Home Owners Associations & COA's (Condo Owners Associations) vs. ME

 

    Ahhhh, HOA's, the one bane of existence I never had to deal with because I've rented my whole life. I live by the simple rule, if I pay the rent, don't throw grenades at my neighbors, and play rock guitar (which I don't) at 2 am in the morning on work day, then just leave me be. Pay my rent, utilities, and don't put a giant penis pinata outside my door, then we're good yes?

   Fast forward to my last place in Seattle.....

   I moved in with a guy who was renting a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom from a woman who was sub-leasing it.Turned out, it was a condo and not an honest to gosh apartment. So I was surrounded by "home owners" that owned their condos, and I was basically a squatter paying rent. Not being able to adult very good, I had to learn about living around "adults" super fucking quick. In all my living situations, I learned that if you keep quiet, don't cook stinky stuff, generally be a good neighbor, you're fine. NOT if you have a COA.

   HOA/COA's are essentially a pack of old people that have fuck all to do in their retirement, and you have to pay them to do fuck all to have "board meetings" and wander the neighborhood/condo complex to look for something to bitch about. Basically, you're paying to build Karens/Kens to give you shit about having a plant on your patio.

   Sooooo, upon moving into this Condo, it started it off quiet. Stuck inside, went to work, no biggie. One morning, I was heading to work and was taking the garbage out, and realized my car keys were still inside. "Ack, gotta get 'em". I was taking the trash to the dumpster via my car (the dumpster was 200 yards away from my front door.....) so I plopped the bag down outside my front door to run in and grab my keys. After a furious search, I found them plus $20 (WHOO!) in my jeans pocket and headed back out. As I popped out of my apartment, I got an ominous "notice" about placing my garbage in public hallways. I was in there for less than 5 minutes. No idea who left it, however, I did come to find out that people that owned condos there were issued these "notice" ticket books to hand out willy nilly. 

   Okay......it's on Donkey Kong, and my ass just brought the hammer......

   I had a patio which I'd go out and smoke on after work (I never smoke indoors, kinda gross). So I'd go out and have a cigarette before dinner. The neighbors to the immediate left of me had no issues, young couple, super nice, would wave on occasion. Now to my left and one story up, was the most passive aggressive bitch I've ever met. When I first moved in, she introduced herself, gave me basically her entire resume ending in dog training (uh....foreshadowing?) and gave me what I can only define of as a rape whistle. She asked if it was possible that everytime I go out on the patio to smoke, I blow this whistle so she knows to close her patio door..............I did it once, and threw the whistle off my patio. "HEY, I MIGHT BE GETTING RAPED! OR SMOKING A CIGARETTE!" She was the kind of retired person that had fuck all to do except stay home and open/close her patio door all day. At one point, she even put a high speed fan on her patio pointed at mine to "keep the smoke away". If I ever get that petty with old age where I need to focus on verbally pistol whipping others, please shoot me.

   Ahhh, then there was this elderly man (70ish?) who I nicknamed "Slow Shoe". My last year in Seattle I was working from home so I had plenty of breaks on my patio. I'd sit out there, watch the crows fly by, watch the groundskeeper use a leaf blower on plain asphalt, and this guy wander around. He always wore a hat, fluffy coat, nut hugger jeans (excuse me *BLLLLAAARRRRGGGG) and slippers. From his conversations I could hear, he was from the East Coast, I want to say Jersey? Anywho, he would magically come out of his apartment ever 30-45 minutes, and slowly (and I mean slow) walk around the entire apartment complex, and God help you if you ran into him because he would talk you to death. Watched it plenty of times. He'd snare someone and like people (oddly enough) in the East Coast think it's a badge of honor, he'd bring up how long he'd lived there *"I'VE LIVED HERE FOR EIGHT YEARS!" Great grandpa, I've lived here 6 months.......no one fucking cares.  

   Anywho, back to the topic at hand. After having the superintendent come up under my patio, sometimes with the president of the COA Board (oh no.......he brought "rank".....too bad they don't know I've had my ass chewed by a General in the Army) about curtains, plants on my patio, loud noises (roommates did that, not me), Halloween decorations, name it.....I had enough. After packing all of my crap in a moving truck, changing the locks, I'd saved up enough beer cans to line my patio waste high for all to see. :) That was severely against the COA rules, and couldn't care less. Didn't actually own the condo, and it'd give all the old, bored people something to shit their pants about. 

