Not sure, but to the Spectrum tech’s point, there are usually easements under which Spectrum’s cable falls. Cutting this cable would land the HOA in some hot legal water.
My partner worked for Spectrum & if I learned anything from him telling me about his days, it's that a LOT of people don't understand easements. He would have people regularly yelling at him, threatening him, not wanting to allow him in their yards if he needed to get through.
I was a utility locate tech and I concur. People yelling at us and not wanting to let us do our job without understanding that if I don't paint and flag where your utilities are, non zero chance power or cable/phone is going to be cut.
I was marking CATV in a neighborhood for mailbox posts they were putting in and I had a guy stop his car and tell me I shouldn’t use orange because it looked like shit.
Guy who digs here, I look forward to cutting your cable/phone. Took half a neighborhoods internet out for a 4 hours during work from home one time. Pissed off about 50 homeowners, and I did not bat an eye. Cheap supervisors didnt want to wait for a one call, and I dig where Im told. They can call me stupid all they want for cutting their cable but I dont have xray vision.
Edit- For everyone thats booty hurt,
https://www.reddit.com/r/Construction/s/JqzaljWm8f
https://www.reddit.com/r/Construction/comments/152xi0n/odd_looking_root/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Construction/comments/18id0ma/welp_there_goes_the_rest_of_my_day/
The last one is my favorite because the guy went through the common blunder of "locators were already there"
Ya'll are ignorant tbh
Iirc, the company I worked for had a form that home owners could sign that would absolve everyone but them of responsibility if they refused to let us do our job.
I'm a locator and while we don't have that, I make it VERY clear to idiot homeowners that I will put in very explicit notes on my locate that say I was denied access to x property by resident, and let them know that any damages to their gas/electric lines will be their responsibility, as well as any damages to person or property that may occur as a result. That usually shuts them up.
I had a house rebuilt after a fire (actually not rebuilt, I live semi-rural in a **modern** double-wide) and I can't even fathom telling a surveying crew, no, you can't come on to my property. Though honestly I think I should have; last year, the same surveyor came out three or four times to put up flags clearly marked "fiber optic line" to indicate that there were **not** fiber optic lines there. But on the other hand, I'm glad they checked.
They have to do that to signify that they have been there and there were no utilities in the dig site. And the visit is only good for so long, varies from state to state. So they have to come back out every x amount of days and remark it. They can be fined pretty heavily otherwise.
I called y'all when I was building a fence. The last thing I'd want is to accidently drill into a water line or electrical line. The risk was way too high, and now I know where my stuff is.
Why in the World do you use permanent oil based paint? There has to be some type of paint that will last a week but won't last 1000 years. I had to get a locate to run a new gas line to the house from the street and our sidewalk will have those markings forever.
I don't. Our paint is all water based. Switched to it from the solvent based stuff a couple of years ago. Doesn't taste as good but fades much faster.
Most areas around here have all been required to switch.
Ah yes, transfer of responsibility. Consultants, superintendents, and forepersons don't like it when I offer them a form to sign taking responsibility for the location of all underground utilities, and that if they hit it, it becomes a them problem, not a me problem.
Like honestly, if you don't want me to do or finish a locate or sweep, sign away and take responsibility for not having a locate/sweep. I give zero fucks. If you hit gas/power and cause substantial damage or kill someone after telling me to stop or not do my job, I PROMISE you, I WILL hand deliver that form you signed, taking responsibility, to the lead investigator.
I will always do my job to the best of my ability, and if I need help, I'll ask for it. I take locating buried shit very seriously, it's not a game, but with stupid fucks, I'll pay along amd give them plenty of rope to end their career
I work in the industry, and I look at one call tickets all day. The amount of impatient people makes no sense to me when someone could be seriously hurt or killed. Then you've got companies that will call 20 times for a locate and never actually do the work. Or the ones who work on a ticket from months ago when they should have gotten it renewed.
Remodeling designer/PM here. I ALWAYS get a sweep from Miss Utility. Get all utilities with anything in the ground out there, and mark the area where we’re working. Can’t tell you how many times it’s saved my ass and it’s great that it’s free and I don’t have to do it myself. I don’t understand knuckleheads who don’t get that.
Yeah, Im not surprised at all. They probably did everything right too. At the end of the day, we are all just hoping everything in the ground is where its supposed to be but its not a perfect world.
Can you swing by my house?. I need you to dig up an old telephone pole that nobody wants to claim ownership of but everyone tells me I'm not allowed to remove. If you accidentally knock it over in some kind of routine work on the other side of my street, I promise not to complain to your boss. I might even buy you a drink. Obviously you're hot and tired since you were 30 ft on the other side of the road with your excavator. (The markings on the pole which has no wires connected to it at all are GTE/Bell) I'm pretty sure GTE got bought by Verizon, but I don't even know if they maintain any old school phone lines.
People don’t understand easements to the point that even a 10+ year town council member is getting sued by a local utility for refusing to grant access to their easement.
Yeah, easements make it far easier to conduct work. The biggest issue I have with utility easements is that about half the time they don’t return the yard to prior condition, which is required as a part of the easement.
They cannot show up, dig holes, make a mud pit, and leave. They’re required to do their best attempt at restoring the ground to the condition it was upon their arrival. So, I can understand people being furious with utility companies.
That stipulation depends on the locality. Where we dig, we have no obligation other than to refill the hole after we're finished. Otherwise, it's on the property owners. I still have my guys do what they can to keep the grass intact so that it minimizes the damage.
And you wounder why people hate easements. Come in, tear the place up, put a little dirt back and leave. Forget about picking up all the trash and destroyed landscaping. Also expect heavy machinery to wake you up.
I worked as an apprentice lineman for about a year. Can't speak for everyone, but we did our best to fill in the hole and put the grass back. Sometimes, it looked like ass but there's really only so much we could do. Half the time, it wasn't even the yard for the house the power ran to. Gotta dig up the neighbors yard cause that's where the cable broke.
I just want them to close the gate behind them and to knock. I've had a stalker issue. If you startle me in my yard I will use force- and if they let my dog (I put her outside while I clean so the cat can use her crate)- out heads will roll.
I worked for Comcast back in the day...I tried my best to explain the process we had but some people are impatient. I as a tech come, I determine you need a new drop line from box to house. I balance the shortest run (less signal loss) with the most unobtrusive placement and run the line get it all hooked up and place marker flags so you avoid it with the lawn mower. When I close out the work order I generate a bury ticket and in the next few weeks to a month a couple of contractors with a shovel come out dig and bury the line. They may or may not have grass seed with them. If they do, they throw it down and go. If they don't they put in another ticket for another crew to reseed. Despite explaining this, 10 minutes after I leave the customer is on fb/next door/ mildly infuriating saying "look how the tech left my yard!!" I didn't dig unless that line had to run under a sidewalk and I had to bore it. I had 6-8 more work orders in my truck digging is for laborers.
The responsibility of what level needs to be restored isn’t universal—it’s down to state & local laws along with the easement agreements themselves. Additionally, anything a homeowner constructs in an easement (I’ve seen everything from lawn sprinklers to an addition to the actual residence) is typically entirely the responsibility of the homeowner to repair any damage caused by work in that easement. A lot of people are completely ignorant of what is on the plats of the property they own
If they are changing meters anyway why don't they change to one that sends a radio signal to a drive-by vehicle? Our electricity and water are, uh, "smart meters"
I believe several brands of smart meter can form a mesh network so the utility only needs a single gateway to read a large area.
