Anyone ever live in a townhome?

[Imma]

As for the rules I mentioned, what I meant is things like what you said, someone will come and tell you to tidy your lawn if you don't, so there's no conflict with neighbours about messy lawns, or excessive noise, or improper parking, or aggressive dogs, or whatever. The condo board takes care of it by enforcing rules.

When we all have the same rules, there's less conflict compared to the raging conflicts my in-laws have out in the suburbs. It's unreal sometimes how heated those suburban subdivision conflicts can get because there's no condo board to keep everyone in line.

I think there's a bit of confusion here. Isn't a condo an apartment? Or can that also mean another type of home? Because you're talking about messy lawns etc, that's not something that would be an issue in an apartment.

I guess I would rather deal with a "random" neighbour who dislikes nettles but also knows he has 0 legal standing, than a neighbour who also happens to be on the board of the HOA so they feel they are "entitled" to talk to you about the house rules and threaten legal action etc etc, while everyone knows that many of those HOA are not legally enforcable or even downright illegal.

I've never lived in an apartment beacuse I've never wanted to deal with a HOA. From what I hear from people, it actually seems that HOA's are the cause of many dramas. The way it works in my country is that the majority of owners in a building elect the board of the HOA, and they make maintenance decisions as well as "house rules". For financial reasons it's the most common for the developer of the building to retain 51% ownership (those flats are rented out) and the others are sold off. That ensures maximum profit with minimum hassle. The the developer appoints the board, and who would seriously consider getting on the board? It's a nightmare job. It's basically being a parent of a whole building of adults and you don't even get paid for it. Usually a couple of older, retired women who are the queen bees of the building. They decide on the "house rules" as the developer couldn't care less about that, they just want full say on expensive maintenance issues, and 95% of the rules those boards come up are illegal anyway and can't be enforced. Some are outright racist.

My mother lived in a building like that and the HOA lady on her floor tried to tell her how to run her housekeeping and how to live, the lady would just keep ringing the doorbell and rattling the letterbox and would freak out if any of us kids entered the building with a key. She was a nightmare. She threatened the other neighbour with all sorts of things because she was a "slut" and destroyed the reputation of the building. She was a widow in her 80s who wore lipstick and sometimes went on dates with elderly gentlemen.....  I think she tried to come up with some sort of ridiculous curfew rule which of course would be totally illegal. I've heard so many nightmare stories that I would never dare to buy an apartment. I would never want to risk an HOA.

In the posts above me I read that in the US, there are apparantly single family homes that are also in an HOA. Why would people do that? Is there some sort of advantage? Because what I love most about my terraced home is that it's actually mine, completely, the whole plot and the whole house and I could paint my door pink tomorrow and nobody could do anything about it. If you own your home completely, why would you voluntarily agree to HOA rules if you could also buy a home without it? The only reason people put up with it in apartments is because there's no other option. 

[seattlecyclone]

In the posts above me I read that in the US, there are apparantly single family homes that are also in an HOA. Why would people do that? Is there some sort of advantage? Because what I love most about my terraced home is that it's actually mine, completely, the whole plot and the whole house and I could paint my door pink tomorrow and nobody could do anything about it. If you own your home completely, why would you voluntarily agree to HOA rules if you could also buy a home without it? The only reason people put up with it in apartments is because there's no other option. 

Some people prefer not to have neighbors with pink doors and are willing to give up their right to paint their door pink in exchange for their neighbors agreeing to do the same (among other things). There can be communal amenities as well. There is a neighborhood not far from my previous house in Seattle where there were a couple of privately-owned parks (including a beachfront property), a swimming pool, and a few other leisure facilities that were only open to neighborhood residents and their guests. Everyone in the neighborhood is required to pay annual dues to maintain these facilities, in addition to the taxes we all pay for the public parks. They have an "architecture committee" that has to approve any externally-visible construction projects. Their original contracts also prohibited residents from selling or renting their homes to a non-white person, which was at the time a very common motivation for starting these single-family home HOA arrangements in the first place. These organizations also have the right to set other density and land use policies that go above and beyond city rules; even if the city government abolishes the current ban on apartment/rowhouse construction on most of the city's residential land, these restrictions will be alive and well in the HOA neighborhoods.

[Metalcat]

As for the rules I mentioned, what I meant is things like what you said, someone will come and tell you to tidy your lawn if you don't, so there's no conflict with neighbours about messy lawns, or excessive noise, or improper parking, or aggressive dogs, or whatever. The condo board takes care of it by enforcing rules.

When we all have the same rules, there's less conflict compared to the raging conflicts my in-laws have out in the suburbs. It's unreal sometimes how heated those suburban subdivision conflicts can get because there's no condo board to keep everyone in line.

I think there's a bit of confusion here. Isn't a condo an apartment? Or can that also mean another type of home? Because you're talking about messy lawns etc, that's not something that would be an issue in an apartment.

I guess I would rather deal with a "random" neighbour who dislikes nettles but also knows he has 0 legal standing, than a neighbour who also happens to be on the board of the HOA so they feel they are "entitled" to talk to you about the house rules and threaten legal action etc etc, while everyone knows that many of those HOA are not legally enforcable or even downright illegal.

I've never lived in an apartment beacuse I've never wanted to deal with a HOA. From what I hear from people, it actually seems that HOA's are the cause of many dramas. The way it works in my country is that the majority of owners in a building elect the board of the HOA, and they make maintenance decisions as well as "house rules". For financial reasons it's the most common for the developer of the building to retain 51% ownership (those flats are rented out) and the others are sold off. That ensures maximum profit with minimum hassle. The the developer appoints the board, and who would seriously consider getting on the board? It's a nightmare job. It's basically being a parent of a whole building of adults and you don't even get paid for it. Usually a couple of older, retired women who are the queen bees of the building. They decide on the "house rules" as the developer couldn't care less about that, they just want full say on expensive maintenance issues, and 95% of the rules those boards come up are illegal anyway and can't be enforced. Some are outright racist.

My mother lived in a building like that and the HOA lady on her floor tried to tell her how to run her housekeeping and how to live, the lady would just keep ringing the doorbell and rattling the letterbox and would freak out if any of us kids entered the building with a key. She was a nightmare. She threatened the other neighbour with all sorts of things because she was a "slut" and destroyed the reputation of the building. She was a widow in her 80s who wore lipstick and sometimes went on dates with elderly gentlemen.....  I think she tried to come up with some sort of ridiculous curfew rule which of course would be totally illegal. I've heard so many nightmare stories that I would never dare to buy an apartment. I would never want to risk an HOA.

In the posts above me I read that in the US, there are apparantly single family homes that are also in an HOA. Why would people do that? Is there some sort of advantage? Because what I love most about my terraced home is that it's actually mine, completely, the whole plot and the whole house and I could paint my door pink tomorrow and nobody could do anything about it. If you own your home completely, why would you voluntarily agree to HOA rules if you could also buy a home without it? The only reason people put up with it in apartments is because there's no other option.

Here condos can be townhouses or apartments.

Yes, I'm well aware of condo board politics as I've always served on condo boards myself. I'm currently running unopposed in my new building. A good condo board is critical, and I don't mind doing the work myself because that's what I've done in every environment I've been in. I'm currently president of a professional interest group because I wanted it run a certain way.

Not all condo boards are maniacal evil rule breakers who treat people unfairly. Our current board is fantastic as was the board at my last townhouse complex. Perhaps that's because this is a government town known for its love of rules, perhaps we'll run condo boards are less common elsewhere. I don't know, but I've had very good experiences for the past decade.

As for HOAs, I don't think we have those here, but some areas of the city do have regional rules about door colour, colour of garbage bag you can use, etc, etc. I don't know what governing body is in charge of those rules though.

