It is no secret that homeowners in HOAs are often isolated and bullied by insecure, abusive board members, ignorant managers or people in a pseudo official capacity with delusions of grandeur.  The sad fact is that neighbors, afraid of being targeted by the same bullies, tend to distance themselves from the homeowner lest they find themselves in the crosshairs of the association.  Because of this dynamic, the bullies get away with it, they live to bully, abuse and harass other people again and again because they can, because there are no checks and balances and no oversight.  The homeowner agreed to be abused, didn’t he?  So where is the problem?

Dr. Gary Solomon joins us On The Commons this week.  Dr. Solomon, a retired professor of psychology noticed problems in his neighborhood.  After spending a little time observing his neighbors it dawned on him that things weren’t quite right so he started studying the effect HOAs had on homeowners.  That led to his writing a couple of papers, HOA Syndrome and Elder Abuse and more recently he wrote an e-book that is free, is downloadable, it is in audio format as well as video.  His book is called  HOA: Crisis in America .  It will answer many of your questions, get you thinking, make you mad, fascinate you and it will also make you laugh but above all, it will educate you. On the show Dr. Solomon gives advice on where to turn for help if you are feeling stressed out by your HOA. He also gives us a lesson on how to help someone who does seek help from us.  Although he is retired he is not one to sit around watching the grass grow and has undertaken a new area to research, “Child Abuse by Proxy”.  You’ll just have to tune in to hear what he has to say about it.