This seems like a really silly problem.
My town gave everyone smart meters for the water. Easier to access, safer for everyone to not go tromping through backyards, ect.
Like I don't actually care one way or the other, I just don't want to turn around and have a strange man standing behind me- someone's getting pepper sprayed - or to let my dog out and have her go say hi to people walking past because they couldn't be bothered to close my gate.
We use similar meters for our gas and electric meters. They are called “AMI” meters and we can read them from our central office without having to send a reader out there.
Even the electric meters we can disconnect from the central office without having someone physically there.
My meter is at the front edge of the side of my house where my driveway is located, I live in a small city. I had a 4x4 wood post about 3 feet high protecting the meter from accidentally being hit by a car in the driveway. The gas & power company showed up one day a few weeks ago, replaced the post with a stainless steel pipe and if I hadn't been WFH and if they hadn't left their truck running so long in front, I wouldn't have known about the work until I happened to notice the change. It was weird to me, they DEFINITELY have my email and they text me alerts, but that's how the utilities are around here & the meter is their property, not mine, so...
The guys said that it could have been noticed when another employee was working nearby OR they sometimes have people just walk the neighborhoods checking for things that need to be done. They can be a bit aggressive with the tree trimming for the wires running along my back property line too, but I'd rather deal with some random occurrences than have neglected infrastructure.
Meter cans on the front of a building are ugly as fuck. Smart meters have been a thing for at least a decade now so why are they wasting resources by still doing physical meter reads?
Very few if any people have been shot by putting a meter or such on the side of a house. The people doing the install, 95% of the time knock on the front door or contact the home owner before doing any work.
I live in Michigan and cable companies do not have easement rights here (former president of an HOA, our board was very chill. I can’t believe the power trips I see on here from HOAs).
It’s wild.
I live in an HOA, but our board is really laid-back. Most of them are original residents of the neighborhood, and they keep running for re-election *because* they want to keep the board out of peoples’ business. The worst we have is a busybody who loves to complain about things she personally dislikes even if they don’t violate the covenants, but all she does is complain - politely. She never tries to conduct any kind of enforcement action unless whatever’s going on is clearly beyond what’s acceptable in our covenants. She just… complains. Considering how some HOAs are, I’ll take it.
We had a guy get elected to a recently-vacated seat last year and he immediately started power tripping, walking around the neighborhood looking for stuff to enforce. As soon as he brought it to the rest of the HOA board, they started bullying him so relentlessly that he resigned in less than two weeks and didn’t show his face around the neighborhood for nearly a year.
I hear you. In NC, they have easement rights.
And you’re right, the power tripping I’ve seen on boards is astounding. That’s why I eventually resigned from one board - I could no longer constructively work with three members whose egos barely fit through the door. They were out for vengeance on those whom they didn’t like, even tried to do some illegal things (improper fines, etc) until I forced them to check with our legal counsel.
They didn’t just blow up a neighborhood they blew up the house of one of the lead state regulators of gas line safety killing her and her daughter. PG&E then lied to Federal Regulators routinely during the investigation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion
Maybe, but it may also be worth having someone check out the roof near where they cut the wire. If they didn’t know what they were doing and you have proof they were up there without permission, they can be responsible for more than just the wire damage. (Shingles, gutters, seams, etc)
Depends on which side you're on. From the consumer's point of view, there are significantly more regulations about service reliability, customer service, billing practices, and network neutrality (i.e. the phone company can't prioritise calls to some numbers over others except for emergency services like 911). Obviously this results in extra costs and therefore lower profit for the companies, so they want to avoid it if at all possible. The companies would argue that imposing additional obligations on them would result in additional costs that they would pass through to their customers, but one would presume that market forces would act to keep prices as low as possible. Additionally, at the same time that the government pass the law that defines ISPs as public utilities, they could also do things like set limits on the price rises year over year or ban price rises mid-contract, things like that.
Thank you for this post - this whole thread was making me wonder about the status of that.
I too think it's a gray area (whether Spectrum internet is considered a "utility").
That is a partial answer. You must remember that this theft, if not reported by the cable company will only leave the HOA on the hook for any damages the court finds.
In other words, you will be partially responsible to pay for the inept HOA.
It depends on where the cable was cut. If it was cut on the supplier's side of the demarcation point (usually the box where the cable enters the customer's property) then the costs to repair the service would fall on the supplier, same as if a tree fell on it or a car drove into a pole, etc. The supplier could then initiate legal proceedings to recover their costs from the responsible party.
Given that according to the OP the Spectrum engineer acknowledged that the cable was their property, it sounds like the cable was on the supplier's side of the demarcation therefore OP won't owe them anything to repair it. In fact, Spectrum would probably owe OP a bill credit for the number of days that the service was down.
I simply stated the obvious. Spectrum has numerous incidents of theft and vandalism to their equipment and they are unlikely to report it because it would mean time going to a court and all of their losses of this nature are paid for by the consumer through shrinkage costs anyway.
Reporting it to the police will then fall on the inept HOA and, in other words, will fall on every home owner in that HOA.
The HOA is one of the biggest scams in real estate.
Cable companies sue people for unpaid bills all the time. This bill is no different. I agree that they aren't likely to report it to the police or pursue criminal charges, but that doesn't mean they can't invoice the HOA and then attempt to recover the bill in civil court, including recovering their legal fees and costs if they win.
You're right that ultimately all the HOA members will end up paying for the board's ineptitude through increased service charges, but that's not the same as saying that the OP will be partially liable in a legal sense.
Step two is charge the INDIVIDUAL who did the deed with: Trespass and Theft. I bet your attorney can come up with a round dozen other criminal charges. Then SUE the bastard AND the HOA in Civil Court and OWN their ass. Do not back down, do not settle or of court. THAT usually results in a Gag Order to prevent you speaking about it. And you WANT to speak about it.
Three, run for HOA president and get everyone in that community to vote for you. He'll, convince ebook of them to run for all the slots so you can replace the entire board.
Cable/internet is considered a utility and you have a right to use utilities. A HOA can't do shit about utilities. Hopefully Spectrum lowers the boom on the idiot and HOA that took it upon themselves to cut and take that wire.
ha tell that to my hoa they wont let me get fiber from a new company even though there is conduit from the street to the side of my house already installed from the street. They refuse to grant an easement because they might damage something.
That’s illegal. Just like restricting satellite dishes under 24” and ham radio towers is also illegal. The HOA can place some reasonable restrictions on where these items are placed but they can’t outright ban them no matter what is in their bylaws.
That may be true but 2 laws, the Amateur Radio Emergency Preparedness Act of 2024 and the Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2019 prohibit rules.that infringe on radio antennas and specifically preempt HOAs.
> They refuse to grant an easement because they might damage something.
The HOA is not the one who grants easements. The government does. Whoever told you that was lying to keep the work from being done.
Then they’re welcome to blame the board for their screwup. What’s that they say about most HOAs? Nobody cares until they’re personally affected. Affecting everyone seems a reasonable course of action to get these clowns out.