As for painting your door pink, yes, there are pros and cons of condo rules, HOA rules, etc. I'm personally much happier giving up what others would call "freedoms" in order to be free of the hassle of dealing with other people exercising their freedoms. I LOVE that no one is allowed to smoke anywhere near my building. For me, personally, there are so many advantages to having a strict, well defined, and consistently enforced set of rules when living in a dense environment.

Of course those trade offs aren't equally valuable to everyone. That's why they're called trade offs.

For me, personally, I trade away nothing that I find valuable, so for me, it's a great trade.

[GuitarStv]

I lived in a condo corporation owned townhouse while I was at university.  Didn't really like it, as it seemed like living in a regular house . . . but with some very petty people who had way too much power to act in a petty manner.

Case in point - my friend had his car parked in our driveway.  It was a blue, 10 year old Chevrolet Cavalier.

He left the car parked in our driveway for a couple months one summer to go back to live with his mom in Toronto (she only had one parking lot space).  Then his car started getting tickets for 'illegally parked vehicle'.  In our driveway.

I saw that he was getting these tickets early in the morning, and didn't understand WTF was going on . . . so stayed up until 5:00 am in order to ask the guy doing the ticketing.  He told me that the condo corporation told him to ticket it, and that he thought it was stupid too - but that we can't ignore the tickets as they're technically enforced by the city.  So then I called the condo corp.  The person I got ahold of was unable to answer why the vehicle parked in our driveway was being ticketed for being 'illegally parked' over the phone.  An in-person meeting was required.  The only time they were available for in-person meetings was every third Tuesday of the month, between the hours of 2:00 - 3:00.

So I showed up at the magical time, and got to talk to someone.  Who told me that the front passenger side tire of the vehicle was flat - and that's why they decided to start ticketing the vehicle.  So I asked to see the condo rule that we were being ticketed under.  He pulled out a thick binder and pointed to something that said 'non-functional/derelict vehicles may not be legally stored on condominium property'.

At this point I told him that the vehicle was in perfect working order (there were in fact, no flat tires on the vehicle - which I confirmed again when I went back home), and was parked in the driveway belonging out our housing unit.  He told me that it didn't matter.  There was nobody that I could appeal to, and the tickets were done through city bylaw officers so we would have to take the city to court if we wanted to fight them - that he didn't care if the car worked, it 'looked like crap and we want to have a nice neighbourhood here'.  He offered to call off the tickets (I think it was a couple grand's worth at this point) if we removed the car within the week and never brought it back, or parked anything in the driveway belonging to our unit.

So I called my friend, we moved the car, and then found a new place to rent.  I later learned that the people in charge of the townhouses didn't like students being in the units, and would do stuff like that pretty regularly to get them to move.  It was a good lesson though - about never wanting to have an extra useless/needless level of bureaucracy with that kind of control over my life.

I will never voluntarily be a part of an HOA, or live in a place ruled by a condo board again.

[GodlessCommie]

In the posts above me I read that in the US, there are apparantly single family homes that are also in an HOA. Why would people do that? Is there some sort of advantage? Because what I love most about my terraced home is that it's actually mine, completely, the whole plot and the whole house and I could paint my door pink tomorrow and nobody could do anything about it. If you own your home completely, why would you voluntarily agree to HOA rules if you could also buy a home without it? The only reason people put up with it in apartments is because there's no other option. 

Some people prefer not to have neighbors with pink doors and are willing to give up their right to paint their door pink in exchange for their neighbors agreeing to do the same (among other things). There can be communal amenities as well. There is a neighborhood not far from my previous house in Seattle where there were a couple of privately-owned parks (including a beachfront property), a swimming pool, and a few other leisure facilities that were only open to neighborhood residents and their guests. Everyone in the neighborhood is required to pay annual dues to maintain these facilities, in addition to the taxes we all pay for the public parks. They have an "architecture committee" that has to approve any externally-visible construction projects. Their original contracts also prohibited residents from selling or renting their homes to a non-white person, which was at the time a very common motivation for starting these single-family home HOA arrangements in the first place. These organizations also have the right to set other density and land use policies that go above and beyond city rules; even if the city government abolishes the current ban on apartment/rowhouse construction on most of the city's residential land, these restrictions will be alive and well in the HOA neighborhoods.

In most cases, it's not even what people want. Most of new SFH construction, at least around me, are entire tracts built by either a single developer, or a consortium of developers. For whatever reason, they see an advantage in having an HOA installed, so when you come to buy a new house, with construction equipment still working, you already have an HOA set up.

If you want a new house and no HOA, you are welcome to shop around and discover that every new development is exactly the same in this regard. And it's been like that for decades, so no-so-new-homes also all have HOAs.

[dcheesi]

As for the rules I mentioned, what I meant is things like what you said, someone will come and tell you to tidy your lawn if you don't, so there's no conflict with neighbours about messy lawns, or excessive noise, or improper parking, or aggressive dogs, or whatever. The condo board takes care of it by enforcing rules.

When we all have the same rules, there's less conflict compared to the raging conflicts my in-laws have out in the suburbs. It's unreal sometimes how heated those suburban subdivision conflicts can get because there's no condo board to keep everyone in line.

I think there's a bit of confusion here. Isn't a condo an apartment? Or can that also mean another type of home? Because you're talking about messy lawns etc, that's not something that would be an issue in an apartment.

I guess I would rather deal with a "random" neighbour who dislikes nettles but also knows he has 0 legal standing, than a neighbour who also happens to be on the board of the HOA so they feel they are "entitled" to talk to you about the house rules and threaten legal action etc etc, while everyone knows that many of those HOA are not legally enforcable or even downright illegal.

I've never lived in an apartment beacuse I've never wanted to deal with a HOA. From what I hear from people, it actually seems that HOA's are the cause of many dramas. The way it works in my country is that the majority of owners in a building elect the board of the HOA, and they make maintenance decisions as well as "house rules". For financial reasons it's the most common for the developer of the building to retain 51% ownership (those flats are rented out) and the others are sold off. That ensures maximum profit with minimum hassle. The the developer appoints the board, and who would seriously consider getting on the board? It's a nightmare job. It's basically being a parent of a whole building of adults and you don't even get paid for it. Usually a couple of older, retired women who are the queen bees of the building. They decide on the "house rules" as the developer couldn't care less about that, they just want full say on expensive maintenance issues, and 95% of the rules those boards come up are illegal anyway and can't be enforced. Some are outright racist.

My mother lived in a building like that and the HOA lady on her floor tried to tell her how to run her housekeeping and how to live, the lady would just keep ringing the doorbell and rattling the letterbox and would freak out if any of us kids entered the building with a key. She was a nightmare. She threatened the other neighbour with all sorts of things because she was a "slut" and destroyed the reputation of the building. She was a widow in her 80s who wore lipstick and sometimes went on dates with elderly gentlemen.....  I think she tried to come up with some sort of ridiculous curfew rule which of course would be totally illegal. I've heard so many nightmare stories that I would never dare to buy an apartment. I would never want to risk an HOA.

In the posts above me I read that in the US, there are apparantly single family homes that are also in an HOA. Why would people do that? Is there some sort of advantage? Because what I love most about my terraced home is that it's actually mine, completely, the whole plot and the whole house and I could paint my door pink tomorrow and nobody could do anything about it. If you own your home completely, why would you voluntarily agree to HOA rules if you could also buy a home without it? The only reason people put up with it in apartments is because there's no other option.

Here condos can be townhouses or apartments.

Actually, it's kind of weird; IME "apartment" always and only applies to a rental, while people generally use "condo" to describe owned "apartment-style" units --but you're correct that "condo" can also apply to other housing formats, since it's technically based on the "condominium" ownership model rather than the design of the individual units.

Yes, I'm well aware of condo board politics as I've always served on condo boards myself. I'm currently running unopposed in my new building. A good condo board is critical, and I don't mind doing the work myself because that's what I've done in every environment I've been in. I'm currently president of a professional interest group because I wanted it run a certain way.

