Too Many Illegals living in house / What HOA can do

I live in a small townhouse community. In recent years we have had a lot of immigrants move in to homes that are being rented out. Now we have some homes bought by Hispanics and they are piling people into them. It is effecting our property values, and some homeowners are having a hard time selling their homes.

We had an HOA meeting tonight and learned that Hispanics use two signals to alert illegal immigrants that they have room. One is to put a mattress outside either in front or in back. The other is to leave open the front screen door.

Residents have noticed one townhouse has a lot of people living it in, and there are a lot of young children. You see them standing in the windows looking out. One homeowner said she thinks one of the women in the house is watching a lot of kids, that she has seen people dropping children off. If they are illegals, they probably do not have a child care license.

Does anyone know what our HOA can do about this? Does an HOA have any authority in this matter, or can homeowners rent to anyone? Long time residents are starting to up and leave.

What state do you live in? If you live in California, the Uniform Housing Code trumps all.

This is taken from the City of Lake Forest's web page:

Q: WHAT IS CONSIDERED OVERCROWDING IN A RESIDENCE?

A: The number of people who can occupy a residence is based on the following formula: The gross square footage of the residence = X. Subtract 10% of the total gross square footage for the kitchen, bathroom and hallways. Divide this subtotal by 70 and multiply that subtotal by 2. That number will equal the total number of people who can reside in a home, as per the Uniform Housing Code.

Sample: 1,200’-120'= 1,080
1,080/70 = 15.43
15.43 x 2 = 30.85

In this example, 31 people can occupy a 1,200 square foot single-family home.

Lake Forest, like other cities are forced to adopt the Uniform Housing Code. NOW...if you have substantial proof people are living in the garage, you can contact city code enforcement, since it'a against the law to live/sleep in a garage.

Hope this helps, and sorry for jumping in, since I'm a noobie. If you don't live in California, well God Bless you- you might have a fighting chance to nip this in the bud!

Most cities have fire codes for the amount of people that can live in one home or per square foot. Contact city authorities.

The Zoning Officer or Code Enforcement can assist you in this situation.

PauG,

What state do you live in? What County?

Another thing you can look into is whether or not your city has passed a "boarding house" ordinance. For instance, in my city, if there are more than three leases, either written or verbal, the home is considered a boarding house. Guess how many areas are zoned for boarding houses in our city? Zero.

It sounds like it's time to start attending city council meetings and ask for the city to adopt an ordinance similar to ones that are popping up all over the United States. I understand your frustration. We have several houses being used as what I consider "commercial" use in our HOA. It's difficult to maintain a sense of "neighborhood" and community identity when you have what is essentially a transient population.

good luck to you.