They'll snitch on you when they get caught, everyone will think you're a douchebag and you'll probably have to pay for damage

Well I got home today and the speed bumps have been shaved down a bit. Still annoying but they're not gonna damage cars anymore.

Apparently bitching about a problem on 2p2 makes it go away!

There's your mistake. I know such meetings are lame, but it helps to know what's going on around your community. Who knows, you could've heard people complaining about drivers speeding at the last meeting and you could've advocated against saving lives, er, adding speed bumps.

PS - $120/year? You have no idea of the favors I'd do for you if you can tell me where I can get that kind of deal

sue HOA for damage to your auto.

Especially if you want your neighbors to hate you after their dues increase so the HOA can pay legal fees.

On the bright side, if and when you sell your home, those speed bumps could be something to attract buyers with families or pets ("Ample speed bumps to protect your children/pets!") While it may be annoying to you, there are probably many others who appreciate it. But, if you intend on living there for a long time, just gotta deal with it.

Speed bumps are the bane of civilized society. Other, less developed nations would absolutely love our infrastructure of flat, straight, well maintained roads. Yet we put bumps and "traffic calming" devices on ours, call it progress and defend such actions with "think of the children!" hysteria. Absurd.

My H.O.A. robbed me of ~600$ earlier this year

honk for safety every time you drive over one

I thought you were gonna sue their asses. You should run against that guy next time around and **** with him constantly IMO.

Also, perfect case for Judge Judy IMO.

Conversely, someone like me will go to check your place out at an open house and leave right away after having to scrape my car over 8 speed bumps.

Any reasonable neighbor will blame the HOA for the ridic idea of putting them there in the first place. **** the rest of 'em.

They've done this on roads near me but these were 'shortcut' roads that over time people learned about and started using more and more. They were within neighborhoods but had a steady stream of speeders...and I STILL think they were excessive there. But on a dead-end road?

After reading this I think I'm going to attend my HOA meeting for the first time...after 16 years in the same house. It's on Mrs. Kravitz!

True, seems like it is something women would love when buying the house then bitch about a month after moving in.

If you bought a house with a HOA you get what you deserve.
My next house I won't even consider anything that has neighbors at all in a half mile radius.

Its tough man. They have pretty much all the cards. Still thinking about small claims but I don't want to bring the case unless I'm a lock to win

HOA president reading this thread will likely double dues next year.

I used to play softball with this guy. He wanted speed bumps added. Didnt end so well.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/cri...eged-spee.html

I hear this a lot. The problem is, at least out here where there are a lot of new communities, virtually every neighborhood built in the last 20-30 years has an HOA. So there are entire outlying cities that probably don't have a single house which isn't governed by one. They also generally happen to be the parts of PHX with the highest number of foreclosures so the HOAs are getting little to no fees between empty houses and people defaulting on their loans. It's kind of tragically funny.

On the plus side it appears that there is growing frustration with them and wondering why they exist to more or less do what our taxes are supposed to do for us already. At the very least I hope this leads to some sort of reform.

Good for you bro.

They did this ******** in my neighborhood recently too. Unsurprisingly one of the "humps" is directly in front of the house of that douche who freaks out and screams at you to SLLLLLOWWW DOWWWWN as you roll through a 25 mph zone at 28 mph.

So now instead of doing that, I go as fast as I possibly can while still maintaining a reasonable ability to stop should one of these sociopaths throw themselves in front of my car in some desperate attempt to prove their point that speed humps are necessary...I've figured this to ~53 mph.

Disclaimer: This won't work in your Infiniti, buy a new car.

This is pretty good*, but it would be even better if d10 found this thread and posted about his commando methods for dealing with speed bumps, which presumably involves some sort of fistfighting and/or explosive.

* Actually I have mellowed because I used to have this attitude, but with so many friends now having kids I now find myself doing ~25 in residential areas for the most part because I'm marginally terrified of one of them darting out in front of me etc., and otherwise don't want to stress out any parents - whose life already sucks bad enough for having to deal with their kids. Doesn't mean I endorse speed bumps though.

You've gotten too soft with age. Kids shouldn't be darting out in the street, survival of the fittest and all that.

I almost got to thin the herd a few weeks ago- driving down one of the "main" streets of a neighborhood that has a 30mph speed limit, not going any faster than that. There is a side street that has a hill, and as I'm driving, some moron comes down the hill on his skateboard right across the road without even looking. If I was 5 seconds earlier, I would have smashed him good.

But some moron girl in my city decided to run across 4 lanes of traffic on a busy road rather than walk a quarter of a mile to a crosswalk and they decided to add in an extra light just for the 4 kids a day that cross at that exact spot. It was awesome when it was a 4 way stop that backed everything up for a mile while they constructed that.

I know quite a few women who would immediately be 100% annoyed at the speed bumps and would never instinctively think that they're nice to have. I guess it's possible for women with kids playing outside and all that. But many people would be turned off by them right away I think.

Speed bumps are kind of universally despised except for the 5% of the people out there who are whack-job enough to insist on having them.

I don't have any experience with HOAs.

What happens if the HOA tells you to do something and you tell them to piss off?

Can they really kick you out of your house? Like what about the bank and stuff?

Im trying to imagine a situation where the HOA is a good thing, but i cant come up with anything

Fines/liens

Off the top of my head, here are a few things they do...
- Making sure you neighbor can't paint their house with neon green and pink stripes
- Make your neighbors mow their lawn
- Keep people from parking an RV in front of your house
- Maintain community shared property (private roads, community pools, etc.)

HOA can do a lot of this, but much of that can be prevented by local laws, too, so in a sense they are mostly a waste. But they "keep property values up".

Basically, a properly run HOA, with reasonable rules and reasonable fees isn't bad. But most are not reasonable.