Not all condo boards are maniacal evil rule breakers who treat people unfairly. Our current board is fantastic as was the board at my last townhouse complex. Perhaps that's because this is a government town known for its love of rules, perhaps we'll run condo boards are less common elsewhere. I don't know, but I've had very good experiences for the past decade.

As for HOAs, I don't think we have those here, but some areas of the city do have regional rules about door colour, colour of garbage bag you can use, etc, etc. I don't know what governing body is in charge of those rules though.

As for painting your door pink, yes, there are pros and cons of condo rules, HOA rules, etc. I'm personally much happier giving up what others would call "freedoms" in order to be free of the hassle of dealing with other people exercising their freedoms. I LOVE that no one is allowed to smoke anywhere near my building. For me, personally, there are so many advantages to having a strict, well defined, and consistently enforced set of rules when living in a dense environment.

Of course those trade offs aren't equally valuable to everyone. That's why they're called trade offs.

For me, personally, I trade away nothing that I find valuable, so for me, it's a great trade.

The weirdest HOA restriction we have here (in a townhouse, btw) is a no-dog policy. Totally bizarre to me that they'd outlaw the most popular domestic pet, in a home that someone "owns"; even rental apartments these days allow dogs, although there's usually a weight limit (understandable with shared ceiling/floors --which are not an issue here). Cats are fine, though *shrug*.

I'm assuming some busybody was overly concerned with policing pup poop, or something?

[Metalcat]

As for the rules I mentioned, what I meant is things like what you said, someone will come and tell you to tidy your lawn if you don't, so there's no conflict with neighbours about messy lawns, or excessive noise, or improper parking, or aggressive dogs, or whatever. The condo board takes care of it by enforcing rules.

When we all have the same rules, there's less conflict compared to the raging conflicts my in-laws have out in the suburbs. It's unreal sometimes how heated those suburban subdivision conflicts can get because there's no condo board to keep everyone in line.

I think there's a bit of confusion here. Isn't a condo an apartment? Or can that also mean another type of home? Because you're talking about messy lawns etc, that's not something that would be an issue in an apartment.

I guess I would rather deal with a "random" neighbour who dislikes nettles but also knows he has 0 legal standing, than a neighbour who also happens to be on the board of the HOA so they feel they are "entitled" to talk to you about the house rules and threaten legal action etc etc, while everyone knows that many of those HOA are not legally enforcable or even downright illegal.

I've never lived in an apartment beacuse I've never wanted to deal with a HOA. From what I hear from people, it actually seems that HOA's are the cause of many dramas. The way it works in my country is that the majority of owners in a building elect the board of the HOA, and they make maintenance decisions as well as "house rules". For financial reasons it's the most common for the developer of the building to retain 51% ownership (those flats are rented out) and the others are sold off. That ensures maximum profit with minimum hassle. The the developer appoints the board, and who would seriously consider getting on the board? It's a nightmare job. It's basically being a parent of a whole building of adults and you don't even get paid for it. Usually a couple of older, retired women who are the queen bees of the building. They decide on the "house rules" as the developer couldn't care less about that, they just want full say on expensive maintenance issues, and 95% of the rules those boards come up are illegal anyway and can't be enforced. Some are outright racist.

My mother lived in a building like that and the HOA lady on her floor tried to tell her how to run her housekeeping and how to live, the lady would just keep ringing the doorbell and rattling the letterbox and would freak out if any of us kids entered the building with a key. She was a nightmare. She threatened the other neighbour with all sorts of things because she was a "slut" and destroyed the reputation of the building. She was a widow in her 80s who wore lipstick and sometimes went on dates with elderly gentlemen.....  I think she tried to come up with some sort of ridiculous curfew rule which of course would be totally illegal. I've heard so many nightmare stories that I would never dare to buy an apartment. I would never want to risk an HOA.

In the posts above me I read that in the US, there are apparantly single family homes that are also in an HOA. Why would people do that? Is there some sort of advantage? Because what I love most about my terraced home is that it's actually mine, completely, the whole plot and the whole house and I could paint my door pink tomorrow and nobody could do anything about it. If you own your home completely, why would you voluntarily agree to HOA rules if you could also buy a home without it? The only reason people put up with it in apartments is because there's no other option.

Here condos can be townhouses or apartments.

Actually, it's kind of weird; IME "apartment" always and only applies to a rental, while people generally use "condo" to describe owned "apartment-style" units --but you're correct that "condo" can also apply to other housing formats, since it's technically based on the "condominium" ownership model rather than the design of the individual units.

Yes, I'm well aware of condo board politics as I've always served on condo boards myself. I'm currently running unopposed in my new building. A good condo board is critical, and I don't mind doing the work myself because that's what I've done in every environment I've been in. I'm currently president of a professional interest group because I wanted it run a certain way.

Not all condo boards are maniacal evil rule breakers who treat people unfairly. Our current board is fantastic as was the board at my last townhouse complex. Perhaps that's because this is a government town known for its love of rules, perhaps we'll run condo boards are less common elsewhere. I don't know, but I've had very good experiences for the past decade.

As for HOAs, I don't think we have those here, but some areas of the city do have regional rules about door colour, colour of garbage bag you can use, etc, etc. I don't know what governing body is in charge of those rules though.

As for painting your door pink, yes, there are pros and cons of condo rules, HOA rules, etc. I'm personally much happier giving up what others would call "freedoms" in order to be free of the hassle of dealing with other people exercising their freedoms. I LOVE that no one is allowed to smoke anywhere near my building. For me, personally, there are so many advantages to having a strict, well defined, and consistently enforced set of rules when living in a dense environment.

Of course those trade offs aren't equally valuable to everyone. That's why they're called trade offs.

For me, personally, I trade away nothing that I find valuable, so for me, it's a great trade.

The weirdest HOA restriction we have here (in a townhouse, btw) is a no-dog policy. Totally bizarre to me that they'd outlaw the most popular domestic pet, in a home that someone "owns"; even rental apartments these days allow dogs, although there's usually a weight limit (understandable with shared ceiling/floors --which are not an issue here). Cats are fine, though *shrug*.

I'm assuming some busybody was overly concerned with policing pup poop, or something?

Fair enough, you're absolutely right that an apartment is a rental.
I'm using the phrase wrong because a lot of people here use apartment to mean unit in a high-rise.

[alsoknownasDean]

I'm in a strata unit that is basically a single level town house.

All good, but I'm a bit conscious of the TV on late in the loungeroom as it shares a wall with the bedroom in my neighbours' place. I'm planning to put some sound deadening foam behind the TV, although I've had no noise complaints. Strata fees are reasonable (~$1000pa) and people are generally chill.

I've got a one car garage and a parking space out the front of the garage. My previous car fit in the garage just fine, but the current one is too large for it to fit comfortably, so it sits in the parking space.

Natural light is a bit lacking in the middle of the day as the windows are east and west, but I'm planning to paint the walls a lighter shade and maybe install a skylight.

It's pretty common here for people to buy old houses, pull them down and build three or four townhouses on the block to resell. In my street alone there's one that's recently finished construction, one under construction, and the slab has been laid on the third, and a house has just been demolished around the corner for another one.

[ender]

In most cases, it's not even what people want. Most of new SFH construction, at least around me, are entire tracts built by either a single developer, or a consortium of developers. For whatever reason, they see an advantage in having an HOA installed, so when you come to buy a new house, with construction equipment still working, you already have an HOA set up.

If you want a new house and no HOA, you are welcome to shop around and discover that every new development is exactly the same in this regard. And it's been like that for decades, so no-so-new-homes also all have HOAs.

Isn't this obvious?

If you're building a new neighborhood the last thing you want is for there to be no HOA and then you have the one person who turns their house into a dump.

I believe my neighborhood when built had a now defunct HOA. It makes sense from the perspective of the builder to try to sustain consistent home values. If you're building a subdivision, you won't have many people interested in living there if they can see their property values tank right away.

