Hacker News Reader

Comment by bavila | Hacker News Reader

> Can someone explain why?

I like order, and I do not trust most people to behave responsibly. I am more than happy to be told when to cut my grass if it also comes with the guarantee that my next-door neighbor is not going to be throwing wild house parties after dark, or turning his driveway into a junkyard, or running a kennel in his backyard, etc. Some people might be willing to tolerate this kind of barbarism, but not me, so I will gladly consign myself to the restrictions of HOAs.

View on HN

Question out of curiosity: I’m German so I don’t know the US law that well but don’t you for example have laws that forbid being noisy after a certain hour of the day?

If my neighbours were throwing a loud party past 10pm I could simply call the police/ Ordnungsamt (police light) and they’d tell them to quiet down.

It depends on where you live. In an incorporated area (town/city) generally yes. An issue though is in a city the enforcement of these kinds of things can be low priority, an HOA is generally more effective from that standpoint.

Local noise ordinances are only as effective as the police force which enforces them. Where I live, the police do not take this responsibility seriously. The hammer of the HOA is a necessity to ensure that peace and quiet is maintained.

You could also swap out the sheriff, there's a vote for that. Conversely, I once rented from a landlord who was financially overextended, and the first sign of that was that he stopped paying for trash removal. The following week, the heating failed. One call to code enforcement (this was NY State) was enough to get things fixed until we moved out. It's hard to imagine tenant's safety and comfort to be high priority in a HOA, their purpose is to keep property values up.

I'm in Sydney Australia and whole-city laws cover noise. Yes, Police can be called for excessive noise outside the permitted hours.

Several years ago, our next door neighbour decided to get into the meat delivery business and parked his van in his front yard overnight. It had a petrol engine for a refrigeration unit that ran constantly. The Police came around and advised them to switch it off or move it somewhere else.

Throwing a late house party is barbarism?

Yes, it is--at least to those of us who respect our neighbors and do not think we have the right to impair their enjoyment of peace and quiet within the four corners of their residences.

I mean, it's not all black and white though, right? I'd absolutely call police if my neighbours were throwing a party every evening for 6 months a year, but an occasional party that goes to 3am on a warm summer night? I'm probably not going to. It seems like HOA would pursue the second one with full force, even though there is such thing as common sense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com