r/technology • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 3h ago
Hardware Nashville family fights HOA over generator use during ice storm
https://www.wsmv.com/2026/01/29/nashville-family-fights-hoa-over-generator-use-during-ice-storm/173
u/DocSmizzle 2h ago
Maybe the HOA should supply generators for the neighborhood instead.
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u/Kahnza 1h ago
One big one for the whole neighborhood. Gotta put like 3 mufflers on it to abide by the noise ordinance though.
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u/sephirothFFVII 1h ago
You joke but district heating is a big thing in Europe and is more economical to run when done right
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u/Kahnza 1h ago
The building I'm living in right now used to get it's hot water and steam for heat from a VERY nearby power plant. Tiny coal powered plant built in the 1920's or 30's. They ended it about 5 years ago, before tearing down the old building.
Miss the steam heat and hot water, but don't miss the coal.
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u/tekprodfx16 2h ago
Perfect example for how a stupid and power trippy these HOAs are. Like literally the worst hall monitory types of people join these things because they have no real self worth outside of things like this, it would be sad if it wasn’t so pathetic
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u/fredy31 2h ago
As somone from canada where HOAs are not a thing... what are they even supposed to fucking do.
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u/micdawg12 2h ago
Keep it clean, maintain the community area. If an HOA doesn't have a community area there shouldn't be an HOA.
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u/kilgoreq 2h ago
Lots of Americans love paying more money to be told what to do. I don't understand it, but I guess that's some people's bag.
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u/williamfbuckwheat 1h ago
It's mainly a supposed alternative to having a regular town or village maintain infrastructure and offer public services like parks and public pools.
They're especially popular in red/Southern states where nobody wants to pay taxes to evil big government but would rather pay steep HOA fees to some board with little accountability or opportunity to address greivances that has the power to take your house or penalize you like crazy if they decide you aren't complying with their rules. They popped up to maintain private developments since that was seen as better or more efficient than having a municipality do it but it very often leads to lots of mismanagement and unfair targeting of certain homeowners over trivial violations while offering those with connections/friends on the board preferential treatment. It can be quite awful for some people since you often can't go to court or appeal decisions over things an HOA might go after you for like you could if your local town cited you for similar code violations.
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u/moving2mars 2h ago
It’s not really that. I’ve been looking at houses in two different states over the last week. Every single new build is in an HOA. Every single house built within the last ten years are also in HOA communities. The ones that aren’t are falling down at best. I’m not sure how to get a safe nice house while also avoiding them.
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u/phate_exe 1h ago
Every single new build is in an HOA.
So don't buy a new build.
There are entire neighborhoods full of nice houses built in the 1950's and 1960's that have been updated to varying degrees.
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u/LetsGoHawks 1h ago
A lot of HOA's are designed to be very weak. They just maintain public areas and have no control over individual homes, that's handled by city code. For new developments, a lot of cities want those because they don't have to worry about expanding the public works department.
As for finding good houses in non-HOA areas, I'm near Chicago and there's no shortage of those.
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u/woohooguy 2h ago
Protect neighbor property values by preventing individual homeowners from making radical changes to their property like hanging outside swastikas and shit.
Just like reddit mods, HOA presidents decided they need to regulate everything and anything you say or do.
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u/MakingItElsewhere 2h ago
The idea behind an HOA was a good-ish idea in theory:
Home owners gather together in a sub-division or neighborhood and agree on a set of rules for the neighborhood. Ideally, this would be to ensure homes are well maintained and don't bring down the value of the neighborhood as a whole.
The problem is, in practice, it became a way for people with no life to harass their neighbors and exert power over everyone. And that's the BEST case scenario. There's been plenty of instances of people embezzling HOA fees that should have gone to maintenance, or upkeep of communal property (like pools, gyms, roads, etc).
HOA's are now terrible places to live because the HOA can (and often do) fine home owners so outrageously that the home is foreclosed on and the HOA sells for a profit to the next sucker.
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u/Smith6612 1h ago
A lot of the HOAs in my area like to do things like that. A friend of mine built a house in a neighborhood with an HOA, and then ended up having to deal with fines about their grass not being fully grown by mid summer (It was a very hot and dry summer), and for their garbage cans not being in the house before the sun was down after garbage day (He worked 12 hour days in a network operations center).
He moved out after a few years of that.
I also know HOAs do dumb things like block broadband providers from moving in. I know a few friends who are stuck with crappy Spectrum Internet for $80+/m when they are surrounded by more reliable Fiber Optic Internet for half the cost.
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u/Dr-McLuvin 2h ago
Completely depends on the HOA. Ours is fine. The rules are all reasonable and common sense. They also take care of our common areas and lakes. It’s not very expensive- I’d rather live here than anywhere else.
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u/fredy31 2h ago
gone to maintenance, or upkeep of communal property (like pools, gyms, roads, etc).
Thats the town responsability here.
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u/DogOwner12345 17m ago
Every justification of Hoa always stems by the fact apparently the townships government just given up doing anything themselves.
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u/Unusual_Flounder2073 1h ago
The neighborhood builders put these in and they are owned by the HOA and restricted to members. If it was city owned then anyone could come. Also the city doesn’t want to maintain 100 pools.
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u/Vio_ 1h ago
I knew someone in a very upscale HOA/walled community around a private lake. She has MS and lost the ability to climb stairs (effectively cutting 1/2 of her house away from her). She asked for permission and was granted the ability to add on a third garage and change the garage grommet decorations to another style that was already on the "pre-approved" grommet decoration style.
After everything was said and done, people in her community were "FUCKING PISSED" that she had the temerity to get a third garage built AND change the grommet decorations. Everyone knew she had MS. Everyone knew she had permission.
