By Paul Greeley
817-578-6324, Paul@NewsBlues.com

When Adam Walser, an investigative reporter for WFTS, Scripps’ NBC affiliate in Tampa, branded as Tampa Bay 28, reported on a story in July about how a Florida homeowner got thrown in jail for seven days by her homeowner’s association (HOA) because parts of her lawn had turned brown, “it just absolutely went viral on YouTube,” he says. “I think we got over a million hits on that one. After that, we got a sense that this is something that people are really concerned about.”

Walser says the topic got a lot of engagement, and the station received a tremendous number of emails, basic complaints about these HOAs getting out of control.

A homeowner’s association is a private, legally-incorporated organization that governs a housing community, collects dues, and sets rules for its residents.

Florida is the number one state in the number of HOAs, with California and Texas right behind. In Florida, nine million people, 45% of the population, live in either an HOA or a condominium association, Walser says.

Walser says HOAs have sprung up in newer planned developments in the suburbs to protect the integrity of the community.

Some HOAs banned pickup trucks from parking overnight in the driveway.

“So homeowners were actually having to take them to gravel lots in the middle of the night,” Walser says.

Other HOAs towed cars out of driveways for having expired tags that you couldn’t even see from the road, he says.

Walser himself got a notice from his HOA telling him his garage door’s dirty and he needed to clean it. Turns out it wasn’t his garage but another with a similar house number on another street.

“They can get you if leave your trash can out too long, or leave your holiday lights up too long or don’t trim your palm fronds,” Walser says. “There’s just a myriad of things that they can get you for.”

Walser says it’s these kind of heavy-handed tactics that are making people upset HOAs.

“They’re either being nitpickers about the rules or they’re enforcing rules against some people and not others,” he says. “And that’s where these things run amok.”

In late November, WFTS ran an hour-long documentary in primetime, Home Sweet HOA: An Investigative Report on the Growing Power of HOAs in Florida.

“We put it on YouTube, where it got 267,000 views generating more than 2,100 comments,” Walser says.

YouTube Comments:

We let violent criminals loose on no-cash bond but this poor lady had to go to jail for brown grass?

I lived in an HOA community in FL. They were harassing nit-picking people. I will NEVER live in an HOA again!!

This is the reason why when I was looking to buy a house I specifically told my realtor that HOAs were a dealbreaker.

I’ll be honest, I would’ve just spray painted the grass green.

Walser says the special report Home Sweet HOA was the top story on the station’s website the first couple days.

“There’s a huge amount of interest in the topic.”

NOTE:  Since News Blues interviewed Adam Walser, he reported on another HOA story where a woman has been living as a fugitive for six months after her HOA obtained an arrest warrant over unpaid fines stemming from property violations.

Detroit Investigative Reporter Leaving TV After 28 Years Exposing Scams and Frauds

Detroit Investigative Reporter Leaving TV After 28 Years Exposing Scams and Frauds