   I'm a giver. ;) And like my brothers chose too, if you find a dream house, but it falls under the 4th Reich of a Home Owners Association? FUCK THAT. My rent, my land, my rules. If I want to display a giant 20 foot inflatable dildo on my lawn for Christmas, no bullshit pile of old retirees that have nothing to do won't give me a "fine" for doing so....

COA's & HOA's across the US? You can gargle my nuts (and that's from the heart. ;) )

Time To Catch Up!

Fig. 1.1 My Brain Telling Me To Fire Up

    Ladies and gentlemen, it has been.....errrm.....8 years since my last significant post, and my apologies for that. The fire died a bit so other things came up in the process. My last post was when I got poop-canned from running a Veterinary Hospital, and things did go South (for a while) but things ended up on the level so can't complain right? 

   To boil it down, I took on a few odd jobs in Seattle and a huge job there as well as a Superintendent of a Cemetery (don't worry, more stories to come about that!). In 2018, I returned to my hometown in Idaho (more stories about that too), Since then, it's still a bit of a culture shock from going from basically a fake LA to a small town. Many things are different here in the small town, such as:

• Traffic isn't complete shite here v. Seattle. At my last job in Seattle, most of my commutes would take over an hour to go 7 miles.
• People in this town are kind, courteous, and wave at you when you pass by. This is a complete 180 against Seattle where people would sooner step over your dead body rather than shake your hand. Example:
• Idaho: After moving here right before winter, I was driving to a client's house on a rough farm road. I slid off into a shallow ditch (which I could get out of easy peasy). No sooner did this happen did I see a truck behind me in my rearview mirror with two huge guys hopping out with the obvious intent to push me out of the ditch. I managed to pull out of the ditch and waved at them and they waved back and drove off.
• Seattle: I drove by an active murder scene on the way to work.....dead body in the road and everything.
• Cost of living here is a BUTT TON cheaper than Seattle. Food, living, medical care (which I'll ultimately end up talking about) etc. I have no idea why people love that city so much. Again, it's becoming a shadow of LA. When I left Seattle in 2018, I was paying $1500+ for a 2 bedroom apartment. It was actually a condo I leased from the owners which was hell on Earth, (that will be covered too....). 
• Employment in Seattle is impossible.....end of story. If you don't have a background in IT or desire to slog for minimum wage at Amazon, you're pretty much doomed. With the addition of new "application software" where you have to rebuild your resume for the recruiters benefit, which might ultimately kick you out of the running because you didn't use the right keyword, you'll never see someone face to face which is how I prefer it. HR Pro-Tip: Use Craigslist or Indeed. That will get your resume in front of people vs. Monster (BLECH), ZipRecruiter, etc. Within a week of getting to Idaho, I found work. Met the hiring person for about 10 minutes and blooop, got the job on the spot. 

   Suffice to say, I'm getting the burn to get back into blogging. I'm even thinking of starting to post some videos but I think I write better than I speak, but that will remain to be seen. Alot has happened over the last 8+ years and I have alot of catching up to do. 😉 So if you find yourself bored, why not hop on here and read some thoughts about what I put out there. Agree? Disagree? Just post a comment! Looking at my list of ideas to write about, I'll be writing about all to include and more:

• TV Commercials & Ads during the Pandemic
• Anti-vax & Anti-Mask (yep.....sorry, that meteor is coming)
• Horrible Bosses (not the movie, the ones I've had ANNNND HR Pro-Tip on how to deal with them)
• Returning to a part time cooking life at night on top of a daytime job
• Caregiving
• Medical fun (and by "fun", I mean I'd rather shit in my hands and clap)
• Moving
• Condo life
• The Seven Sins (aka. Seattle)
• and more....

   So more to come! It feels great to catch up with all the amount of stuff and what's going on. And have no fear, over the time, I'm still as cynical as ever, but, I feel like it's a bit more easy to digest now. 

   

   In summation, I hope everyone is doing well. Keep an eye out for updates which might come daily o every other day. If anything, if you can get a smile or a chuckle from my posts, then my work is done!

   Oh.....and Fuck Seattle.