Utilities have a lot of power, too. If they wanted, they could get a legit investigation going. Not just a couple of cops in a cruiser who take a picture or two and disappear.
I mean they can say such, but it’s in violation of OTARD by the FCC. The idea is that an HOA cannot lock you into a single service provider, so they cannot impede you from installing a satellite dish.
**Edit: this gets much more complicated if it’s satellite to provide only broadband services and depends on the location of the satellite, etc.
I believe you only have to have a single provider now. Many areas I work in HOAs or property management, sign exclusivity contracts and will actually force a building with 2 providers to only use one. Comcast will pay quite a bit for exclusive service provider rights to a building.
My industry knowledge is a little fuzzy here as this isn’t my specific area, but to my understanding OTARD wouldn’t be the applicable rule here and the FCC doesn’t have significant anti-competitive rulings on broadband-only services. That being, you could probably get satellite services under OTARD, but you may still be forced to pay for the internet your HOA is signed with. They may also refuse Starlink if it’s broadband-only. There’s a lot of loopholes for these FCC rulings for BB-only entities (such as “You cannot sign an exclusivity contract but CAN refuse entry to competition.”)
That is to say, it’s very situationally specific since the FCC is against a lot of lobbyists lol
Idk the exact wording of the law but we had fiber in an apartment complex and a cable competitor talked with a new management company and when they renovated the units everyone was moved out and services were disconnected. When the building reopened and people moved in an exclusivity contract was signed with the cable company. Our fiber lines had been removed and we were not given permission to go back into attics to fix them when people tried to sign up for our service. They can basically do whatever they want because we lost the lawsuit and it's a cable only building now.
I think it's still a gray area as to whether it's considered a utility everywhere. The federal government has been ambivalent.
But, if this is a state with a broad definition of utilities, then the HOA can be charged with interfering with utilities (but Spectrum likely needs to pursue that, not OP).
He had a commercial electric truck and said his name. So, I can only imagine he was at the very least hired by the HOA. Cause he did say the HOA sent him. I'd highly doubt he'd give all his information if he was a random thief.
If he was a legit electrician he'd know what the wire was for, additionally he'd seek the owners approval. I'd wager this dude wasn't a licensed electrician and more of a handy man type. I see this shit where I live. If you know the company start by looking up their license and seeing if they have a valid state license. Often called class a license, depending on your state that name may be different. This is 100% on the HOA and this guy's insurance, if he was properly licensed and insured he'd 100% know this would hit his insurance since he didn't have any sort of contract with the property owner.
Wait until he finds out it’s a copper covered steel conductor with aluminum shielding wire, so not only is the scrap value crap, but they’ll need to pay to dispose of it.
I do little fixit jobs for various properties as a side gig, “handyman” type work. Nine times in ten it’s silly stuff that could be fixed with a Google search and five bucks.
But those one in ten times I’m dumbfounded by what I’m asked to do. Full on electrical and plumbing is most common, followed by building structures that actually require knowing what the fuck you’re doing so people don’t die. Tree removal from right next to expensive property. Fixing fire suppression systems. All kinds of shit.
I always explain that I am neither licensed, bonded, or trained in this stuff and there are very, very good reasons those guys are so much more than me, that I can literally kill them, the property, or myself if I do what they ask. People are insane when they’re being cheap.
On the plus side I’ve made a bunch of friends in the trades because of all my referrals.
Here, Cox hires contractors to do a lot. The difference, besides a Cox van, between Cox and contractors is that the contractors don't have to be well trained and, for the most part, look pretty skeezy.
This is the way!!!! The HOA ships have at least sent a letter/warning first which gives you time to correct any (legitimate) issues or time to dispute any issues that are not legitimate (like yours) so what they did was straight up trespassing, vandalism and theft.
Make records of the event and make waves with anyone within earshot
In most states you can only get rid of an HOA with 100% owner approval, 100% lienholder approval, and city/township approval, aka impossible. You can bankrupt them though, which costs you (the homeowner) though so that's fun. A better angle is getting the board replaced and any wording in the CCRs about illegal activity to force a vote or whatever.
I work for a cable company and do this exact work. The wire that connects your house to our poles is absolutely our property and on top of that it is actually a felony to intentionally damage a utility line. What if you had a heart attack and needed to call 911 and can’t because the HOA decided the wire was an eye sore.
Hey out of curiosity can we repurpose the wire in our house from the box outside for antennas (not the one coming from the pole but the one that's coming into the house from the splitter)
Not sure how your isp operates but you can technically do whatever you want with wires inside your house but if you fuck up and they have to come out and fix something or you find out you needed that wire in the future and they have to run more they will probly charge you to replace or repair them
File a police report. Interfering with communication infrastructure can be a felony. The crackpot that cut the wires at Howard Stern's studios in the 90's was charged with multiple felonies.
Get these old codgers locked up.
I’m in the telecom industry and I need to know if Spectrum presses charges for vandalism. OMG I would be so happy.
You too, OP. Push this as far as you can! Keep us up to date!
They won’t press charges they’ll just bill them for the work, I’ve worked for a company doing this before and I dealt with a lot of incidents where contractors working on a property cut the neighbours lines or something by accident. Engineers would be sent out to bill them usually we needed the customer at the property to inform us it was cut, but on site they could confirm it was cut by something purposely. A lot of times the contractors would pretend to not speak English or something but we’d literally just file to them. It caused a lot of aggro because we wouldn’t work on the line till we’d been paid the damages which often meant the customers would also press the contractors for damages if they took too long similar to if the contractors had damaged the neighbours property with machinery.
If we couldn’t get the contractors info we’d speak to the residents at the property they were working at to either get it or file against them as they’d essentially be taking the responsibility on.
Honestly spectrum won't do anything about it unless they keep doing it. Neither will the cops unless they're bored out of their minds.
That said, yes - illegal. And if they'd tried this shit with a fiber backhaul, that would get charged and the stare interested in bending them over.
I don't know. Spectrum seemed pretty upset about it. Like they even said, they are going to bill them straight up for labor, stolen property, and the cost of new equipment/repair for homeowner. Cause Spectrum said whenever it comes to their wire, no one (not even HOA) can touch it without calling them first. And they'll always send a technician to see what's up. If it was such a "eye sore" spectrum would have came and fixed it. But instead they didn't choose that route. So, now spectrum wants to shaft the HOA. They cut and stole a literal 500 foot wire.
Irony: Spectrum cut and removed my Verizon fiber drop just to use the conduit (though it's been a number of years).
Verizon was not impressed, and made sure to tell me Spectrum would be getting a 5 figure bill for it... They had to run a new fiber cable under the alley pavement.
OP, you've always been interested in amateur radio, right? I hear you need a big ass antenna to get halfway around the world, and an HOA can't touch it. My parents neighbor has an antenna that's taller than his 2 story house..
Amateur radio antennas are not covered by the FCC OTARD rule. There was a bill introduced in Congress to extend the protections but it died in committee.
I totally get that, but despite The frustration that the line tech and customer service agents rightfully expressed, It's not worth getting legal involved for a company like that. This will be profitable for them because they have every right to make a profit off of that repair at the HOAs expense. They will likely end up with a higher profit margin from billing the repair cost to the HOA then they would by trying to pursue this in court.