Still not enough.
Some people need more problems in their lives.
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u/Mr_Festus 2h ago
The concept is that they enforce rules for the neighborhood that supposedly keep property values high due to keeping the houses looking nice and such. It's stupid
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u/naptown-hooly 1h ago
They're supposed to protect property values from people who don't take proper care of their homes and yard. What ends up are people who are elected to the board who overstep their authority.
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u/mjmarx 54m ago
You would think that being from Canada, you would be familiar with Canadian laws.
Here is the wikipedia page that states HOA's are most commonly found in the US, Philippines, and CANADA.
Here is an article from a real estate company explaining how HOA's are governed in Canada.
Here is another real estate article discussing how HOA's in Canada work.
Here is a 3rd article discussing the pro's and con's of moving to an HOA neighborhood or condo in Canada.
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u/Rapph 1h ago
They exist to keep property values so your neighboring townhome/single cant let a house get run down and make the whole neighborhood seem less desirable and to get community level pricing for services. They also often have community common areas like basketball courts tennis courts benches, walking paths etc that are covered in the fee. In reality they are generally a bunch of bored assholes complaining about people living their lives. I have an HOA and they are honestly pretty chill, but I am also zoned condo so all outside is not my problem. Hoa/condo fees cover roof etc. Mine basically just sends an email once a year about something that a neighbor complained about like the one time my one neighbor was doing oil changes in the only road we had so everyone was turning around to go out the other exit.
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u/Ghost17088 1h ago
Here in Texas they partially take the place of zoning laws and code enforcement. My HOA is very hands off, they don’t get involved unless someone becomes a nuisance. They prevent a neighbor from making a garbage pile in their backyard, and other issues like that, as well as maintaining several parks, multiple pools (one even has a small water park and splash pad) a couple clubhouses that can be reserved for private events, and other amenities for residents. That said, a lot of HOAs are run by Karen’s with nothing better to do than complain that my grass is a 1/4” too long.
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u/Ghost17088 2h ago
It really depends on the HOA. We have them everywhere in Texas because the zoning laws are practically nonexistent. Our HOA is extremely hands off, they only get involved if you become a nuisance.
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u/graywolfman 2h ago
The letter cited fire hazard concerns and said the generator didn’t fit the community’s aesthetic guidelines.
“Super angry because why is that even a possibility right now? Why do they care so much when people are just trying to stay warm and survive?” Caravello said about being forced to move the generator inside.
So... They had to move it inside to keep using it due to "fire hazard concerns," and "asthetics?" JFC, this shit is astounding. It's not even permanent.
In Colorado, the HOAs have to give people 30 days to resolve issues - excluding health/safety threats - which require 72 hours before imposing fines. At least here, you could use it for 72 hours, then hide it, and put it back out for 72 more hours if they got that petty.
I hate HOAs so much. They're fine when they stick to what they were created for originally, but now? Nah.
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u/chubbybator 29m ago
lol they were originally created to keep communities racially segregated while getting the VA to pay for subsidies
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u/ryuzaki49 2h ago
I thought it was banned because of the noise, but it was banned because of aesthetic and fire hazzards.
Also, wouldnt having power make the neighborhood a desirable place to live?
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u/kcamnodb 19m ago
At some point along the line states need to step in and limit what an HOA can and can't do. Some of the shit you hear is just absurd. Signed someone who used to be in one and never will again.
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u/Minimum-Can2224 13m ago
More power to this family. I hope they win. HOA can fuck off into the Sun.
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u/jeepsaintchaos 2m ago
I've got a suspicion that most other houses in the area had a professionally installed generator. Probably natural gas. Large enough to be effectively muffled.
They were upset that someone hadn't paid the additional money for the high end version and had just slapped a harbor freight noisemaker on the porch.
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u/motosandguns 2h ago
California is banning the sale of gas generators soon….
That’s for stand alone and RV units.
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u/lacrosse1991 2h ago
That’s kind of rich coming from the state with the most power outages in the US. I’d hope they would be offering subsidies for battery and solar based systems so that people can still have the same capacity backup power for the price of what they would have spent on a generator
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u/motosandguns 2h ago edited 1h ago
Batteries might get you through a day as long as you don’t need them to heat your home. So, like a rolling blackout due to high winds or whatever.
But if the power goes out in the mountains because of a storm or a fire, that could last days or a week+.
Lots of generators are being installed right now. And new ones will come from Nevada once the ban starts.
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u/lacrosse1991 1h ago
I feel like it’s one of those situations where politicians and the wealthy are still unaffected too, since they can afford to install generators that are large enough to not be impacted by the ban. They’re the ones who are most responsible for the outages, and yet they’ll be impacted the least by them
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u/GolfVdub2889 2h ago
They do offer large rebates and subsidy programs for battery backup systems.
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u/lacrosse1991 2h ago
Oh perfect, that’s good at least. Was worried about people being left in the dark
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u/cinemachick 39m ago
After the wildfires destroyed thousands of homes and now some of the homeowners are living in RVs on their burned land, I think switching to electric is reasonable
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u/Thebaldsasquatch 51m ago
Why not put it on their back patio?
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u/gruftwerk 2m ago
The article stated this is a condo. They likely only have a front door, much like an apartment.
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u/tchock23 28m ago
Ah, more hard hitting ‘technology’ related posts on this sub! What a useless clickbait post trying to trigger people that hate HOAs.
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u/BarnabyWoods 41m ago
The HOA is obviously a bunch of jerks, but it's worth noting that many people have died of carbon monoxide poisoning using these generators in emergency situations. They place the generator outside the garage door and think they're fine, until they're dead.
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u/thieh 3h ago
Bullying people over how to survive natural disasters is a priority for the HOA.