Homeowners association Karen

I’m in Melbourne now. We never had Karens in Manila. Just the all powerful building superintendent and his team of helpful receptionists, but they were generally pretty good.

Okay. Considering.

“Hi Karen. We’ve been following contact free delivery because of the lockdown. But of course happy to follow the official building rules. Just point me to where they are recorded. Cheers.”

The sorry was meant as a “sorry. Just got this message” Not “sorry I didn’t follow your stupid rule Karen.”

Not sure where I would find the rules. Im sure my landlord has them. But I don’t know who that is. We rent through an agency.

I’d drop “Sorry. Just saw this message.”

Ah, re: Melbourne.

I don’t know how vital to say sorry all the time in Australia (being a former British colony), but I’d still drop it. Rest looks good imo.

@Rugby , how is your relationship with the owner of your unit? As pointed out, that person has the actual rights and responsibilities with respect to the condo board. If you have a good relationship with the owner I would just let them know and tell Karen to deal with your owner. My experience with condo owners that rent is that what they want most in the world is to never, ever hear from you. But it’s ultimately their responsibility to deal with the condo building governance.

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You could also frame the “point me to where the rules are recorded” as a “so I can be sure not to break any other rules” type of thing. Make it look like you are trying to be super rules oriented while putting the onus on her to prove you are breaking a rule to begin with.

Yeah, I’m with mosdef on this one. You’ve got no relationship with the HOA. “I’m following all the terms of my lease. You should talk to [owner] if you have any concerns.” would be my reply. I would also make very sure that your lease didn’t have a statement that renter agrees to abide by all laws and regulations applicable to the building. I think a good condo board would require that all leases include compliance with HOA rules.

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Do other people take bikes on the elevator and get food delivery? Do you have any idea what percent of the people are owners vs renters?

I’d like to change my answer to this

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First thing I would do is check to see if there’s a rule banning the posting of signs in the elevator.

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As someone that has driven for Door Dash, I say meet the driver in the parking lot. It is a pain in the ass trying to find a specific apartment in a complex that might have 20 buildings. The GPS is never :100: correct.

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This.

OP, you know your partner’s social anxiety better than anybody else here. If addressing that with the HOA head would help (with your partner’s permission of course), then it’s best to be open about it.

Meeting delivery outside seems like nbd to me. Bike inside maybe more of a bd. And if there’s room on the elevator it’s a stupid rule to follow.

Already answered.

First step would seem to be contacting the agency.

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The agency is not going to help Rugby. His best hope may be if the agency is completely unresponsive to anyone.

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If it’s Canada, add like 3 more sorrys

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In new england you could scrap the entire letter and just write “fuck off”.

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It’s a shitty all around situation. I wouldn’t refer her to the property owner/agency. They just want to gain a passive income and aren’t likely to side with renters who are stirring the pot creating more work for them, regardless if they are in the right. That could end badly.

Capitulating to her demands if possible, while principally frustrating, is your best course of action if you want the highest probability of living hassle free in that place. It’s like if someone disrespects you at a bar. Standing up for yourself seems like the right thing to do. But often in these spots I just let it go because at the end of the night I don’t really feel like getting in a fist fight I might lose. Not worth it to me. If you want to fight, go ahead and fight. Playing rules nit is a fine start if you want to. Just flat out ignoring her and force her to keep escalating so she looks like a bigger bitch is another good one. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Trump administration, it’s that “lol, no” is a surprisingly effective response when told to follow rules that have no enforcement mechanisms.

If he wants to fight, the ideal scenario is finding a non-renting resident who thinks she’s a bitch and will fight her out of spite, possibly on an unrelated issue.

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Yep. This is my thought. Agency and landlord aren’t going to want to do anything. It’s much better if Karen is the one annoying them than me.

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I think this is pretty reasonable. I think what you want to avoid is taking ownership of responding to Karen’s claims about what you can and can’t do. Just tell her one way or another to take it up with the condo board. If she’s right the board tells your landlord to tell you to stop doing what you’re doing.

I’m not trying to encourage you to be an asshole but I have lived in a few condo buildings and been on the board of two of then. In my experience most people that act like your Karen are never going to be satisfied so there’s no point in conceding any ground.

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