[Imma]

In the posts above me I read that in the US, there are apparantly single family homes that are also in an HOA. Why would people do that? Is there some sort of advantage? Because what I love most about my terraced home is that it's actually mine, completely, the whole plot and the whole house and I could paint my door pink tomorrow and nobody could do anything about it. If you own your home completely, why would you voluntarily agree to HOA rules if you could also buy a home without it? The only reason people put up with it in apartments is because there's no other option. 

Some people prefer not to have neighbors with pink doors and are willing to give up their right to paint their door pink in exchange for their neighbors agreeing to do the same (among other things). There can be communal amenities as well. There is a neighborhood not far from my previous house in Seattle where there were a couple of privately-owned parks (including a beachfront property), a swimming pool, and a few other leisure facilities that were only open to neighborhood residents and their guests. Everyone in the neighborhood is required to pay annual dues to maintain these facilities, in addition to the taxes we all pay for the public parks. They have an "architecture committee" that has to approve any externally-visible construction projects. Their original contracts also prohibited residents from selling or renting their homes to a non-white person, which was at the time a very common motivation for starting these single-family home HOA arrangements in the first place. These organizations also have the right to set other density and land use policies that go above and beyond city rules; even if the city government abolishes the current ban on apartment/rowhouse construction on most of the city's residential land, these restrictions will be alive and well in the HOA neighborhoods.

In most cases, it's not even what people want. Most of new SFH construction, at least around me, are entire tracts built by either a single developer, or a consortium of developers. For whatever reason, they see an advantage in having an HOA installed, so when you come to buy a new house, with construction equipment still working, you already have an HOA set up.

If you want a new house and no HOA, you are welcome to shop around and discover that every new development is exactly the same in this regard. And it's been like that for decades, so no-so-new-homes also all have HOAs.

Funny, in my country rowhomes are the most common form of housing and I've never, ever heard about HOA's for anything that's not an apartment. It seems they are quite popular there. But I've never heard of any neighbourhood having a neighbourhood pool or anything like that, so maybe there's less need for it. In a row of houses everyone has their own roof, their own windows, no elevators, that kind of maintenance everyone can do for themselves, unlike in an apartment where there's a joint roof, joint walls etc. HOA's certainly don't have the legal power to send out parking tickets that would be legally binding in a court. Basically 95% of HOA rules would never hold up in court and since there's no real legal power to enforce many just resort to bully tactics. I'm sure a lot of HOA's function well but you never hear those stories.

Of course historically in my country there were other tactics to keep "unwanted" people out. My entire neighbourhood was built by a charity and it was only rented out to Catholic factory workers with good moral standing. If you became unemployed or you behaved immorally, you could be evicted. The neighbourhood on the other side of the road was built for the Catholic middle classes. Those charities were obviously funded by the local elite who wanted to make sure everyone knew their place. That happened a century ago, the charity is now no longer Catholic and has sold off half of the homes, but their goal is still to provide affordable rentals to low-income people.

But if HOA's employ staff to give out tickets, maintain pools,  police non-smoking areas etc etc aren't HOA fees extremely high there? Generally I think in most buildings here HOA fees are about 1/2 of a typical mortgage payment and that's just for utilities for common areas, window cleaning and general maintenance. Boards are ran by volunteers. If you need to employ staff, maintain yards, pools, etc etc then aren't the fees costing a fortune?

[GodlessCommie]

Funny, in my country rowhomes are the most common form of housing and I've never, ever heard about HOA's for anything that's not an apartment. It seems they are quite popular there. But I've never heard of any neighbourhood having a neighbourhood pool or anything like that, so maybe there's less need for it. In a row of houses everyone has their own roof, their own windows, no elevators, that kind of maintenance everyone can do for themselves, unlike in an apartment where there's a joint roof, joint walls etc. HOA's certainly don't have the legal power to send out parking tickets that would be legally binding in a court. Basically 95% of HOA rules would never hold up in court and since there's no real legal power to enforce many just resort to bully tactics. I'm sure a lot of HOA's function well but you never hear those stories.

Of course historically in my country there were other tactics to keep "unwanted" people out. My entire neighbourhood was built by a charity and it was only rented out to Catholic factory workers with good moral standing. If you became unemployed or you behaved immorally, you could be evicted. The neighbourhood on the other side of the road was built for the Catholic middle classes. Those charities were obviously funded by the local elite who wanted to make sure everyone knew their place. That happened a century ago, the charity is now no longer Catholic and has sold off half of the homes, but their goal is still to provide affordable rentals to low-income people.

But if HOA's employ staff to give out tickets, maintain pools,  police non-smoking areas etc etc aren't HOA fees extremely high there? Generally I think in most buildings here HOA fees are about 1/2 of a typical mortgage payment and that's just for utilities for common areas, window cleaning and general maintenance. Boards are ran by volunteers. If you need to employ staff, maintain yards, pools, etc etc then aren't the fees costing a fortune?

I keep thinking that everyone here is American. Which is kind of funny, since I'm an immigrant. Very interesting to read how things are in your country.

To answer your questions - HOA fees vary. They are obviously higher in areas with higher cost of living, and when HOA takes on more duties. They may be quite high in high-rise condo buildings, although I never heard of them being comparable to half a mortgage payment. In my neighborhood, they are $75/month for SFHs, and ~$100 for townhouses. Which is weird, since townhouse dwellers receive no more services - no yard maintenance, nothing extra. That $75/mo gets us three pools, three tennis courts, two basketball courts, a dozen or so of playgrounds, trash/recycling pickup, snow removal from streets and trails (but not driveways), dog poop stations with free bags, maintenance of  common areas, a quite extensive system of paved trails, and a private (at least on paper, not enforced) natural area that rivals nearby parks in size. Trails and the park are what we learned to value a lot, and as we look for smaller/cheaper/lower-tax places to live, something like that is rather hard to find.

HOA polices very little. Volunteers on the architectural committee are supposed to walk the streets twice a year and send letters to people breaking the rules. Either they don't do it, or they are not very anal about it. But they will act on complaints, and that's what keeps things from going out of hand.

Staff: there are 3 or 4 in the office, and several more doing some maintenance (not sure the exact #). The heavy lifting is done by contractors - a landscaping company, a company specialized in pools (they also hire lifeguards), street sweepers to remove sand in the spring, etc. But we are a large(-r) community, several thousand homes, so there's some economy of the scale.

[Zamboni]

I am actually very happy the home I'm about to move into is in an older neighborhood with no HOA. Are there a few dilapidated or eccentric-looking homes? Sure. But it is worth it to me not to deal with the BS that @GuitarStv so beautifully illustrated with his story.

It seems like all HOA's start with the generally good idea that no one wants to live next to a literal hoarder home where the front yard has been turned into a garbage dump guarded by a hellhound continuously chained to the bumper of a car up on blocks on the dirt that used to be lawn.

And then the crazies take control of the board and next thing you know white curtains are the only color allowed if the curtains can be seen from the road (I'm not making this up . . . so stupid.)

And HOA boards have an absurd amount of power. Like if you don't pay their petty fines, then they can foreclose on your house in some situations. I watched them try to foreclose on the guy in the corner townhome of our building.

Seriously, the ladies I used to play cards with, aka the Cabal of Karens, complained about and then got the HOA to cite the following:
Someone's clearly Valentine's day themed door wreath with hearts on it looked too much like a Christmas wreath, and Christmas decor must be taken down by Jan 12th.
Someone else put a single 18 in tall statue of the virgin Mary among shrubs right up against their front porch, but lawn ornaments aren't allowed.
Someone added a beautiful new flower bed that was not approved by the HOA.
Someone didn't get their mailbox painted with the approved and mandated glossy black paint, because apparently flat black paint is gauche and only for filthy peasant homes.
And on and on and on.

