Reply #69: ??? This confuses me. [View All]

[FlaGranny]

This is nothing new at all. Most homeowner's associations I know of in my area do background checks before allowing someone to purchase property. My own association does that, and we went through it, just like everyone else who lives here. You submit an application to the homeowner's association and they run a background check on you. You even pay for the "privilege." They have the right to refuse any applicant if they don't pass the background check and I'm certain they would reject anyone with a child molestation background, even though no children live here. The entire board of directors decides whether you get to buy. Most neighborhoods are just neighborhoods without homeowner's associations and there are thousands, upon thousands of them.

Do I feel elite living in a neighborhood with a homeowner's association? Not when you consider I live in a mobile home park and paid $23,000 for my property. We're not a gaited community, either. Right across the highway we have a regular neighborhood and regularly, from that neighborhood, we have teens coming over to break into our homes to steal TV sets and VCRs, so we are no safer for having no criminals in our small community, but at least we don't have to be suspicious of our neighbors, ranging in age from 55 to 90 something.

My son and his family live directly across the street from a "child molester." This is an attractive married woman with a son of her own who plays with my grandson. She has been released from supervision for her "crime." I have no idea what her crime was, but I suspect it was sex with an under-aged teenaged boy that took place when she was in her late teens or early 20's (she's only about 30 now) - maybe a 16 or 17 year old. No one considers her dangerous; her neighbors all know about her record and she is included in neighborhood activities. A child molester is not always a child molester, if you know what I mean. Cases need to be decided on their own merit and not under a "blanket" child molester label.