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Looks like flock cameras lower property value
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
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deflock.me
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Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are AI-powered cameras that capture and analyze images of all passing vehicles, storing details like your car’s location, date, and time. They also capture your car’s make, model, color, and identifying features such as dents, roof racks, and bumper stickers, often turning these into searchable data points. These cameras collect data on millions of vehicles—regardless of whether the driver is suspected of a crime. While these systems can be useful for tracking stolen cars or wanted individuals, they are mostly used to track the movements of innocent people.
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Reason number 4629 why I'll never be immigrating to the US. "Land of the free" my ass.
I've recently just understood what a HOA is. As a Canadian I thought they were "Unincorporated Municipalities" or there's also "Rate Payers Associations" which is like a proto-town where there's a group providing town-like services amongst themselves. Which to me is some sick ass anarchist shit. But an HOA is just letting your neigbours tell you what to do? That's lame.
HOAs were created because racists didn't want black people in their neighborhood. I fucking hate HOAs.
Judging by another guys post, HOA's are way of offloading a whole new tax structure on individual neighborhoods. The whole being racist thing is how they convinced everyone to pay it.
Yeah, the town didn’t even plow or maintain the roads in some HOAs. And the property tax “savings” instead go to scumbag property management conglomerates.
Wait until you learn about when they created SATs.
I don't have an HOA but my property operates under deed restrictions that limit property owners in meaningful ways, establishing usage of the wells, easements, number of structures and so forth.
One of my neighbors repeatedly referred to herself as "the head of the HOA" and I told her she needed to stop saying that because we don't have one. I didn't say as much but I would hire an attorney to send a C&D if she were to keep that up.
you'd both be morons in that situation
My neighborhood is deed restricted but most of the rules are just how to be a good neighbor. Trash cans can only be out from this time to this time. Your grass can't be over grown. Personally, I like the structure and I like living on a street where everyone agrees we want our immediate environment to look and feel nice. I've never heard of anything ever having to be enforced because everyone just does it, and when someone doesn't, it usually just means they need to be checked on.
The grass thing would frustrate me as someone anti lawn and want to engage in more sustainable alternative methods of maintaining a yard. I also dislike rules on how you can paint your house.
You also have to keep in mind that whoever enforces this stuff can easily go from "neighbors checking in" to "neighborhood nutjob brings a ruler on walks to issue fines" with some changes in neighbors
HOA's! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of municipalities, Dude, at least it's a system of governance!
Local governments are subject to monitored elections and the bill of rights.
HOAs are neither. Their elections can easily be cheated, and they're under no legal obligation to respect the civil rights of their members.
Well, the quote I butchered was meant to denigrate HOA's and say that municipalities were indeed a form of governance whereas HOA's are a form of tyranny. So I'm not sure what point your making, but high five!
Sure, but there's a chance they could become the ones fucking their neighbors over for cheap thrills! That makes it okay! /s
HOAs vary a lot. In my city, every new development has one as a condition of getting permits from the city. That's mainly because cars and their infrastructure are stupidly expensive, the city just can't afford to maintain it all without raising property taxes. I have friends who live in an HOA neighborhood, and basically they just pay an extra monthly bill to cover snow removal, maintenance of common areas, and such. For them, it's nothing like the horror stories of HOAs that can take your house if your mailbox is the wrong color. It is just a group providing services that the city can't afford anymore.
So they aren't a proto-city like an unassumed municipality, they are like a posto-city where late stage capitalism goes to retire and find a new revenu stream.
Some of them, yeah.
So, instead, everybody gets to pay HOA fees. I guess as long as you don't call it a 'tax' people will go along with it.
kinda funny though in that the city only exists to do that stuff so why not get rid of it and have the county run all the little developer cities.
It is free, but that privilege doesn't come for free.
As long as you have enough money and don't step on the toes of other people who have money, you can seemingly get away with everything.
"With freedom and justice for all who can afford it."
More like land of free to be asses.
Don’t let the internet scare you. The USA is still amazing. I’m an immigrant myself and I could’ve never asked for a better place.
What are you comparing it to?
This is like the dumbest shit I have ever heard. You are no authority of anything. Why should anyone care what you think? Lots of people are immigrants. We have kids in cages and you are a insane person. You sound like a cop or a human who has lost its instinct to survive. Yeah the grass is greener but that is just because it is made of plastic.
Ok
HOAs or something of similar form exist in a lot of places. They require residents to be involved though. Anybody who lives in an HOA or similar and doesn’t participate (go to meetings, read their bylaws etc.) contributes to the organization being abused.
And fuck you if you've got a job, right?
That's why all these HOAs are run by retirees with too much time on their hands.
Seems like the typical Americans apathy towards electing their representation in government applies other areas too.
I'm in Canada. As it says further down that Wikipedia article, HOAs for detached homes are very rare. Condo boards exist, but mostly by necessity if sharing a building.
Strata’s in Canada and HOAs in the US largely serve the same purpose with the biggest difference being financial interest in common property.
That's actually wrong. Homeowners associations require homeowners to be involved, not residents. There is actually a very strong difference between the meanings of "homeowner" and "resident".