And the worst part of it all? The most crazy, petty HOA boards who spend their energy citing people for nonsense are also the ones who are least likely to adequately manage the budget for periodic necessary common property large ticket items. Like paving the parking lots. Or the roofs. See "large special assessments" section of prior posts.

Are HOA's a worldwide phenomenon?

/rant

[former player]

I believe they are an American invention to keep the white racists happy.

(To clarify, we don't have them here in the UK.  And I've never had trouble with a neighbour or the neighbourhood either.  There is high crime on some public housing estates ("projects" in American parlance, I think), but this generalised fear of someone painting the front door the "wrong" colour is completely foreign to me.  An Englishperson's home is their castle and they will paint (or not paint) the front door whatever damn colour they like. Even if it's a historic home ("listed") the colour of the paint on the front door is highly unlikely to be of interest to anyone.

[GuitarStv]

Even if it's a historic home ("listed") the colour of the paint on the front door is highly unlikely to be of interest to anyone.

I betcha neon pink on the door of an historic home would ruffle some feathers.  :P

[Metalcat]

Even if it's a historic home ("listed") the colour of the paint on the front door is highly unlikely to be of interest to anyone.

I betcha neon pink on the door of an historic home would ruffle some feathers.  :P

There's a historic home on my block with an iridescent purple/blue door. It looks like the house is a portal to another dimension.

[GodlessCommie]

As we were shopping for our first townhouse, the agent tried to explain to us the concept of an HOA (we were still new to the American life). She did use the pink door example, which we totally did not see as a problem - and then we drove by a townhouse with a pink door. We bought another townhouse in this neighborhood.

I also wanted to note that HOAs exist mostly in the suburbs. In the cities, city ordinances take care of the rules, and city authorities take care of the maintenance. Condo boards still manage individual buildings.

[former player]

Even if it's a historic home ("listed") the colour of the paint on the front door is highly unlikely to be of interest to anyone.

I betcha neon pink on the door of an historic home would ruffle some feathers.  :P

There's a historic home on my block with an iridescent purple/blue door. It looks like the house is a portal to another dimension.

Yeah, but your block is already spoiled by a high rise, right?

[the_fixer]

Delete not pertinent to current conversation

[Metalcat]

Even if it's a historic home ("listed") the colour of the paint on the front door is highly unlikely to be of interest to anyone.

I betcha neon pink on the door of an historic home would ruffle some feathers.  :P

There's a historic home on my block with an iridescent purple/blue door. It looks like the house is a portal to another dimension.

Yeah, but your block is already spoiled by a high rise, right?

lol, the high rises are pretty low on the list of things that make my block "undesirable". That said, we're kind of the opposite of NIMBY where I live.

[seattlecyclone]

Even if it's a historic home ("listed") the colour of the paint on the front door is highly unlikely to be of interest to anyone.

I betcha neon pink on the door of an historic home would ruffle some feathers.  :P

There's a historic home on my block with an iridescent purple/blue door. It looks like the house is a portal to another dimension.

Yeah, but your block is already spoiled by a high rise, right?

Was nobody thinking of the property values when they approved that?

[Metalcat]

Even if it's a historic home ("listed") the colour of the paint on the front door is highly unlikely to be of interest to anyone.

I betcha neon pink on the door of an historic home would ruffle some feathers.  :P

There's a historic home on my block with an iridescent purple/blue door. It looks like the house is a portal to another dimension.

Yeah, but your block is already spoiled by a high rise, right?

Was nobody thinking of the property values when they approved that?

It was the late 60s, who knows what they were thinking, but my building was the height of luxury at the time.

Many high rise units here go for as much or more than detached homes, so who knows.

[seattlecyclone]

Yeah I was mostly kidding. I see people all the time worry about density bringing lower property values to their neighborhood in Seattle, but it's invariably the opposite that happens. The land where you're allowed to build more than a detached house is worth more than the land where you aren't.

[BlueHouse]

In most cases, it's not even what people want. Most of new SFH construction, at least around me, are entire tracts built by either a single developer, or a consortium of developers. For whatever reason, they see an advantage in having an HOA installed, so when you come to buy a new house, with construction equipment still working, you already have an HOA set up.

If you want a new house and no HOA, you are welcome to shop around and discover that every new development is exactly the same in this regard. And it's been like that for decades, so no-so-new-homes also all have HOAs.

Isn't this obvious?

If you're building a new neighborhood the last thing you want is for there to be no HOA and then you have the one person who turns their house into a dump.

I believe my neighborhood when built had a now defunct HOA. It makes sense from the perspective of the builder to try to sustain consistent home values. If you're building a subdivision, you won't have many people interested in living there if they can see their property values tank right away.

I live in DC, so most of the row homes have been here for 100 years or more, long before the concept of an HOA.  But my little neighborhood was built recently, and there is an HOA here.   I think I have a decent understanding of most of what I'm about to write, but I may be off by 3-5%. 
The developer of this neighborhood made a deal with the district government to create a PUD (Planned Unit Development), and in return for being allowed zoning variances (higher density, taller buildings than would be allowed otherwise, etc), the developer had to include certain features for the community.  This included a few public grassy areas and a small children's playground.  The lighting for the grassy courtyards and the playground needed upkeep that couldn't be funded from taxpayer funds, so an HOA was necessary.  In addition, the community also has to provide and maintain filters in the sewer grates so that our water is pre-filtered before it hits the city sewers (to support the district's planned watershed upgrades).  I think the landscaping and snow removal are conveniences added so that we homeowners think we're getting something of value for our $1000/year.  My understanding is that the developers reaped huge tax and building benefits for making these deals, and we the homeowners will be paying the bills for eternity. 
Our community was built in two phases, which means two separate HOAs which were meant to work very closely together.  It turns out it's ridiculously expensive to rewrite and merge HOAs. and I think there's no way to legally dissolve the HOAs because of the requirements from the city to perform some services that they benefit from (the filtered water). 

There are luxury high-rise buildings being built now where the developers have made deals to reduce the required number of parking spaces required in return for promises that the future owners/residents will not be allowed to apply for on-street parking permits.  So these developers have given away a right that every other resident in the city has and the only benefit I know of is that the developer can build/sell more units.  It seems very odd and that there must be some quid pro quo involved that is another can of worms. 
 

 

[seattlecyclone]

In most cases, it's not even what people want. Most of new SFH construction, at least around me, are entire tracts built by either a single developer, or a consortium of developers. For whatever reason, they see an advantage in having an HOA installed, so when you come to buy a new house, with construction equipment still working, you already have an HOA set up.

If you want a new house and no HOA, you are welcome to shop around and discover that every new development is exactly the same in this regard. And it's been like that for decades, so no-so-new-homes also all have HOAs.

Isn't this obvious?

If you're building a new neighborhood the last thing you want is for there to be no HOA and then you have the one person who turns their house into a dump.

I believe my neighborhood when built had a now defunct HOA. It makes sense from the perspective of the builder to try to sustain consistent home values. If you're building a subdivision, you won't have many people interested in living there if they can see their property values tank right away.

I live in DC, so most of the row homes have been here for 100 years or more, long before the concept of an HOA.  But my little neighborhood was built recently, and there is an HOA here.   I think I have a decent understanding of most of what I'm about to write, but I may be off by 3-5%. 
The developer of this neighborhood made a deal with the district government to create a PUD (Planned Unit Development), and in return for being allowed zoning variances (higher density, taller buildings than would be allowed otherwise, etc), the developer had to include certain features for the community.  This included a few public grassy areas and a small children's playground.  The lighting for the grassy courtyards and the playground needed upkeep that couldn't be funded from taxpayer funds, so an HOA was necessary.  In addition, the community also has to provide and maintain filters in the sewer grates so that our water is pre-filtered before it hits the city sewers (to support the district's planned watershed upgrades).  I think the landscaping and snow removal are conveniences added so that we homeowners think we're getting something of value for our $1000/year.  My understanding is that the developers reaped huge tax and building benefits for making these deals, and we the homeowners will be paying the bills for eternity. 
Our community was built in two phases, which means two separate HOAs which were meant to work very closely together.  It turns out it's ridiculously expensive to rewrite and merge HOAs. and I think there's no way to legally dissolve the HOAs because of the requirements from the city to perform some services that they benefit from (the filtered water). 

