Nextdoor website breeds negativity

Our Board president opened an account and sent invites to all the homeowners with emails, but I think we only have about 8 who signed up (out of 135 homeowners). I guess because the majority of them rent, they really don't give a damn what goes on as long as the rent check clears (yeah, I said it and I MEANT it!)

I signed up, but I really haven't seen much negativity, except for a recent post where someone in another community went off against renters (imagine that! And no, it wasn't me!) I didn't see the original post because someone reported it as abusive and the poster deleted it, but I've seen the follow-ups. Otherwise, most of the information has consisted of very useful information from the Mayor's Office (who's also joined), and lots of tips about crime issues - another recent post warned of someone who may be claiming to sell alarm systems, but appears to be casing the home for a possible robbery later.

Now, as far as neighborhood conflicts go, we haven't had a lot of those, thank goodness. To resolve them, I think it depends on whether the issue concerns an association matter or some sort of dustup between two neighbors. If it's not an association issue, the Board should stay out of it and homeowners should be reminded of this periodically so they'll grow up and act like grownups. We also have two security officers who often help mediate issues between neighbors.

If it is an association issue, a special meeting to air things out may be in order, but once again, it depends on the issue. For example, no one likes assessments to increase, but if the Board has the authority to do so, they should focus on doing their due diligence, presenting the budget to everyone, with an explanation of why it was set up. If people have a better idea, they're welcome to offer them and the board should listen to them.

If a meeting is necessary, you don't have to resolve the problem that night, but you should set some ground rules so fistfights or worse don't break out. The Board could appoint a special committee to study the issue and make recommendations (give them a deadline and parameters to work in, as well as require them to present reports to the board regularly). The board can come up with some suggestions, ask the community for comment and then make a final decision.

Brina, I am on Nextdoor for my community (not the HOA). My community is in the Denver Metro area and is a master community. We are a sub association of the master community. However, the site is for the entire neighborhood (of which we are 63 homes out of approx 10,000 or so). We do not have a specific sub-group under the Nextdoor site for our HOA. I know other HOA members that are on Nextdoor but haven't posted issues with either the board or the HOA itself. Nextdoor is mainly used for selling stuff, asking for recommendations for some kind of services, school announcement/activities and crime/safety concerns. Of all the negative posts I have seen since joining have been about vaccinations vs anti-vaxxers or about the call for a boycott of a local grocery store going into our community.

In your case, if other community members (outside your HOA) belong to Nextdoor and can read all the comments about your HOA, I would either make a sub-group in Nextdoor or tell those in your HOA to stop making posts/comments. It is not constructive at all (in my opinion). Good luck with the homeowners in your HOA.

We don't use nextdoor, but we do have a forum on our own website.

Participation on that forum = 3 members

Basically, its a feature that simply isn't used.

Not knowing if nextdoor forums are a member only or open to the public, you should limit it to members only.

One of our homeowners set up a nextdoor site for our community and worked actively to get people to join. We have 65 homes, and 66 nextdoor members representing about 45-50 homes. Obviously, some homes have more than one person on nextdoor. Our site gets very little activity, most of it either of the "who can recommend a good roofer" type or discussing security issues such as possible suspicious activity. Otherwise most of our members are either satisfied or apathetic. In any case, our nextdoor is calm and our meetings are too. Luckily, our primary complainer just moved out a few weeks ago so things should be even better going forward. Overall for us it's been a good way to allow non-official communication.

25% of our owners subscribe to Next-door.....far more than utilize the portal provided by the HOA management company. Owners are more interested in yard sales than HOA happenings and board decisions. I do find some value into the postings regarding neighborhood crimes. Guess that speaks to the issue plaguing most HOAs. A P A T H Y!!!

Good Morning, low voter turnout on the national level.....thus the current abysmal state of our country not to mention the chaos in the world!