In France a form of "HOA" exists for what some countries call condominium: co-owned lot of houses (FR: "lotissement"), or co-owned multi-appartments complexes. Only co-owners can participate to the full general assembly or be elected as a representative member in the "Conseil syndical" (aka. "CS", the council of co-owners representatives) ? Whether these owners reside in the complex does not matter, and such owners can be "moral entities" (ex: companies). On the other hand, residing rentees are not invited to participate, even remotely, to any of these general or CS-restricted assemblies. Usually these HOA and their provider named "syndic de copropriété" manage the complex as a whole, as they managed any part of the complex that is not a part of a unit. (aka. "common parts") The rentees are usually not even supposed to interact directly with the HOA.
Personal anecdote: residing as a rentee in an appartement inside a co-owned complex can lead to some interesting conflicts. For example, when the HOA doesn't maintain common water pipes, and these pipes flood the rented appartment, whose owner is neither available nor reactive. I've experienced the rentee side in this situation. Not fun. And it wasn't the clean water input. (And if you claim the owner wasn't fit to be a decent landlord, I'll actually agree. They weren't a malevolent, bad-faith greddy scum of a landlord, but they were indeed an incompetent one.)
Pedantic but technically correct, which is the best kind of correct, they say. My point still stands though. HOAs are just a smaller form of private government which requires involvement, voting and understanding of the homeowners involved.
I’m not particularly fond of HOAs and I’d prefer to see a return to community development like it used to be. The city itself being involved, designating common spaces for a neighborhood or community like parks, community centers, sports fields/facilities etc. instead of that falling under a private entity.
I’ll share my own personal anecdote: we bought our home ~6ish years ago and we had an HOA which was largely pointless. I organized the homeowners and engaged with the HOA processes and, today, we have an HOA in name only.
It’s too expensive and difficult to dissolve the HOA so instead we all agreed to stop paying dues, return what had already been paid and abandon the HOA.
Fortunately for us, the homeowners not only owned the homes but also the property each home sits on and there was no community property or services to deal with.
Dose "homeowner" in the USA refer to someone that eihtre don't own the home or the land on which it sits ?
I don't know if it is legal in France cause I have no skill in property right, but I never heard of this case. The closer I heard of if a shop "owner" (franchisee) that builds and open a franchise shop, but the franchise owning big company actually owns the land and the building. Never heard anything like it for homes, despite knowing the existence of systems like "viager".
True, with limitations. As said by others, there can be conflicts between multiple duties for a homeowner. (e.g. HOA meeting VS work obligation.) So the HOA should also have some systems to adapt to external constraints, like a procuration system for votes.
Also if some members of the HOA commit abuses, the responsibility of thei abuses will mostly sit on them. The non commited homeowner share a part of responsibility because of their negligence, bu the biggest part of responsibility is always owned by the perpetrators themselves, never by the victims. This part should never be omitted when communicating about abuses, as its omission carry a strong risk of shifting the responsability to the victims of said abuses. (That's probably why there are so strong reactions to your point.)
I'll fininsh with a fun fact about French HOA :
It can. It’s most common in townhomes where you own the house but everything outside of it including the exterior of the residence is “common property” or mobile home lots where you own the house itself but pay “rent” for the lot, utilities and common property maintenance.
I’ve never heard of an HOA that holds meetings where decisions are made or a vote is needed during working hours outside of retirement communities. Generally an HOA needs a quorum, typically 2/3 I believe, to enact bylaw changes, take certain actions etc. HOA disclosure is also required, at least where I am, at time of sale. Nobody should be “surprised” by an HOA.
Yes and no. If a homeowner has participated I believe that’s true. If a homeowner buys a home with an HOA and doesn’t read the bylaws beforehand, doesn’t read meeting notes, attend elections, share their complaints/concerns then they’ve, at least tacitly, endorsed the HOAs operations.
I think there are strong reactions for one of two reasons. For one, too many Americans are happy to not get involved and participate and then play victim. Second, I think many people don’t actually understand how HOAs truly work, or their sum total of experience is stories they’ve read or heard from others.
HOA are not in Canada.
Closest we have is strata when an apartment or condo is owned by all the owners having a share.
You have yearly vote for who sits on council, and bylaws can be changed by voting. The Strata does not have to approve your purchase into the unit like HOAs do to restrict the type of person who can own.
Both stratas and HOAs can have bylaws that allow them to approve buyers. The most significant difference between an HOA and a Strata Corp. is that in Strata’s the owners have a financial interest in the common property.
Looks like only financial approval (to ensure you can afford strata fees), and occupant count approval (like not a 10 person family in a 1 bedroom apartment) but Canada doesnt allow discriminatory buyer approval like HOAs in the states...strata just can't say no because no.
And rental bylaw got squashed with COVID
HOAs in the US are governed by the Fair Housing Act and can’t just say “no because no”.
You might be confusing deed covenants with HOAs.
Mostly my info was based on a documentary of HOAs that were still saying no, probably with excuses, to keep black people out of their neighborhood