There are luxury high-rise buildings being built now where the developers have made deals to reduce the required number of parking spaces required in return for promises that the future owners/residents will not be allowed to apply for on-street parking permits.  So these developers have given away a right that every other resident in the city has and the only benefit I know of is that the developer can build/sell more units.  It seems very odd and that there must be some quid pro quo involved that is another can of worms. 

That seems like an all-too-common story. There's even a name for it: "pretextual planning." You live in homes that, per a strict reading of the zoning code, shouldn't have been allowed to exist. It's not necessarily that anyone really believes that your homes made the community worse, but the unrealistic regulations create a pretext for the city to negotiate for other public benefits in exchange for the developer getting the privilege of selling a few more homes than they could otherwise. The costs of these developer extractions are borne by the residents of those homes in the end, and they indirectly lead to higher home prices for everyone else because those new homes don't exist in a vacuum. Everything you do to make it more expensive to build a new home also affects the price of the used homes nearby.

[bill1827]

Even if it's a historic home ("listed") the colour of the paint on the front door is highly unlikely to be of interest to anyone.

You will need listed building consent to change the colour of the paintwork, or make any other external change, on a listed building. (However uninteresting it may be.)

One of many reasons why I would never buy a listed building.

[coppertop]

There is some confusion as to the difference between a condominium and a townhouse.  Condominium is a form of ownership.  Townhouse is an architectural style.  One of the townhomes I owned was a middle of the row with fee simple ownership, which meant that I owned my unit and the ground it was built on. I was responsible for mowing my own grass and maintaining the outside as well as the inside of my home. We had an HOA, which mainly took care of the common areas and flagged people for violations of the rules.  A condominium can be a townhouse, but not every townhouse is a condominium.  Hope I haven't muddied the waters.

[dcheesi]

Even if it's a historic home ("listed") the colour of the paint on the front door is highly unlikely to be of interest to anyone.

You will need listed building consent to change the colour of the paintwork, or make any other external change, on a listed building. (However uninteresting it may be.)

One of many reasons why I would never buy a listed building.

I feel like this came up in a (UK) TV show somewhere; something about painting someone else's (IIRC a public official of some sort) door blue instead of black overnight, and then reporting them for it?

[dignam]

I'm currently in a sorta-townhome, but it's a condo.  Our building has two units, side by side and is roughly 1700 sq ft.  So we have three exterior walls, one shared wall, and an attached garage.  32 units in total in our HOA.  For what we pay, it's a pretty good situation.  It's me, my GF and our medium energy 65 pound golden.  I was a little concerned it would be a pain to take the dog out/walk her, but it's fine.  We have more than enough room.

HOA is hands off for the most part, which is much better than the horror stories I've heard.  $200/mo and they mow grass, clear snow and ice, repair/upgrade anything on the exterior, and pay for exterior insurance.  We just had a new retaining wall put in last year that looks fantastic.  They even planted some bushes for us.  I had a leaky window which they also repaired very quickly.  They encourage units to hang flowers, lights, etc. and don't care if grills and stuff are on the porch.  TBH, my main gripe lately with the HOA board is there has been very little communication over the past year or two.  Granted there was a pandemic, we are way overdue for a meeting.

I've owned a standard single family home before and wouldn't say I necessarily miss it compared to living in this condo.  I think, though, if I had the option to live in the sticks with more land for the dog to run around in I'd probably take it.  But my neighbors are great and so is the area so I won't be leaving for years most likely.

[Villanelle]

I'm 45 years old and just moved into my first single-family home (as an adult) about 2 months ago.  Even the question "has anyone ever lived in a townhome" is so odd to me.  I've lived in what I term an "apartment style" condo, which is to say it was a large, multi story (4) building with many units (probably around 100 total, I'd guess).  Then it was a duplex-style townhouse, which was two units side-by-side with one party wall, per building, so somewhat similar to single-family living, but with a shared wall and the HOA covered nearly all outdoor space.  (Units were built into a hill so there were only balconies, no backyards, and front yard spaces were mostly just the driveway and some decorative beds.  Then one unit n a 4 unit building (side-by-side style so each was next to the next, with no spaces on top of one another), then another duplex-style, then another side-by-side 4 unit building, then a row house (which may not be considered a townhouse, but felt like it).

I don't really differentiate between townhouse and condo because to me there is little difference, especially if renting (though we did own 2 from the aforementioned list and still own but don't live in one of them). 

Some HOAs are better (based on my version of "better") than others, but I've never had an awful one.  The shared walls (and in some cases floor) were never an issue.  occasionally, we heard a neighbor, but now that I'm in a single-family, I still hear them mowing their lawn or enjoying their outdoor space if I have a window open. 

[LaserCat]

The weirdest HOA restriction we have here (in a townhouse, btw) is a no-dog policy. Totally bizarre to me that they'd outlaw the most popular domestic pet, in a home that someone "owns"; even rental apartments these days allow dogs, although there's usually a weight limit (understandable with shared ceiling/floors --which are not an issue here). Cats are fine, though *shrug*.

I'm assuming some busybody was overly concerned with policing pup poop, or something?

I would gladly live in a place with no dogs, sounds like heaven on earth to me.... finally no non-stop barking neighbors!

[GodlessCommie]

It seems like a decent HOA is like a dog that didn't bark. Non-event, non-story. If an HOA wasn't doing awful, and no one heard it, did it even happen?

[dcheesi]

It seems like a decent HOA is like a dog that didn't bark. Non-event, non-story. If an HOA wasn't doing awful, and no one heard it, did it even happen?

The problem, of course, is that it only takes one board election, or even just one new overzealous neighbor, to turn a "quiet" HOA into a nightmare. There are very few checks and balances on HOAs, so abusive bullies and other bad apples can easily run rampart.

[obstinate]

The weirdest HOA restriction we have here (in a townhouse, btw) is a no-dog policy. Totally bizarre to me that they'd outlaw the most popular domestic pet, in a home that someone "owns"; even rental apartments these days allow dogs, although there's usually a weight limit (understandable with shared ceiling/floors --which are not an issue here). Cats are fine, though *shrug*.

I'm assuming some busybody was overly concerned with policing pup poop, or something?

I would gladly live in a place with no dogs, sounds like heaven on earth to me.... finally no non-stop barking neighbors!

Same! This would be a selling point to me. They presumably installed this policy in the first place because they thought it was a selling point for a niche that they were targeting.

The main thing to understand when buying is the terms of the HOA, because you are also buying that, for better or for worse. If you don't like it don't assume you can get it changed because the incumbents may prefer to keep things the same. I know I would be willing to pay a premium to not have everything in my neighborhood covered with dog waste.

[Metalcat]

The weirdest HOA restriction we have here (in a townhouse, btw) is a no-dog policy. Totally bizarre to me that they'd outlaw the most popular domestic pet, in a home that someone "owns"; even rental apartments these days allow dogs, although there's usually a weight limit (understandable with shared ceiling/floors --which are not an issue here). Cats are fine, though *shrug*.

I'm assuming some busybody was overly concerned with policing pup poop, or something?

I would gladly live in a place with no dogs, sounds like heaven on earth to me.... finally no non-stop barking neighbors!

Same! This would be a selling point to me. They presumably installed this policy in the first place because they thought it was a selling point for a niche that they were targeting.

The main thing to understand when buying is the terms of the HOA, because you are also buying that, for better or for worse. If you don't like it don't assume you can get it changed because the incumbents may prefer to keep things the same. I know I would be willing to pay a premium to not have everything in my neighborhood covered with dog waste.

