Property Manager & Board Secretary Hide Termite Problem

It was just revealed this evening that the Board Secretary had experienced a termite infestation sometime ago. In a past discussion with the property manager (which had been private/one on one at that time), she claims he told her to pay for extermination and termite damage herself and to not tell anyone about the problem. She complied with that request. Now, there are several homes infested and it is a large problem (we are in townhomes with wood second stories and wood siding).

As the problem is now too large to contain, it was discussed at a heavily attended meeting during which the property manager told members the HOA would, of course, take care of extermination and an inspection per our documents.

My question for the group is with regard to the property manager and board member not disclosing this issue which seemed to have occurred months ago, if not a year ago. We live in multi-story homes and termite damage could have posed a physical danger and certainly created a larger problem as many residents are now infested. It seems like a derelection in duty and ethics on the part of both the licensed manager and the board member to not address or disclose this issue to the residents they serve. Comments and suggestions?

The fact that they chose not to disclose probably didn't change anything since the issue was taken care of.

BTW - the secretary should submit her bill to the Association to be reimbursed since the governing docs specify that the issue is the Associations responsibility.

Not all HOA's are responsible for pest control. It's usually viewed as the owner's responsibility. However, for those who do have it built into their HOA to be responsible, what does it define? It seems if the HOA was responsible this whole time then a preventative and NOT reactive program would have been in place. Was there not continuous pest control prior to this?

We had a termite issue. The cause was the mulch and wood retaining walls around the homes. We had to tell people NOT to use certain types of mulches. Cyprus or Cedar did not "feed" the termites as readily. Plus we had some who wanted to remove the rail road tie walls and replace them with brick. A pest expert told us that would drive the termites TO the homes! The termites would go to the wood in the homes.

Our HOA was NOT responsible for pest control or damage. Unless the majority of owners agree they wanted their money to go toward that practice, you were on your own.

They are connected townhomes with a common space between first and second floors. There is no way for one owner to exterminate for the entire building and outer termite inspection and protection is in our documents. Our BOD has not been doing this. All they do is tow cars.

How would the board come to know about groundwater contamination before anyone else? The same with termites. If there's any failure on the board's part it might be in failing to hire someone to do regular termite inspections. It's hard to say without knowing the exact language in your documents. How are inspection and detection, extermination and damage repair supposed to be handled? If the board hired someone to inspect for termites and he found them, then I agree the board should let the owners know. If the board didn't hire anyone to check, does that alone violate something in the documents? I'm purposefully being picky about all this because simply asserting, "Someone on the board knew about this and should have said something!" isn't really going to fly without a whole lot more in the way of details to back it up. Your complaint needs to be much more specific.

You're quite right about the legislature and howmeowners' rights with regard to HOAs and condos. Don't hold your breath. There are documented cases of directors and officers embezzling significant dollars from their associations and somehow that is treated, in Florida, as not a crime but a civil matter. Homeowners' rights aren't even on the lawmakers' radar these days. Just watch the reform bills die in committee year after year after year. Call your state reps and senators and ask them to support reform legislation (that will make 2 of us).


Well, none of that is good. I have found in my extremely small sample size here in my HOA that people who move in coming from mobile home parks tend to have the mindset that the HOA is like their landlord. That's not a healthy mindset to have.

How many homes are in your association and how many do you think would be interested in change? It sounds like your association has been managed by a board that went rogue years ago. You'll need the help of as many neighbors as you can find to help you get out of the mess.

At annual meeting time, any owner can solicit proxies from other owners; you don't need to kowtow to the proxy the board wants you to sign. The statute says that both board and members meetings must be held at a location that's accessible to a handicapped person IF REQUESTED. Get a few people to request that in writing. Get an attorney for a couple of hundred dollars to write a letter to the board suggesting that their choice of meeting location - with no parking - is preventing some members from exercising their RIGHT (again, in the FS 720 statute) to attend the meeting.

There are many things you can do but they will require work and it's essential you have other owners who share your desire for change. If the termite repair bill is going to be large and result in a special assessment, that sounds like the ideal time to gather support from other owners to make some changes. Good luck to you.

I had the same thought.

We have five homes in one building and there is an open space between the first and second floors that is common to all five homes. We have rats living in there and now termites as well.

You need to discuss with a pest control expert in your area. In some areas Termites can cause a lot of damage in a short period of time. In other areas Termites can potentially take many years to cause same amount of damage. Depends on your area of country, type of Termites, length of time, etc. There is slight issue of if one unit had issue and reported should have been disclosed at that time to other units so they could themselves, if so choose, take better actions to protect their property.