The Queen's Rambles

I made a stand tonight. I put on my best jeans (I’m so fancy) and a clean blouse, trying to look half-way decent for my impromptu presentation. I arrived at the building a few minutes early and found three old men sitting on a bench. They were the HOA board.

Eventually we were given a room number, so the four of us rode the elevator to the room and waited for two more board members and the community manager.

The manager was 15 minutes late. As we were sitting there, the five board members started bitching about the things I wanted to address–mud pits, trash everywhere, lack of grass.

The community manager, a paid employee, finally arrived so the meeting got started.

I went first and gave a little speech about the disgusting state of our play area and the lack of safety (screws sticking out, no mulch for two years, etc). I also told them about a glass table that had been broken over the playground in October and never taken care of by the community. The effin’ community manager tried to tell us that the lawn contractors came out and took care of it, but I argued right back that another resident and I cleaned it up. Then she said that there was no graffitti on the playground and I argued with her, citing specific things that are written on the stupid playground. It’s not gang tagging, but it’s unsightly.

I pointed out that I’ve sent multiple e-mails to both her and the board about the situation. The board members were confused and said they didn’t even have an e-mail address. I told them the address that’s on the pamphlet I got when I moved in and they were still confused. The manager said that she checks that e-mail and puts the e-mails in their monthly packet. They had never seen any of my e-mails, or any e-mails at all as far as I could tell.

I was pretty aggressive in getting my point across and they all agreed that it needed to be mulched, and should have been mulched and inspected months ago. They moved on with the meeting and it was soooooooooooo boring. We spent 45 minutes talking about various ways to re-finish the parking lots now that Montgomery County has banned all coal tar products.

At the end I asked how they would take action to get the mulch taken care of. They all said it was a part of the landscaping contract so it would be taken care of this week. The community manager said to call her if it wasn’t done by Friday. Then she said she had to check the contract and that she was confused and it was not a part of the contract. Everyone started yelling at her to get it done regardless of the cost. She said they had to vote for it at the June meeting and all the board members starting yelling at her to get it done and they would worry about contracts later. Then she said “Oh, yeah, it’s right here!”

Soooooo. . . we shall see. She is a lying liar who lies. I am going to be all up in her business until it gets done. This is going to be exhausting!