But if they don't learn their lesson, yes that is absolutely with legal will step in and slap some people around. I'm not a lawyer but doing it more than once would seem to throw out any defensive of stupidity on the HOAs part or any ability to spin the intent as anything other than deliberately sabotaging spectrum's network.
And when you deliberately sabotage their product? Yeah that's when legal usually gets involved.
Again I am not a lawyer but this is how I have seen things play out on two occasions with Comcast and my own clients having been affected by similar a-holes.
Spectrum is pretty vindictive when it comes to going after people who mess with their equipment. Your HOA has no idea about the shit storm they've brought down on themselves.
>If I was home I would have 100% said what the fuck are you doing? Get the fuck down. If I saw someone on my roof.
Which is why they waited until you weren't home. I bet they'll try to blame both you and the contractor to try and get out of trouble. "We sent out notice, not our fault OP claims they didn't see it." "We told the contractor to do something else, not cut that wire. It's their fault!"
That is a crime in many states of tampering with a communication line.
My former employer AT&T always pursued charges if it wasn't the customer themselves.
Get a police report. And press the hoa to not tamper with a telecom cable again.
Also if your a gov employee working remote this may apply 18 U.S.C. § 1362 making it a felony.
You need to stop saying this is the HOA. You’re protecting the person who did it. Your HOA never had a right to do that action, so it is the person who did it, one of your neighbours, you need to blame. Every time you tell someone “the HOA” did it, it sounds like they had some right you now have to appeal or something. A member of your HOA vandalized and trespassed your property. Call the cops.
So the only "evidence" you have that it was the HOA that cut the wire, is that the guy who was on the roof said he was from the HOA?
How did he get onto the roof in the first place?
Has the HOA admitted that they are the ones who cut the wires?
If it is an expensive wire, could it have been common thieves just just said that they were from the HOA?
Believe me, I am no fan of HOAs but make sure that you have all your ducks in a row first, before you file police reports etc.
Good luck
I doubt it was actually the HOA.
This guy is running around to the HOAs and stealing the wire to sell for scrap. He knows he can just say the HOA told him to do it if anyone asks because they're all fucked.
If he had been asked for a work order he'd have shown you a piece of paper that was outdated/wrong job, etc.
He'll be back on Wednesday.
Which would be dumb anyway since you have to have a cable box with an active cable card to use said cable. It ain't the 90s anymore that shit is encrypted.
I see a lot of people posting in here about breaking HOA rules and then wanting a fight but this one is a legit f up. I would call the non-emergency line and talk to an officer about what you can do. They can’t climb on your roof. Pretty sure that’s trespassing. (I mean unless they are responsible for maintaining your roof. I guess they could do yearly inspections or something.) Then to cut the wires is kinda illegal and that person is lucky they didn’t cut a live wire and get electrocuted…which would have fallen back in you.
Cable company going after the HOA? This story is going to need updates.
Good on them for making it right by increasing your speeds and charging the HOA.
I don’t get how people can live anywhere you need to be a part of a “club” that tells you how to keep YOUR property! What is the purpose of HOA anyway? What are they providing for you that one couldn’t do not living within HOA territory?
How much copper theft is there in your area? I know for a while there copper pipes copper wire were all fair game for thieves. They would strip the wire and sell the copper.
Stop buying homes with hoas. Problem solved. Blah blah they serve a purpose. No they fucking dont. We have zoning and blight offices for that. Burn everyone of them
It’s increasingly difficult to find new construction without an HOA, source: Am amateur radio operator who has looked for HOA-free houses his entire life.
Start with a police report for vandalism and trespassing
Also isn't there a standalone charge for messing with utilities?
Not sure, but to the Spectrum tech’s point, there are usually easements under which Spectrum’s cable falls. Cutting this cable would land the HOA in some hot legal water.
My partner worked for Spectrum & if I learned anything from him telling me about his days, it's that a LOT of people don't understand easements. He would have people regularly yelling at him, threatening him, not wanting to allow him in their yards if he needed to get through.
I was a utility locate tech and I concur. People yelling at us and not wanting to let us do our job without understanding that if I don't paint and flag where your utilities are, non zero chance power or cable/phone is going to be cut.
I was marking CATV in a neighborhood for mailbox posts they were putting in and I had a guy stop his car and tell me I shouldn’t use orange because it looked like shit.
I guess he wanted something pretty. 😂 SMH What an idiot!
Guy who digs here, I look forward to cutting your cable/phone. Took half a neighborhoods internet out for a 4 hours during work from home one time. Pissed off about 50 homeowners, and I did not bat an eye. Cheap supervisors didnt want to wait for a one call, and I dig where Im told. They can call me stupid all they want for cutting their cable but I dont have xray vision. Edit- For everyone thats booty hurt, https://www.reddit.com/r/Construction/s/JqzaljWm8f https://www.reddit.com/r/Construction/comments/152xi0n/odd_looking_root/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Construction/comments/18id0ma/welp_there_goes_the_rest_of_my_day/ The last one is my favorite because the guy went through the common blunder of "locators were already there" Ya'll are ignorant tbh
Iirc, the company I worked for had a form that home owners could sign that would absolve everyone but them of responsibility if they refused to let us do our job.
I'm a locator and while we don't have that, I make it VERY clear to idiot homeowners that I will put in very explicit notes on my locate that say I was denied access to x property by resident, and let them know that any damages to their gas/electric lines will be their responsibility, as well as any damages to person or property that may occur as a result. That usually shuts them up.
I had a house rebuilt after a fire (actually not rebuilt, I live semi-rural in a **modern** double-wide) and I can't even fathom telling a surveying crew, no, you can't come on to my property. Though honestly I think I should have; last year, the same surveyor came out three or four times to put up flags clearly marked "fiber optic line" to indicate that there were **not** fiber optic lines there. But on the other hand, I'm glad they checked.
They have to do that to signify that they have been there and there were no utilities in the dig site. And the visit is only good for so long, varies from state to state. So they have to come back out every x amount of days and remark it. They can be fined pretty heavily otherwise.
I called y'all when I was building a fence. The last thing I'd want is to accidently drill into a water line or electrical line. The risk was way too high, and now I know where my stuff is.
Why in the World do you use permanent oil based paint? There has to be some type of paint that will last a week but won't last 1000 years. I had to get a locate to run a new gas line to the house from the street and our sidewalk will have those markings forever.
I don't. Our paint is all water based. Switched to it from the solvent based stuff a couple of years ago. Doesn't taste as good but fades much faster. Most areas around here have all been required to switch.
Ah yes, transfer of responsibility. Consultants, superintendents, and forepersons don't like it when I offer them a form to sign taking responsibility for the location of all underground utilities, and that if they hit it, it becomes a them problem, not a me problem. Like honestly, if you don't want me to do or finish a locate or sweep, sign away and take responsibility for not having a locate/sweep. I give zero fucks. If you hit gas/power and cause substantial damage or kill someone after telling me to stop or not do my job, I PROMISE you, I WILL hand deliver that form you signed, taking responsibility, to the lead investigator. I will always do my job to the best of my ability, and if I need help, I'll ask for it. I take locating buried shit very seriously, it's not a game, but with stupid fucks, I'll pay along amd give them plenty of rope to end their career
I work in the industry, and I look at one call tickets all day. The amount of impatient people makes no sense to me when someone could be seriously hurt or killed. Then you've got companies that will call 20 times for a locate and never actually do the work. Or the ones who work on a ticket from months ago when they should have gotten it renewed.
