The Accidental Ombudsman by Arthur Raybold

In a very weak moment, I agreed to chair the Architectural and Rules Committee of an 850 unit condominium in East County. Despite the angst stories I have heard from property managers about the bizarre behaviors of property owners, I have been pleasantly surprised by my encounters with .homo miniums

My mostly pleasant experiences can only be attributed to my utter naivete and lack of any professional approach to the problem of resolving architectural and rules issues.

As a committee, we were advised that the eight of us should split into teams of two and take charge of quadrants where we did not live. This way we would be able to reduce the instances of human contact that might be made with architectural change applicants or rules violators.

Luckily, my team member, Mo, was a serious and fearless worker. Attrition smiled on us and we became responsible for all four quadrants. You see it was easier to do the whole job than recruit committee replacements.

We decided to pick up all the architectural applications and go out into the territory on Saturday or Sunday mornings between 7:30 and 9:30 a.m. At first, we had no intention of actually seeing or touching any homeowners, but it was difficult to avoid homo miniums as they were always slinking around their property (well, technically, it was usually on common area, but they didn't know that.)

We told them we were committee people, we had their application, but we weren't sure that the map and sketch they provided made it perfectly clear where they wanted to build the fence. Could they help us?

Here, I must interrupt to remind you that these are the same people who have been audited by the IRS, who have accompanied a work friend to the Naturalization Board, who have tried to get the Sheriff's Department to come to the house within 24 hours of the burglary and who have tried to get Brake Depot to install new brakes.

These are people who are used to receiving forms, saying we have received your request, we have taken it under advisement; but in the meantime, please resubmit your design on form Z500.

Here we were within 5 days of the request, advising them that part of the proposed fence was on common area but what about this alternative? And six feet high is the limit and wouldn't a lighter green (finally a painting question about which I had some knowledge) be more in keeping with the neighborhood? Pretty generally, they agreed. We signed off right there at their home. We had a board member who would give his approval on Sunday and HOA staff would send out the approval letter on Monday. All done in a week. Happy campers.

Our association is responsible for streets and landscaping; the homeowners are responsible for everything else. We receive requests for repaints, new roofs, new or modified fences and varieties of alterations. Most of these requests are reasonable. Most people have never read the CC&R's so when they see there are rules, again they are reasonable.

Mo and I stumbled accidentally on this revelation: homeowners like human contact from their association, especially in the form of neighbors and especially when the neighbors don't represent conventional forms of control and/or power.

Tomorrow, my wife and I are taking possession of a single family home with no association. I feel more than a little sadness. I'm going to miss being able to wave to a lot of neighbors. I think they see me and Mo as their ombudspersons.