Our condo complex is no dogs, and it wasn't the developers who made the rule and the rule has nothing to do with condo sales. The owners voted to make the rule because the majority wanted the buildings to be dog free.

[stoaX]

The weirdest HOA restriction we have here (in a townhouse, btw) is a no-dog policy. Totally bizarre to me that they'd outlaw the most popular domestic pet, in a home that someone "owns"; even rental apartments these days allow dogs, although there's usually a weight limit (understandable with shared ceiling/floors --which are not an issue here). Cats are fine, though *shrug*.

I'm assuming some busybody was overly concerned with policing pup poop, or something?

I would gladly live in a place with no dogs, sounds like heaven on earth to me.... finally no non-stop barking neighbors!

Same! This would be a selling point to me. They presumably installed this policy in the first place because they thought it was a selling point for a niche that they were targeting.

The main thing to understand when buying is the terms of the HOA, because you are also buying that, for better or for worse. If you don't like it don't assume you can get it changed because the incumbents may prefer to keep things the same. I know I would be willing to pay a premium to not have everything in my neighborhood covered with dog waste.

Our condo complex is no dogs, and it wasn't the developers who made the rule and the rule has nothing to do with condo sales. The owners voted to make the rule because the majority wanted the buildings to be dog free.

Even though I like dogs, I would prefer a no dogs policy if I lived in attached housing.  Between the barking and the unwillingness of some owners to pick up after their pets....

Regarding humans, I've lived in 5 different attached housing situations, 2 of which would be considered townhomes.  2 out of the 5 had unacceptable / made me move levels of human noise.  Polite requests, HOA fines, even the police making an arrest of one of the noisemakers didn't solve the problem.  That being said, 3 of the 5 were wonderful experiences. 

[LaserCat]

Regarding humans, I've lived in 5 different attached housing situations, 2 of which would be considered townhomes.  2 out of the 5 had unacceptable / made me move levels of human noise.  Polite requests, HOA fines, even the police making an arrest of one of the noisemakers didn't solve the problem.  That being said, 3 of the 5 were wonderful experiences.

Noise is one of the reasons why I want to finally get a detached single family home.  I'm someone that really needs silence, and neighbors often make unacceptable levels of noise.  Bass music, or bass from a home theatre system coming through the walls drives me bonkers, and it's just something that it too difficult to stop with soundproofing.

[Metalcat]

Regarding humans, I've lived in 5 different attached housing situations, 2 of which would be considered townhomes.  2 out of the 5 had unacceptable / made me move levels of human noise.  Polite requests, HOA fines, even the police making an arrest of one of the noisemakers didn't solve the problem.  That being said, 3 of the 5 were wonderful experiences.

Noise is one of the reasons why I want to finally get a detached single family home.  I'm someone that really needs silence, and neighbors often make unacceptable levels of noise.  Bass music, or bass from a home theatre system coming through the walls drives me bonkers, and it's just something that it too difficult to stop with soundproofing.

This is one of the reasons I love my current high-rise. It's freakishly sound proofed.

Also, I'm on a very high floor, so I don't have the sound of people outside. The last detached house I lived in was a family neighbourhood and the sound of children screaming as they played outside was brutal. My neighbours had three toddlers, it got to the point that I had to keep my windows closed during the day because the screeching drove me batty.

Now the biggest noisemaker I deal with is the wind.

[seattlecyclone]

Regarding humans, I've lived in 5 different attached housing situations, 2 of which would be considered townhomes.  2 out of the 5 had unacceptable / made me move levels of human noise.  Polite requests, HOA fines, even the police making an arrest of one of the noisemakers didn't solve the problem.  That being said, 3 of the 5 were wonderful experiences.

Noise is one of the reasons why I want to finally get a detached single family home.  I'm someone that really needs silence, and neighbors often make unacceptable levels of noise.  Bass music, or bass from a home theatre system coming through the walls drives me bonkers, and it's just something that it too difficult to stop with soundproofing.

I can tell you from experience that a small air gap between your house and the next does very little to drown out noise. If you're talking about a detached house on an acre lot where there's a pretty significant distance between your house and the next that's one thing, but a detached house in an urban neighborhood will still experience plenty of noise from neighbors if the neighbors are inclined to be noisy people.

[the_fixer]

The weirdest HOA restriction we have here (in a townhouse, btw) is a no-dog policy. Totally bizarre to me that they'd outlaw the most popular domestic pet, in a home that someone "owns"; even rental apartments these days allow dogs, although there's usually a weight limit (understandable with shared ceiling/floors --which are not an issue here). Cats are fine, though *shrug*.

I'm assuming some busybody was overly concerned with policing pup poop, or something?

I would gladly live in a place with no dogs, sounds like heaven on earth to me.... finally no non-stop barking neighbors!

Same! This would be a selling point to me. They presumably installed this policy in the first place because they thought it was a selling point for a niche that they were targeting.

The main thing to understand when buying is the terms of the HOA, because you are also buying that, for better or for worse. If you don't like it don't assume you can get it changed because the incumbents may prefer to keep things the same. I know I would be willing to pay a premium to not have everything in my neighborhood covered with dog waste.

Dog waste is by far the biggest issue we deal with on the HOA board I am a member of.

Constant complaints about people not picking up after their dogs.

Poop bag stations being broken into and people stealing the bags.

We pay over 1k a month to have a company pickup dog waste multiple times per week and we still get complaints.

We have had residents threaten legal action against the board and even bodily harm.

I LOVE dogs and want another one some day but there are days when I wish we could ban them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LaserCat]

I can tell you from experience that a small air gap between your house and the next does very little to drown out noise. If you're talking about a detached house on an acre lot where there's a pretty significant distance between your house and the next that's one thing, but a detached house in an urban neighborhood will still experience plenty of noise from neighbors if the neighbors are inclined to be noisy people.

Acreage is the plan, although it is also very important to pick the right spot as in rural America you often have to deal with people shooting guns and ATV noise as well.  Sometimes I feel like I can never win.  I just want to live somewhere where all I can hear is the sound of birds and the wind through the trees!

[dcheesi]

Regarding humans, I've lived in 5 different attached housing situations, 2 of which would be considered townhomes.  2 out of the 5 had unacceptable / made me move levels of human noise.  Polite requests, HOA fines, even the police making an arrest of one of the noisemakers didn't solve the problem.  That being said, 3 of the 5 were wonderful experiences.

Noise is one of the reasons why I want to finally get a detached single family home.  I'm someone that really needs silence, and neighbors often make unacceptable levels of noise.  Bass music, or bass from a home theatre system coming through the walls drives me bonkers, and it's just something that it too difficult to stop with soundproofing.

I can tell you from experience that a small air gap between your house and the next does very little to drown out noise. If you're talking about a detached house on an acre lot where there's a pretty significant distance between your house and the next that's one thing, but a detached house in an urban neighborhood will still experience plenty of noise from neighbors if the neighbors are inclined to be noisy people.

Eh, it depends. I was pretty darn close to my neighbors when I lived in a house, and the ones on one side of me seemed like the type to make noise, but I never heard anything from inside their house. Now if they were standing outside talking, that I could hear.

It probably helped that I didn't have any windows facing their house. I did have one window facing the opposite neighbor (in the finished basment), but she was pretty quiet anyway.

[stoaX]

I can tell you from experience that a small air gap between your house and the next does very little to drown out noise. If you're talking about a detached house on an acre lot where there's a pretty significant distance between your house and the next that's one thing, but a detached house in an urban neighborhood will still experience plenty of noise from neighbors if the neighbors are inclined to be noisy people.

Acreage is the plan, although it is also very important to pick the right spot as in rural America you often have to deal with people shooting guns and ATV noise as well.  Sometimes I feel like I can never win.  I just want to live somewhere where all I can hear is the sound of birds and the wind through the trees!