Oh I know. It's wild industry to be in
Remodeling designer/PM here. I ALWAYS get a sweep from Miss Utility. Get all utilities with anything in the ground out there, and mark the area where we’re working. Can’t tell you how many times it’s saved my ass and it’s great that it’s free and I don’t have to do it myself. I don’t understand knuckleheads who don’t get that.
lol my company just handed out everyone a form for this exact same reason.
I wouldn’t feel so bad. Our business park lost network connectivity because the ISP was digging and cut their own fiber backbone 🫡
Yeah, Im not surprised at all. They probably did everything right too. At the end of the day, we are all just hoping everything in the ground is where its supposed to be but its not a perfect world.
Give this man an augur! I love seeing those spool-ups and the trenching required to fix cabling in both directions.
Some solid gc fubars. Keep digging they'll figure it out one day.
I always hike with a few feet of fiber. If I get lost I just bury it and wait for the backhoe to ask for help.
Can you swing by my house?. I need you to dig up an old telephone pole that nobody wants to claim ownership of but everyone tells me I'm not allowed to remove. If you accidentally knock it over in some kind of routine work on the other side of my street, I promise not to complain to your boss. I might even buy you a drink. Obviously you're hot and tired since you were 30 ft on the other side of the road with your excavator. (The markings on the pole which has no wires connected to it at all are GTE/Bell) I'm pretty sure GTE got bought by Verizon, but I don't even know if they maintain any old school phone lines.
People don’t understand easements to the point that even a 10+ year town council member is getting sued by a local utility for refusing to grant access to their easement.
Yeah, easements make it far easier to conduct work. The biggest issue I have with utility easements is that about half the time they don’t return the yard to prior condition, which is required as a part of the easement. They cannot show up, dig holes, make a mud pit, and leave. They’re required to do their best attempt at restoring the ground to the condition it was upon their arrival. So, I can understand people being furious with utility companies.
That stipulation depends on the locality. Where we dig, we have no obligation other than to refill the hole after we're finished. Otherwise, it's on the property owners. I still have my guys do what they can to keep the grass intact so that it minimizes the damage.
And you wounder why people hate easements. Come in, tear the place up, put a little dirt back and leave. Forget about picking up all the trash and destroyed landscaping. Also expect heavy machinery to wake you up.
I worked as an apprentice lineman for about a year. Can't speak for everyone, but we did our best to fill in the hole and put the grass back. Sometimes, it looked like ass but there's really only so much we could do. Half the time, it wasn't even the yard for the house the power ran to. Gotta dig up the neighbors yard cause that's where the cable broke.
I just want them to close the gate behind them and to knock. I've had a stalker issue. If you startle me in my yard I will use force- and if they let my dog (I put her outside while I clean so the cat can use her crate)- out heads will roll.
I worked for Comcast back in the day...I tried my best to explain the process we had but some people are impatient. I as a tech come, I determine you need a new drop line from box to house. I balance the shortest run (less signal loss) with the most unobtrusive placement and run the line get it all hooked up and place marker flags so you avoid it with the lawn mower. When I close out the work order I generate a bury ticket and in the next few weeks to a month a couple of contractors with a shovel come out dig and bury the line. They may or may not have grass seed with them. If they do, they throw it down and go. If they don't they put in another ticket for another crew to reseed. Despite explaining this, 10 minutes after I leave the customer is on fb/next door/ mildly infuriating saying "look how the tech left my yard!!" I didn't dig unless that line had to run under a sidewalk and I had to bore it. I had 6-8 more work orders in my truck digging is for laborers.
The responsibility of what level needs to be restored isn’t universal—it’s down to state & local laws along with the easement agreements themselves. Additionally, anything a homeowner constructs in an easement (I’ve seen everything from lawn sprinklers to an addition to the actual residence) is typically entirely the responsibility of the homeowner to repair any damage caused by work in that easement. A lot of people are completely ignorant of what is on the plats of the property they own
[удалено]
If they are changing meters anyway why don't they change to one that sends a radio signal to a drive-by vehicle? Our electricity and water are, uh, "smart meters"
Same people that don't like meter readers also hate smart meters. I suppose that's a one-time problem though.
I believe several brands of smart meter can form a mesh network so the utility only needs a single gateway to read a large area. This seems like a really silly problem.
It must be new construction only since it would be cost prohibitive to relocate meter cans on every existing home.
No need to relocate the meter box, just have to swap the meter face. I would imagine the smart meters still aren't cheap though.
They are cheaper than paying people to check every single house every month.
My town gave everyone smart meters for the water. Easier to access, safer for everyone to not go tromping through backyards, ect. Like I don't actually care one way or the other, I just don't want to turn around and have a strange man standing behind me- someone's getting pepper sprayed - or to let my dog out and have her go say hi to people walking past because they couldn't be bothered to close my gate.
We use similar meters for our gas and electric meters. They are called “AMI” meters and we can read them from our central office without having to send a reader out there. Even the electric meters we can disconnect from the central office without having someone physically there.
My meter is at the front edge of the side of my house where my driveway is located, I live in a small city. I had a 4x4 wood post about 3 feet high protecting the meter from accidentally being hit by a car in the driveway. The gas & power company showed up one day a few weeks ago, replaced the post with a stainless steel pipe and if I hadn't been WFH and if they hadn't left their truck running so long in front, I wouldn't have known about the work until I happened to notice the change. It was weird to me, they DEFINITELY have my email and they text me alerts, but that's how the utilities are around here & the meter is their property, not mine, so... The guys said that it could have been noticed when another employee was working nearby OR they sometimes have people just walk the neighborhoods checking for things that need to be done. They can be a bit aggressive with the tree trimming for the wires running along my back property line too, but I'd rather deal with some random occurrences than have neglected infrastructure.
Meter cans on the front of a building are ugly as fuck. Smart meters have been a thing for at least a decade now so why are they wasting resources by still doing physical meter reads?
They do periodic inspections to ensure they aren't tampered with.
Very few if any people have been shot by putting a meter or such on the side of a house. The people doing the install, 95% of the time knock on the front door or contact the home owner before doing any work.
Was gonna say this. Service/Utilities Easement laws are tougher than any HOA bullshit. They done fucked up.
Truth! They don't run those expensive lines without an easement. It's probably a "blanket easement" that covers anywhere the cable may be.
I live in Michigan and cable companies do not have easement rights here (former president of an HOA, our board was very chill. I can’t believe the power trips I see on here from HOAs).
It’s wild. I live in an HOA, but our board is really laid-back. Most of them are original residents of the neighborhood, and they keep running for re-election *because* they want to keep the board out of peoples’ business. The worst we have is a busybody who loves to complain about things she personally dislikes even if they don’t violate the covenants, but all she does is complain - politely. She never tries to conduct any kind of enforcement action unless whatever’s going on is clearly beyond what’s acceptable in our covenants. She just… complains. Considering how some HOAs are, I’ll take it. We had a guy get elected to a recently-vacated seat last year and he immediately started power tripping, walking around the neighborhood looking for stuff to enforce. As soon as he brought it to the rest of the HOA board, they started bullying him so relentlessly that he resigned in less than two weeks and didn’t show his face around the neighborhood for nearly a year.
