nice

if you went to the meet OR contacted them and got a petition with 51% (i think thats our rules but i can see it being semi-standard) you can actually have a legit fighting chance at doing something

plead your case about yours and others cars that will get damaged, and make sure to state you DONT want to remove them, just lower them and you agree with them being put up as safety but they are now damaging your property

$120/year........lol

Why would you move into a neighborhood with a HOA? I have yet to hear anyone utter the words, "I like my HOA"...

Is it possible to drive around the bumps at all? I would simply do and I'm not sure I would even care about the grass if it's really to the point that the bumps cause damage to your car no matter how slow you go.

I'm a bit surprised the HOA has the authority to build modifications on public roads, especially to the extent that they damage people's vehicles.

.

I still can't believe it's $120.00/year. Around here (norcal) $120.00/month is cheap.

go faster

car lifts as you hit bump

no scrape

u win

Pretty much this. If you keep destroying them, eventually the HOA will run out of money and won't be able to rebuild them again. It sounds like they have a budget of 20k/year. It's got to cost at least 6-7k to get a paving company out there to install a bunch of speed bumps.

If you really want to have some fun with these HOA douchebags, hire a company to professionally remove all the speed bumps. Tell the company you are the president of the HOA. No web-presence, no contact information whatsoever, only meets once a year. Should be pretty easy for you to usurp their authority.

They have an insane amount of power. What happens is that most people have no interest so a small number of homeowners have complete control. This is true of condo boards and business improvement associations as well. So you have a bunch of horrible people pushing for their own ******ed agendas.

Normally I'd say the best way to avoid stuff like this is to not live in places that have these things but they are just becoming more and more common that it is hard to avoid. If in a situation like this you have two choices -- bend over and take it and just try to not care or go to crazy man scorched earth war against the board which gets expensive and time consuming but if you have the resources you can crush them. Anything between these two options is just a complete waste and will lead to frustration for nothing.

Another reason not to buy a home/condo/townhouse where there is a HOA. How bout dynamite?

The third choice is to actually use logic to argue your position. I live in a 20 unit condo building and we have just gone through a pretty good war over a $20,000 code violation. True that the crazy ends of the groups never gave up their personal positions but after they were shown that the legal course of war would quickly eclipse the cost of the project most everyone was willing to compromise. I took the point on the compromise perspective and spent a fair amount of time in conversation with my fellow owners. The bonus benefit for me was getting to know many of my neighbors better.

I hate speed bumps, but I fear speeding cell phone using soccer moms. OP, maybe your neighborhood needed them.

I like my HOA.

There. I said it and I'm happy about it.