Step 1:. Become fabulously wealthy.
Step 2:. Buy a house with a lot of oceanfront acreage. The sound of crashing waves will drown out everything else!

[LaserCat]

Step 1:. Become fabulously wealthy.
Step 2:. Buy a house with a lot of oceanfront acreage. The sound of crashing waves will drown out everything else!

Although of course, I plan to FIRE with one goal being an opportunity to build a home on a quiet piece of property =) , but I honestly think it's horrible that quiet is something that only the rich can afford, Everyone needs a bit of silence and solitude, as scientists have done lots of studies that noise pollution has serious effects on people's health and well being, and also affects wildlife tremendously.  =(

[Metalcat]

Step 1:. Become fabulously wealthy.
Step 2:. Buy a house with a lot of oceanfront acreage. The sound of crashing waves will drown out everything else!

Although of course, I plan to FIRE with one goal being an opportunity to build a home on a quiet piece of property =) , but I honestly think it's horrible that quiet is something that only the rich can afford, Everyone needs a bit of silence and solitude, as scientists have done lots of studies that noise pollution has serious effects on people's health and well being, and also affects wildlife tremendously.  =(

I don't agree that only rich people can afford quiet. Only rich people can afford quiet in desirable locations.

There are plenty of remote, unpopular locations where you can find land and quiet.

You just can't have *both* the convenience and benefits of dense urban communities AND the lack of inconvenient sounds of humans without being wealthy.

I personally happily make the trade of hearing ambulances in order to have the incredibly valuable (for me) convenience of having 3 major hospitals within 5 minutes of my house.

Everything in life is a trade off. People who really want to live away from other humans can quite easily do so, but it comes at the cost of losing access to everything that a dense collection of humans have to offer.

For some people, it's absolutely worth it, for others it isn't.

For yet others, it feels worth it, but that's only because they're stressed and burnt out from their overloaded lives and escaping feels like the only way to get peace. For some that's true, but for many, the city would be perfectly peaceful if they weren't constantly over stimulated with stress as it is.

[LaserCat]

For yet others, it feels worth it, but that's only because they're stressed and burnt out from their overloaded lives and escaping feels like the only way to get peace. For some that's true, but for many, the city would be perfectly peaceful if they weren't constantly over stimulated with stress as it is.

Yeah this has made me think a lot about all of your posts Malcat on the thread about folks being burnt out. As the world gets more stress filled and noisier, the closer everyone is to the end of their rope, not just occasionally but constantly.  Still I do think for the sake of most of the world and for wildlife we need to bring down the noise levels overall in our environments, whether you live in a rural or urban space, but bringing down everyone's over all stress levels too will help everyone in the long run.  We live in such a harried and busy world that no one has a moment to stop and take a breath. 

[GuitarStv]

It's possible to soundproof a home.  Unfortunately the techniques to do so are not commonly used in most construction.

The basic concepts around soundproofing are well known.  You want mass, an air gap, and then mass again.  And ideally you want to keep the two masses as decoupled as possible.  Common (and effective) ways of soundproofing include building a floating floor on rubber risers (to decouple from vibrations on the floor), and double framed walls with a small gap between them (ideally you want to insulate each framed wall with heavier insulation like rockwool).  This will result in a very good noise reduction coefficient.

Typical weak points in a room are doors, glazing, and HVAC systems . . . but there are strategies and techniques to overcome them.  While not cheap, this kind of construction isn't wildly expensive if you're willing to do it yourself.  I spent a lot of time soundproofing my basement while finishing it, as the laundry/furnace room is right next to my amps and guitar stuff.  I can have the washing machine going with the furnace kicking in, and there isn't appreciable noise in the music room.

[Metalcat]

For yet others, it feels worth it, but that's only because they're stressed and burnt out from their overloaded lives and escaping feels like the only way to get peace. For some that's true, but for many, the city would be perfectly peaceful if they weren't constantly over stimulated with stress as it is.

Yeah this has made me think a lot about all of your posts Malcat on the thread about folks being burnt out. As the world gets more stress filled and noisier, the closer everyone is to the end of their rope, not just occasionally but constantly.  Still I do think for the sake of most of the world and for wildlife we need to bring down the noise levels overall in our environments, whether you live in a rural or urban space, but bringing down everyone's over all stress levels too will help everyone in the long run.  We live in such a harried and busy world that no one has a moment to stop and take a breath.

Environmental, I can't argue with.

But I've been peacefully retired for over a year and I live in a high-rise in the middle of a major urban center on the corner of two major streets. Noise does not contribute to my stress whatsoever.

My place is well sound proofed, so I have very few unwanted noises, and I live up high so the road sounds are muted even with the windows open. Just living downtown does not create enough sound to be stressful, I find it quite peaceful here.

I was, however, far more sensitive to noise when I was over stressed. I couldn't even tolerate music.

So I personally think that a lot of people's intolerance to human noises is more that they are unmanageable stressed, not that they live in urban centers.

For sure, there are some people who truly are meant to live away from other people, and are truly sensitive to sound. But those people are the exception, not the rule.

It's hard to know how much background stimulation you can handle when you are over burdened. If you are harried, over busy, and over stressed, then I posit that it's actually impossible for you to know what your needs would be if your were calm and minimally stressed.

Again, I'm not criticizing anyone's need to go live in the woods, but having grown up in the woods, I've seen A LOT of people make the same move, only to decompress and reintegrate back into human hustle and bustle once their threshold for stimulation regenerates.

[BlueHouse]

I can tell you from experience that a small air gap between your house and the next does very little to drown out noise. If you're talking about a detached house on an acre lot where there's a pretty significant distance between your house and the next that's one thing, but a detached house in an urban neighborhood will still experience plenty of noise from neighbors if the neighbors are inclined to be noisy people.

Acreage is the plan, although it is also very important to pick the right spot as in rural America you often have to deal with people shooting guns and ATV noise as well.  Sometimes I feel like I can never win.  I just want to live somewhere where all I can hear is the sound of birds and the wind through the trees!

These posts made me start thinking about the lengths people will go to to correct an issue they're unhappy with.  Even to the point of cosmetic or functional body modification.  Why isn't anyone willing to break their eardrums if they desire quiet? 

Just kidding --- I'm not advocating hurting yourself.  But my apple earbuds have noise cancellation and I seriously cannot hear much when those are on.  I don't like to wear them all the time, but when I'm working at my mom's and she has the TV blaring, those are my salvation and they've kept me from ripping the ears off my head. 

[BlueHouse]

That seems like an all-too-common story. There's even a name for it: "pretextual planning." You live in homes that, per a strict reading of the zoning code, shouldn't have been allowed to exist. It's not necessarily that anyone really believes that your homes made the community worse, but the unrealistic regulations create a pretext for the city to negotiate for other public benefits in exchange for the developer getting the privilege of selling a few more homes than they could otherwise. The costs of these developer extractions are borne by the residents of those homes in the end, and they indirectly lead to higher home prices for everyone else because those new homes don't exist in a vacuum. Everything you do to make it more expensive to build a new home also affects the price of the used homes nearby.

Excellent.  Thank you because I did not know there was a term for this. 

[Imma]

It's funny everyone experiences noise so differently. I live next door to a playground, I hear screaming kids all the time. But these are the sounds of happy kids, so they make me happy. My screaming neighbours who should get a divorce, on the other hand, that really stresses me out.

But I live in an innercity area in one of the biggest cities in my country, and I still hear lots of natural sounds around me. I hear way more birds, rain and wind than screaming kids, neighbours or ambulances. I'm actually surprised at how quiet and peaceful my house is even if I live in such an urban place. Cats and dogs are an issue though. I don't mind the sound of barking dogs but they are loud. And cats just are the worst. None of my neighbours keep them indoors so they dig through my garden, leave their poo everywhere, try to sneak into my house every time I leave a door or window open and they fight at night. I'd say 80% of my neighbours have cats and most have more than 1.