La Mirage
John
Nepheli,
I have added you to the La Mirage group email. The others on this list are owners with an interest in the HOA.
I stopped by on Friday, but missed you. Sorry.
I was wondering when the water leak in the courtyard in front of 240 Oasis will be fixed. It has been running down the street for about 1 month now and was reported several weeks ago. Water is a significant portion of our HOA expenses so I would think it would be a high priority to fix. An IWV water company guy happened by about 2 weeks ago and I asked him to take a look. He concluded it was the sprinkler main, but he did not dig it up to confirm it. I suppose we will be getting fined soon since letting this run down the street is a violation.
I am not sure you know what you have gotten into with taking over the management, but I hope you can succeed where the past two companies have failed. The overriding issue is that G-8 refuses to invest in their units so it continues its downward spiral. As a local, you know the reputation of La Mirage is not very good. It is frequently referred to as “Criminal Gardens”. When I invested, G-8 had gone to the city with their PR people and issued a press release about how great it was going to be for the citizens of Ridgecrest to have such a wonderful company invest in this development. That has turned out to be anything but the truth.
Here are some general comments on ongoing issues that never seem to change. I have addressed them for over two years and will continue to address them until we do something. My persistence caused your predecessor to call me negative. I am by nature an optimist, but I must admit that after a few years of no action by our HOA, it is getting hard to keep a positive outlook. Most of these items could be easily fixed by action enforcing HOA rules and by appropriate expenditures of HOA dues by the board.
1. The “community” building roof is missing a significant portion of its shingles. Since the last three rainfalls, I would suspect the ceiling damage can be added to the problems. This has not been fixed in well over a year. For a while, G-8 was storing appliances in it without paying the HOA any rent. I have not checked lately, but they should not be doing that since it is not their asset. There was interest in renting it out for parties and gatherings, but at this time it may be too damaged. If the interior has water damage, it would seem to me that the board has been negligent in their duties.
2. Dumpsters are still sitting in the street. It gives it a nice “slum” appearance, don’t you think? It is particularly photogenic when the trash is overflowing into the street. Once upon a time, they built some block enclosures. The enclosures had some nice heavy doors that were hung on hollow cement blocks so they eventually began to fall off. So far, no kids have been hurt playing in the enclosures, but several of them are used as “forts” so I am expecting it is only a matter of time. Those enclosures that are not “forts” have become storage areas for old mattresses and sofas. I took two trailer loads of mattresses and sofas to the dump from the 5 enclosures near my units since they were beginning to stink after the rainfall. The second problem with the enclosures is they put little narrow steep sloped concrete ramps up to them. The maintenance guys used to roll them out each pick up day and then roll them back. They stopped after one of them was hurt and we now have them parked in the street full time. These enclosures should have been set up so all they had to do was open the doors and the truck could access the dumpster. Poor planning and execution. One suggestion to solve this problem is to require each unit to get their own garbage pickup. This did not work as many of the residents simply tossed their trash into their backyards in plastic bags. You are from here so you know what that was like in the summer.
3. The lawn service folks that started last summer are great. They have tried to get things into shape and done pretty well. We had a couple of terrible ones previously and I was glad to see them gone. However, the lawn sprinkler system has been an on-going problem. Many of the units get no water and have not for the past year. I have two units (332 Palm and 232 Oasis) that have not had a functional system for a year or more. Previously I ran them manually when I was in the area. However, now the water is shut off and that does not work. I had suggested we convert the smaller grass areas to Xeriscape to reduce water cost and maintenance, but got no response. One of the problems we have with the system is that people continue to drive on the lawns. This kills the grass and breaks the sprinklers. I suggested we start fining the owners of the units until the problem is resolved, but that also went nowhere. I also suggested we place barrier rocks to prevent driving on the lawns and having to fix the sprinklers, but that too went nowhere.
4. Backyard fences are in terrible shape. Many of us have replaced them at our own cost, but there needs to be a better approach. The HOA board should address this issue. Currently, it is up to the individual owner to find the other owners and plead with them to share the cost or just pay it themselves.
