Enlighten me.

Haira, if HOA talk is for and by professionals only, I need to leave. This is a forum by people who live, work, and play with HOA's, not all of whom are professional.

Tell us more about the situation, and we may be able to help.

Usually only members of the association (owners on the deed) can be on the board of directors.

A tenant can attend meetings if the board allows, and they should. And there is no reason why a tenant cannot be on a committee. I think that's a good idea.

Haira, explain your concerns to the owner of your unit. They may not live there and are probably unaware of what you are concerned about. As an owner, they have the rights to go to the Board and the property manager to question the situation and demand answers.

Owing much to your responses, I'm already learning about the nature of HOA. Which is my intention of posting my message. The incident is that the unit right above mine was purchased by a new owner and apparently extensive work is being done to fix up the unit. The problem is the noise. He has his people work in the unit over the weekend, and they normally start from 7 to 8 O'clock in the morning and press on all day till 7 to 8 O'clock in the evening. The banging, drilling, large footsteps of the men, their loud talk and the music...I find it too much to bear. But given what little I know about HOA, I assume he must have gotten a permission from the Board to go ahead with the construction so I just endure. When they kept this up till 8 in the evening this Saturday, I felt the need to talk with the president of our HOA and hoped she would give me some relief. And her response was basically as the owner of the unit, he was allowed to do whatever he wished to do as along as he followed the guidelines set by the HOA. As I continued on expressing my frustration over the circumstance, another tenant who lives right next door to me approached us and said the same thing about the noise. In the end, she simply dismissed both of us saying something like she didn't need to deal with the tenants. Besides this incident, I've experienced a few where I felt that I was being treated like a second-class citizen just because I am a tenant. At any event, I wrote an email to the owner of my unit explaining the circumstance. His initial response via email to me was that he would forward my message to the management company and see if he could help. But then a few seconds later, he called and said he received a call from the president of the HOA and told me basically not much could be done as the new owner was following the procedure. So I assume he was influenced by the phone call from the president and decided to take a different course of action....

Rather than the little details entailing the incident, I am very much concerned about the general atmosphere. It seems the message is loud and clear...as a tenant, basically I have to take it, and if I don't like the situtaion, I should move or become an owner myself. I guess I'm saddened by such notion more than the actual incident....Life isn't fair, I know.- But there should be some check and balance....

That's pretty much it. Your dealings are with the owner (your landlord). Discuss it with him. Tell him you want a discount on your rent. Tell him you'll break the lease and move. Take him to court.

Building renovations often involve noise. They can't use rubber hammers and it's unreasonable to expect them to use hand drills and saws to keep the noise down. The hours you mention are not unreasonable.

You realize that the repairs will be finished eventually don't you?