Monday, February 11, 2008 at 2:02am
One flew over the condo board
Column: Interesting Times
Living in my condo association is like living in the mental institution of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
Talk about a learning curve! I was warned and didn't listen. A dear Bible teacher I know said to me when I told him I had moved into a condo for the first time, "Aren't they the places that other people decide what you will be able to do and how you will be able to live?" I brushed off his statement. Little did I know!
My "problem" is not with the rules; they are reasonable enough, considering that it is a neighborhood. My problem is with the insanity. Owners are afraid to speak up, to ask for what are their rights, because they say, "If you cross the manager, you will never get anything done." It's a version of our own Nurse Ratched. Owners who ask for simple yes and no answers to simple questions are told they cannot have that answer or are never responded to at all. "We are the inmates and we work for them" is how one exhausted homeowner expressed her frustration. She has been asking for five years to have the light bulbs in the outside street lamps that flood her bedroom at night changed to a more sleep-friendly bulb. My frustrated neighbor has been publicly labeled as a "troublemaker by the manager and board chairman because she wants two light bulbs changed." The board is entrenched, and appoints like-minded members to succeed themselves, shutting out the younger owners.
It does get worse. For three years a group of homeowners have requested an energy inventory, water saving plan, some response to greenhouse emissions/global warming issues. After three years, homeowners were asked in a recent newsletter what they had personally done to "make a sustainable community." I wrote back a very short email sharing what I had done and asking if the same things had been done in our common, public areas. "Are there low-flow toilets in the public areas?" That seemed to me to be a yes or no answer. But instead the responding email was that the answer would be addressed at some future time in public and I was thanked for my understanding. Except that I didn't understand and wrote back that I didn't and what was the answer. Then came an email to the employee who wrote me but sent to me saying that I was a troublemaker.
Email belongs to the author. Not the recipient. Like letters. Revealing the contents of a private email message could run afoul of any of a number of non-copyright laws: defamation, invasion of privacy, and trade secrecy, to name a few. When my email was printed in the latest homeowners newsletter without my permission, and when the bottom line from management was "let's not be divisive" I knew that I was a full-on target of management. It is so disquieting to have one's home environment threatened for responding to an email. I turned to the Bible and to the Internet to find some answers.
Comfort came from both sources. An analysis of homeowners associations says: "We have identified three basic political stages that are found in some degree in every association: apathetic, political, and anarchic. A number of associations cycle through and fluctuate between the apathetic and anarchic stages. A healthy association will avoid these extremes and will attempt to remain in the political stage.
"The apathetic stage is characterized by an entrenched board that rarely turns over its membership from year to year. The board's authority increases over time to the point of dictatorial control, and the board seems to answer to no one. The unit owners are apathetic and barely pay attention to the activities of the association. There is very little discussion or dispute among the unit owners and very little political activity. This type of board serves primarily the interests of its own board members. Although they hold an election, typically the entrenched board controls the selection and election of candidates to the board because very few unit owners are involved."
I was comforted to know that our homeowners who are resident (two-thirds being investment or vacation owners) were not crazy, not alone.
As to the Bible comfort, after some study I had a glimpse of Christ walking through the lobby of the common area — causing no little consternation. It was such an amusing, refreshing sight that I was released from having to get involved in any personal response. I also re-read an article by Mary Baker Eddy on "Taking Offense."
"There is immense wisdom in the old proverb 'He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty.' Hannah More said, 'If I wished to punish my enemy, I should make him hate somebody.' To punish ourselves for others' faults is superlative folly. The mental arrow shot from another's bow is practically harmless, unless our own thought barbs it. It is our pride that makes another's criticism rankle, our self-will that makes another's deed offensive, our egotism that feels hurt by another's self-assertion. Well may we feel wounded by our own faults; but we can hardly afford to be miserable for the faults of others."
I am working on it. Because the idea of packing to move — so much work — is really not fun. But have I too become insane picturing Christ moving through the lobby?
— — —
Lynne Bundesen is the author of five books on religion and was adjunct professor at the Boston Theological Institute under a Templeton Science and Religion Grant. She is currently the spiritual expert for the physical and spiritual health website of Dr. Andrew Weil. Her book "The Feminine Spirit: Recapturing the Heart of Scripture" was just published. Her email address is {email lynnebundesen@hotmail.com}lynnebundesen@hotmail.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Lynne Bundesen.