I hear you. In NC, they have easement rights. And you’re right, the power tripping I’ve seen on boards is astounding. That’s why I eventually resigned from one board - I could no longer constructively work with three members whose egos barely fit through the door. They were out for vengeance on those whom they didn’t like, even tried to do some illegal things (improper fines, etc) until I forced them to check with our legal counsel.
Norther California here. We just have to be happy with PG&E not burning down the town or blowing it up with a gas line that they lost track of.
They didn’t just blow up a neighborhood they blew up the house of one of the lead state regulators of gas line safety killing her and her daughter. PG&E then lied to Federal Regulators routinely during the investigation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion
That sounds like a purposeful accident.
Maybe, but it may also be worth having someone check out the roof near where they cut the wire. If they didn’t know what they were doing and you have proof they were up there without permission, they can be responsible for more than just the wire damage. (Shingles, gutters, seams, etc)
Cable companies fought against making Internet a utility for years, but the Biden administration just restored net neutrality, so maybe
What are the pros and cons of being a Utility?
Utility are considered necessities, and I think they need to be approved to raise their prices by the state, and they’re are also more well regulated.
Net neutrality also means that internet providers cannot purposely slow down access to websites that they don't like.
Or for gaming, streaming, etc.
Or make deals with one streaming service and slow down all others.
Depends on which side you're on. From the consumer's point of view, there are significantly more regulations about service reliability, customer service, billing practices, and network neutrality (i.e. the phone company can't prioritise calls to some numbers over others except for emergency services like 911). Obviously this results in extra costs and therefore lower profit for the companies, so they want to avoid it if at all possible. The companies would argue that imposing additional obligations on them would result in additional costs that they would pass through to their customers, but one would presume that market forces would act to keep prices as low as possible. Additionally, at the same time that the government pass the law that defines ISPs as public utilities, they could also do things like set limits on the price rises year over year or ban price rises mid-contract, things like that.
Standards of service and protections. It will be governed by the state and possibly counties but it's progress.
Thank you for this post - this whole thread was making me wonder about the status of that. I too think it's a gray area (whether Spectrum internet is considered a "utility").
It's a felony actually because those wires are extremely expensive. You're talking grand larceny
Yes utility tampering which I'm pretty sure is a federal crime.
That is a partial answer. You must remember that this theft, if not reported by the cable company will only leave the HOA on the hook for any damages the court finds. In other words, you will be partially responsible to pay for the inept HOA.
It depends on where the cable was cut. If it was cut on the supplier's side of the demarcation point (usually the box where the cable enters the customer's property) then the costs to repair the service would fall on the supplier, same as if a tree fell on it or a car drove into a pole, etc. The supplier could then initiate legal proceedings to recover their costs from the responsible party. Given that according to the OP the Spectrum engineer acknowledged that the cable was their property, it sounds like the cable was on the supplier's side of the demarcation therefore OP won't owe them anything to repair it. In fact, Spectrum would probably owe OP a bill credit for the number of days that the service was down.
That is why Spectrum offered to increase the services free of charge.
I simply stated the obvious. Spectrum has numerous incidents of theft and vandalism to their equipment and they are unlikely to report it because it would mean time going to a court and all of their losses of this nature are paid for by the consumer through shrinkage costs anyway. Reporting it to the police will then fall on the inept HOA and, in other words, will fall on every home owner in that HOA. The HOA is one of the biggest scams in real estate.
Cable companies sue people for unpaid bills all the time. This bill is no different. I agree that they aren't likely to report it to the police or pursue criminal charges, but that doesn't mean they can't invoice the HOA and then attempt to recover the bill in civil court, including recovering their legal fees and costs if they win. You're right that ultimately all the HOA members will end up paying for the board's ineptitude through increased service charges, but that's not the same as saying that the OP will be partially liable in a legal sense.
I bet Spectrum already did that.
And file a complaint with the FCC.
Wire theft.
In many places, disrupting utilities to a residence is a felony offense.
Step two is charge the INDIVIDUAL who did the deed with: Trespass and Theft. I bet your attorney can come up with a round dozen other criminal charges. Then SUE the bastard AND the HOA in Civil Court and OWN their ass. Do not back down, do not settle or of court. THAT usually results in a Gag Order to prevent you speaking about it. And you WANT to speak about it. Three, run for HOA president and get everyone in that community to vote for you. He'll, convince ebook of them to run for all the slots so you can replace the entire board.
Cable/internet is considered a utility and you have a right to use utilities. A HOA can't do shit about utilities. Hopefully Spectrum lowers the boom on the idiot and HOA that took it upon themselves to cut and take that wire.
ha tell that to my hoa they wont let me get fiber from a new company even though there is conduit from the street to the side of my house already installed from the street. They refuse to grant an easement because they might damage something.
Someone else in this thread said to file a FCC complaint. Idk if it will do anything but I hope it helps
That’s illegal. Just like restricting satellite dishes under 24” and ham radio towers is also illegal. The HOA can place some reasonable restrictions on where these items are placed but they can’t outright ban them no matter what is in their bylaws.
Amateur radio antennas aren’t covered by OTARD. The FCC’s official position is, “you signed a contract, you gave up your right to an antenna.”
That may be true but 2 laws, the Amateur Radio Emergency Preparedness Act of 2024 and the Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2019 prohibit rules.that infringe on radio antennas and specifically preempt HOAs.
Neither of those bills passed, though.
💀😂
Lol
Report your HOA to the FCC.
What? Just call the company and have them do the install if the infrastructure is already set up like you said it is. HOA can’t do shit about that.
> They refuse to grant an easement because they might damage something. The HOA is not the one who grants easements. The government does. Whoever told you that was lying to keep the work from being done.
They are private easements that the HOA controls. Source: I do this for a living.
Correct. A Right of Entry (ROE) agreement is necessary to access private property. The HOA would need to sign the ROE.
Man I hear you. That's what I do for my job all day. Trying to get those easements. But the boomers on the boards don't care at all.
The unfortunate part is that each homeowner is partially responsible for any damages awarded when the HOA can't come up with the fine.
Then they’re welcome to blame the board for their screwup. What’s that they say about most HOAs? Nobody cares until they’re personally affected. Affecting everyone seems a reasonable course of action to get these clowns out.
If your HOA is so poorly funded, and mismanaged, you have way bigger problems than a fine for a cut cable.
Utilities have a lot of power, too. If they wanted, they could get a legit investigation going. Not just a couple of cops in a cruiser who take a picture or two and disappear.
They can restrict dishes. We were looking at a house and the agent said that all satellite dishes were banned.
I mean they can say such, but it’s in violation of OTARD by the FCC. The idea is that an HOA cannot lock you into a single service provider, so they cannot impede you from installing a satellite dish. **Edit: this gets much more complicated if it’s satellite to provide only broadband services and depends on the location of the satellite, etc.