5. Backyard trash is a related issue. While working on swamp coolers you can see into a large number of the backyards. Many are in filled with trash. This causes rat and roach infestations. Especially when it is compounded by an accumulation of dog feces. Again this should be addressed by the HOA board.
6. Broken windows on several units have not been fixed. There is a unit across the street from 324 Oasis that has had a broken front window for over a year. They have managed to cover it inside with a nice piece of cardboard.
7. Trash piled in front and around the garages. There is a unit on the south end of Palm (last unit on the west side) that is full of trash around the front and side. There are several units with old tables and trash leaning up against their fronts. When I am in the area with my trailer and it is empty I have hauled a bunch of it away. However, I am not in the trash hauling business.
8. Rotting front eves and peeling paint on the eves. The problem is caused by the rolled roofing material having come loose from the roof. When we get any water from rain or leaking swamp coolers, it runs to the front edge and under the roofing. It then comes down the front wooden eve and starts to rot it out. If you drive north along road to the high school and look at the back side of the units along the road you may see some units that have had their roofing material blown off. You will also see the general bad appearance of the back porch sun roof covers. They are beginning to look like they should be torn down before they fall down. It is due to a lack of general maintenance.
9. Dead trees visible from the road along the west edge. The dead trees have been there for several years. That combined with the general lack of maintenance that is observable from that road does not give a very good first impression to potential renters.
10. Cross wiring of units. Any of the duplex units with three garages connected to them have cross wired electrical service to the garages. I discovered this two years ago when a drunk driver went through the wall of one of my units. In the process, he took out the electrical meters for mine and the adjoining unit. We both had a new meter and a significant rewiring job done. Once it was completed, it was found that the third garage no longer has power. Neither the adjoining owner nor I am willing to pay to have the third garage rewired and then ask our tenant to pay their neighbors power bill. In fact, my insurance company did not want to pay to fix the wall inside of that garage, but had to in order to pass the occupancy permit. The owners have never fixed either the side or main garage door.
11. Squatters are still occupying a number of units. I know of two units that are currently occupied. One unit is now rented out by the guy who was squatting in it. Nice income if you can get it. I am not certain if they are paying the HOA dues but they should be. At one point the board stated that non-payment of dues would result in foreclosure and the HOA would take possession of the unit. I have not seen any action on this.
The La Mirage community has a lot of potential if managed correctly. My eight units rent quickly and my tenants are long term good tenants. My units also rent higher than those owned by G-8. ( $850 4bdrm, $750 3Bdrm 2 bath, $700 3bdrm, $585 1bdrm) I also know that I am not alone in this. Many of the private owners have taken the time to make the necessary significant repairs needed. Their rents are higher and their renters are better. G-8 has not taken a long term approach to their investment and instead have by their inaction chosen to drag us all down. As an HOA member I pay $120 per unit for lawn maintenance, garbage, and road maintenance. This seems like a lot especially in light of the fact that some of my units don’t even get water. We do not seem to be able to get a detailed financial report and I do not know if it has ever been audited. I really would not mind paying if I could see that the community was improving and my investment was likely to appreciate. However, I am not seeing any changes. I know that G-8 has failed to quickly flip the property as they expected. Now they are struggling to try to sell the place and are unwilling to invest additional dollars in any of their units. With somewhere between 60 and 70 empty units they are bleeding cash each month. It is not clear to me where we are spending our HOA dues or even if they are being collected.
Since G-8 is the majority owner, all the board members are G-8 employees. They do not respond to owners so we are basically stuck addressing issues with our HOA management company that also always happens to be the G-8 rental management company. Of course, there is no conflict of interest there. None of the board members are actually owners, but are only representatives of G-8. While I am not certain this is even legal, it is what we are stuck with until they can sell out. We held one board meeting last summer in which several owners called in and our entire board “forgot” the meeting. The management company representative had to call and remind our board that there was a meeting starting. Of course our board was well prepared for that. I wonder how much they get paid for being on our HOA board. Who knows if the next owner will be better?
Please do not take any of this as criticism of you or your company. I sincerely hope that you have more success at getting things done than the previous two companies. However, I know they were both limited by an HOA board that lacks vision, interest, and skill in managing this community.
Thanks and good luck,
John Ellis
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