Talk about a learning curve! I was warned and didn't listen. A dear Bible teacher I know said to me when I told him I had moved into a condo for the first time, "Aren't they the places that other people decide what you will be able to do and how you will be able to live?" I brushed off his statement. Little did I know!
My "problem" is not with the rules; they are reasonable enough, considering that it is a neighborhood. My problem is with the insanity. Owners are afraid to speak up, to ask for what are their rights, because they say, "If you cross the manager, you will never get anything done." It's a version of our own Nurse Ratched. Owners who ask for simple yes and no answers to simple questions are told they cannot have that answer or are never responded to at all. "We are the inmates and we work for them" is how one exhausted homeowner expressed her frustration. She has been asking for five years to have the light bulbs in the outside street lamps that flood her bedroom at night changed to a more sleep-friendly bulb. My frustrated neighbor has been publicly labeled as a "troublemaker by the manager and board chairman because she wants two light bulbs changed." The board is entrenched, and appoints like-minded members to succeed themselves, shutting out the younger owners.
It does get worse. For three years a group of homeowners have requested an energy inventory, water saving plan, some response to greenhouse emissions/global warming issues. After three years, homeowners were asked in a recent newsletter what they had personally done to "make a sustainable community." I wrote back a very short email sharing what I had done and asking if the same things had been done in our common, public areas. "Are there low-flow toilets in the public areas?" That seemed to me to be a yes or no answer. But instead the responding email was that the answer would be addressed at some future time in public and I was thanked for my understanding. Except that I didn't understand and wrote back that I didn't and what was the answer. Then came an email to the employee who wrote me but sent to me saying that I was a troublemaker.
Email belongs to the author. Not the recipient. Like letters. Revealing the contents of a private email message could run afoul of any of a number of non-copyright laws: defamation, invasion of privacy, and trade secrecy, to name a few. When my email was printed in the latest homeowners newsletter without my permission, and when the bottom line from management was "let's not be divisive" I knew that I was a full-on target of management. It is so disquieting to have one's home environment threatened for responding to an email. I turned to the Bible and to the Internet to find some answers.
Comfort came from both sources. An analysis of homeowners associations says: "We have identified three basic political stages that are found in some degree in every association: apathetic, political, and anarchic. A number of associations cycle through and fluctuate between the apathetic and anarchic stages. A healthy association will avoid these extremes and will attempt to remain in the political stage.
"The apathetic stage is characterized by an entrenched board that rarely turns over its membership from year to year. The board's authority increases over time to the point of dictatorial control, and the board seems to answer to no one. The unit owners are apathetic and barely pay attention to the activities of the association. There is very little discussion or dispute among the unit owners and very little political activity. This type of board serves primarily the interests of its own board members. Although they hold an election, typically the entrenched board controls the selection and election of candidates to the board because very few unit owners are involved."
I was comforted to know that our homeowners who are resident (two-thirds being investment or vacation owners) were not crazy, not alone.
As to the Bible comfort, after some study I had a glimpse of Christ walking through the lobby of the common area — causing no little consternation. It was such an amusing, refreshing sight that I was released from having to get involved in any personal response. I also re-read an article by Mary Baker Eddy on "Taking Offense."
"There is immense wisdom in the old proverb 'He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty.' Hannah More said, 'If I wished to punish my enemy, I should make him hate somebody.' To punish ourselves for others' faults is superlative folly. The mental arrow shot from another's bow is practically harmless, unless our own thought barbs it. It is our pride that makes another's criticism rankle, our self-will that makes another's deed offensive, our egotism that feels hurt by another's self-assertion. Well may we feel wounded by our own faults; but we can hardly afford to be miserable for the faults of others."
I am working on it. Because the idea of packing to move — so much work — is really not fun. But have I too become insane picturing Christ moving through the lobby?
— — —
Lynne Bundesen is the author of five books on religion and was adjunct professor at the Boston Theological Institute under a Templeton Science and Religion Grant. She is currently the spiritual expert for the physical and spiritual health website of Dr. Andrew Weil. Her book "The Feminine Spirit: Recapturing the Heart of Scripture" was just published. Her email address is {email lynnebundesen@hotmail.com}lynnebundesen@hotmail.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Lynne Bundesen.