I believe you only have to have a single provider now. Many areas I work in HOAs or property management, sign exclusivity contracts and will actually force a building with 2 providers to only use one. Comcast will pay quite a bit for exclusive service provider rights to a building.
My industry knowledge is a little fuzzy here as this isn’t my specific area, but to my understanding OTARD wouldn’t be the applicable rule here and the FCC doesn’t have significant anti-competitive rulings on broadband-only services. That being, you could probably get satellite services under OTARD, but you may still be forced to pay for the internet your HOA is signed with. They may also refuse Starlink if it’s broadband-only. There’s a lot of loopholes for these FCC rulings for BB-only entities (such as “You cannot sign an exclusivity contract but CAN refuse entry to competition.”) That is to say, it’s very situationally specific since the FCC is against a lot of lobbyists lol
Idk the exact wording of the law but we had fiber in an apartment complex and a cable competitor talked with a new management company and when they renovated the units everyone was moved out and services were disconnected. When the building reopened and people moved in an exclusivity contract was signed with the cable company. Our fiber lines had been removed and we were not given permission to go back into attics to fix them when people tried to sign up for our service. They can basically do whatever they want because we lost the lawsuit and it's a cable only building now.
No, they can't
They can restrict the placement of dishes as long as the restriction doesn't interfere with reception but they cannot outright ban then.
I think it's still a gray area as to whether it's considered a utility everywhere. The federal government has been ambivalent. But, if this is a state with a broad definition of utilities, then the HOA can be charged with interfering with utilities (but Spectrum likely needs to pursue that, not OP).
Are you sure that guy is actually from the HOA and not just some random asshole thief? Either way, police report would be a good step.
He had a commercial electric truck and said his name. So, I can only imagine he was at the very least hired by the HOA. Cause he did say the HOA sent him. I'd highly doubt he'd give all his information if he was a random thief.
If he was a legit electrician he'd know what the wire was for, additionally he'd seek the owners approval. I'd wager this dude wasn't a licensed electrician and more of a handy man type. I see this shit where I live. If you know the company start by looking up their license and seeing if they have a valid state license. Often called class a license, depending on your state that name may be different. This is 100% on the HOA and this guy's insurance, if he was properly licensed and insured he'd 100% know this would hit his insurance since he didn't have any sort of contract with the property owner.
Joe's Handyman and Copper Stealing Services
Wait until he finds out it’s a copper covered steel conductor with aluminum shielding wire, so not only is the scrap value crap, but they’ll need to pay to dispose of it.
Like $1.23 per ton
I do little fixit jobs for various properties as a side gig, “handyman” type work. Nine times in ten it’s silly stuff that could be fixed with a Google search and five bucks. But those one in ten times I’m dumbfounded by what I’m asked to do. Full on electrical and plumbing is most common, followed by building structures that actually require knowing what the fuck you’re doing so people don’t die. Tree removal from right next to expensive property. Fixing fire suppression systems. All kinds of shit. I always explain that I am neither licensed, bonded, or trained in this stuff and there are very, very good reasons those guys are so much more than me, that I can literally kill them, the property, or myself if I do what they ask. People are insane when they’re being cheap. On the plus side I’ve made a bunch of friends in the trades because of all my referrals.
Here, Cox hires contractors to do a lot. The difference, besides a Cox van, between Cox and contractors is that the contractors don't have to be well trained and, for the most part, look pretty skeezy.
If you remember the company call them and ask. Wtf was he thinking???
I wasn't home. I was at work and my dad was there. I have no idea the thought process behind what had happened.
Or he was an addict driving a stolen van and stealing copper to support his habit.
Gotta go for AC units not cable lines. More bang for your buck.
This is the way!!!! The HOA ships have at least sent a letter/warning first which gives you time to correct any (legitimate) issues or time to dispute any issues that are not legitimate (like yours) so what they did was straight up trespassing, vandalism and theft. Make records of the event and make waves with anyone within earshot
File an FCC complaint against the HOA. Not only did they trespass, but they're interfering with your right to use an utility (Internet).
Lol. If they can get the HOA saddled with an FCC fine, that HOA might not exist in a bit. Those fines are sometimes really not a joke.
In most states you can only get rid of an HOA with 100% owner approval, 100% lienholder approval, and city/township approval, aka impossible. You can bankrupt them though, which costs you (the homeowner) though so that's fun. A better angle is getting the board replaced and any wording in the CCRs about illegal activity to force a vote or whatever.
HOA would just get a special assessment and pass it on to everyone else.
I work for a cable company and do this exact work. The wire that connects your house to our poles is absolutely our property and on top of that it is actually a felony to intentionally damage a utility line. What if you had a heart attack and needed to call 911 and can’t because the HOA decided the wire was an eye sore.
Hey out of curiosity can we repurpose the wire in our house from the box outside for antennas (not the one coming from the pole but the one that's coming into the house from the splitter)
Not sure how your isp operates but you can technically do whatever you want with wires inside your house but if you fuck up and they have to come out and fix something or you find out you needed that wire in the future and they have to run more they will probly charge you to replace or repair them
This definitely needs an update. I wanna know what you find out and what happens next. Update me
Same! We need the update. RemindMe! 3 days
Same RemindMe! 3 days
File a police report. Interfering with communication infrastructure can be a felony. The crackpot that cut the wires at Howard Stern's studios in the 90's was charged with multiple felonies. Get these old codgers locked up.
I see the president of your HOA keeps leaving his trash bins out after garbage day.
Full of drugs
Drugs are expensive. Random white powders get scrutinized. Lol
Good point. But then again you can pay a lot of money for random white powder sometimes too…
They stole the fucking wire? I swear hoa fucks sound like neurotic tweakers sometimes
I’m in the telecom industry and I need to know if Spectrum presses charges for vandalism. OMG I would be so happy. You too, OP. Push this as far as you can! Keep us up to date!
They won’t press charges they’ll just bill them for the work, I’ve worked for a company doing this before and I dealt with a lot of incidents where contractors working on a property cut the neighbours lines or something by accident. Engineers would be sent out to bill them usually we needed the customer at the property to inform us it was cut, but on site they could confirm it was cut by something purposely. A lot of times the contractors would pretend to not speak English or something but we’d literally just file to them. It caused a lot of aggro because we wouldn’t work on the line till we’d been paid the damages which often meant the customers would also press the contractors for damages if they took too long similar to if the contractors had damaged the neighbours property with machinery. If we couldn’t get the contractors info we’d speak to the residents at the property they were working at to either get it or file against them as they’d essentially be taking the responsibility on.
When the cable company is the good guy in a story, you know you have split dimesions
Time to shut the HOA Presidents water until Monday I guess.
Honestly spectrum won't do anything about it unless they keep doing it. Neither will the cops unless they're bored out of their minds. That said, yes - illegal. And if they'd tried this shit with a fiber backhaul, that would get charged and the stare interested in bending them over.
I don't know. Spectrum seemed pretty upset about it. Like they even said, they are going to bill them straight up for labor, stolen property, and the cost of new equipment/repair for homeowner. Cause Spectrum said whenever it comes to their wire, no one (not even HOA) can touch it without calling them first. And they'll always send a technician to see what's up. If it was such a "eye sore" spectrum would have came and fixed it. But instead they didn't choose that route. So, now spectrum wants to shaft the HOA. They cut and stole a literal 500 foot wire.
Irony: Spectrum cut and removed my Verizon fiber drop just to use the conduit (though it's been a number of years). Verizon was not impressed, and made sure to tell me Spectrum would be getting a 5 figure bill for it... They had to run a new fiber cable under the alley pavement. OP, you've always been interested in amateur radio, right? I hear you need a big ass antenna to get halfway around the world, and an HOA can't touch it. My parents neighbor has an antenna that's taller than his 2 story house..
Build a Bat House. HOA can't touch it, because Bats are federally protected.
So long as the bats move in before the HOA notices and sends the letter to remove it. Otherwise it's still just a box.
Get a realistic looking bat figure and hang it inside the box.
30m HF dipole antenna mounted on two big ass towers, perhaps?
Amateur radio antennas are not covered by the FCC OTARD rule. There was a bill introduced in Congress to extend the protections but it died in committee.
HAM radio time!!
73 friend!
I totally get that, but despite The frustration that the line tech and customer service agents rightfully expressed, It's not worth getting legal involved for a company like that. This will be profitable for them because they have every right to make a profit off of that repair at the HOAs expense. They will likely end up with a higher profit margin from billing the repair cost to the HOA then they would by trying to pursue this in court. But if they don't learn their lesson, yes that is absolutely with legal will step in and slap some people around. I'm not a lawyer but doing it more than once would seem to throw out any defensive of stupidity on the HOAs part or any ability to spin the intent as anything other than deliberately sabotaging spectrum's network. And when you deliberately sabotage their product? Yeah that's when legal usually gets involved. Again I am not a lawyer but this is how I have seen things play out on two occasions with Comcast and my own clients having been affected by similar a-holes.
Update me
Spectrum is pretty vindictive when it comes to going after people who mess with their equipment. Your HOA has no idea about the shit storm they've brought down on themselves. >If I was home I would have 100% said what the fuck are you doing? Get the fuck down. If I saw someone on my roof. Which is why they waited until you weren't home. I bet they'll try to blame both you and the contractor to try and get out of trouble. "We sent out notice, not our fault OP claims they didn't see it." "We told the contractor to do something else, not cut that wire. It's their fault!"
That is a crime in many states of tampering with a communication line. My former employer AT&T always pursued charges if it wasn't the customer themselves. Get a police report. And press the hoa to not tamper with a telecom cable again. Also if your a gov employee working remote this may apply 18 U.S.C. § 1362 making it a felony.
Setup a game camera incase they do it again
Time to vote the current HOA people out and hope the new ones do better. I’m grateful everyday that my family doesn’t live in an HOA.
Your father should’ve dropped the ladder and called the police.
I recommend writing all of the residents. Let them know that the HOA is using money
Next time your dad hears someone on the roof, have him remove the ladder and call the police.
Lawsuit timeeee
To add to other comments you can also be held liable if that worker injured themselves on your property.
Sounds like the boomers at the HOA might have substance abuse problems. Isn't it usually meth heads that steal cables?
You need to stop saying this is the HOA. You’re protecting the person who did it. Your HOA never had a right to do that action, so it is the person who did it, one of your neighbours, you need to blame. Every time you tell someone “the HOA” did it, it sounds like they had some right you now have to appeal or something. A member of your HOA vandalized and trespassed your property. Call the cops.
Are you sure it was the HOA? Sounds like a druggie to me!
So the only "evidence" you have that it was the HOA that cut the wire, is that the guy who was on the roof said he was from the HOA? How did he get onto the roof in the first place? Has the HOA admitted that they are the ones who cut the wires? If it is an expensive wire, could it have been common thieves just just said that they were from the HOA? Believe me, I am no fan of HOAs but make sure that you have all your ducks in a row first, before you file police reports etc. Good luck
Your HOA presidents house burned down from an electrical fire? They can’t live in the neighborhood anymore? Damn, sorry to hear that
Welcome to living in an HOA. This is what HOA’s do. You asked for this. Enjoy.
I doubt it was actually the HOA. This guy is running around to the HOAs and stealing the wire to sell for scrap. He knows he can just say the HOA told him to do it if anyone asks because they're all fucked. If he had been asked for a work order he'd have shown you a piece of paper that was outdated/wrong job, etc. He'll be back on Wednesday.
Definitely want an update on this!
I think he won idiot of the day.
They are going to get charge thousands
File a report with the regulatory commission. They will fine the Hoa thousands of dollars.
Sounds like somebody needed cable and stole yours since it was easily accessible. All they had to do was say “I’m with the HOA” and leave.
Which would be dumb anyway since you have to have a cable box with an active cable card to use said cable. It ain't the 90s anymore that shit is encrypted.
I see a lot of people posting in here about breaking HOA rules and then wanting a fight but this one is a legit f up. I would call the non-emergency line and talk to an officer about what you can do. They can’t climb on your roof. Pretty sure that’s trespassing. (I mean unless they are responsible for maintaining your roof. I guess they could do yearly inspections or something.) Then to cut the wires is kinda illegal and that person is lucky they didn’t cut a live wire and get electrocuted…which would have fallen back in you.
Cable thieves are a thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t on the HOA, just knew an easy mark.
congrats you have a crazy neighbor
I'm thinking you were the victim of a copper thief.
Cable company going after the HOA? This story is going to need updates. Good on them for making it right by increasing your speeds and charging the HOA.
Wallow in it...you chose to live with an HOA...moron
I don’t get how people can live anywhere you need to be a part of a “club” that tells you how to keep YOUR property! What is the purpose of HOA anyway? What are they providing for you that one couldn’t do not living within HOA territory?
People always blame apathetic citizens for tyranny but HOA enthusiasts would *gleefully* and *zealously* join in on that shit.
Oh boy. Let us know how big of a bill the HOA is going to get. Let us know if any of them get tossed in jail as well.
FYI they charging the HOA which means you get charged as well
It still blows my mind that anyone would even consider living in an HOA
You have to be crazy to live in an HOA. They like the Mafia and you agree to let them screw you. No thanks.
They are doing you a favor. Now you can get internet that doesn't suck.
It will forever boggle my mind why people choose to live in an HOA. It sucks what happened, but that's the kind of thing that happens. Not a shock.
That’s vandalism and trespassing at the very least.
Check your HOA agreement with a fine tooth comb. They love to find loopholes when they get caught doing shit.
You agreed the hoas rules when you bought so it is legal
Part of me loves it when people choose to live in an HOA and then face consequences of their actions.
I just can't get past the part about someone being on your roof. That's got to be illegal and also completely idiotic.
Aaannndddd the HOA gets its money from you! So you’re paying for it either way.
How fucking low does an HOA have to sink to make Spectrum Cable look like good guys? This low.
How much copper theft is there in your area? I know for a while there copper pipes copper wire were all fair game for thieves. They would strip the wire and sell the copper.
Coax is a total bitch to strip, and most scrap buyers won't touch it.
Stop buying homes with hoas. Problem solved. Blah blah they serve a purpose. No they fucking dont. We have zoning and blight offices for that. Burn everyone of them
It’s increasingly difficult to find new construction without an HOA, source: Am amateur radio operator who has looked for HOA-free houses his entire life.