HOA Nightmare

I was majorly freaking out yesterday and it'll probably be a while before I feel any better about this.  One of my coping mechanisms is to write it out so I'm hoping this will help me a little better.  I was so distressed that I lost my appetite.  I literally felt sick and didn't feel anything else besides a lump in my throat and a fireball of anxiety in my stomach.  I was going to go to the gym after work but there was no way.  I was just too upset.  I couldn't even work.

Hubby and I need rain gutters and have been trying to get them since September or October of last year.  We finally got the estimate and sent our request to our HOA only to find out that they want us to get signatures.  How lame is that?  Rain gutters are sort of a necessity on a house and plenty of the other ones in our neighborhood were built with them already on.  I understood needing it for major landscaping or outside home improvements but not this.  So, I left it to hubby to get signatures because I hate knocking on people's doors.  He got one and then the other 2 weren't home and he never tried again after that.  I tried a few times.  When we got our back yard done it took forever to get it done because no one was ever home.  I think it's lame that we have to do an architectural review in the first place so I had the bright idea of signing it  for them copying the signatures from our first review.  I mean, I already know they won't care if we get rain gutters.  I They could care less.  Wrong yes.  Forgery yes.  But, I didn't think it was a big deal.  We are talking HOA and rain gutters here.  Hubby didn't say no way but he definitely wasn't in agreement and I acted alone.

Rules are rules and lo and behold I got caught.  I called to follow up on it and I was told that what I did was "not cool" and she can't believe anyone would do this.  "It's just rain gutters" (yeah, that was my point exactly for why getting signatures is ridiculous).  I didn't admit to anything but she says they know I did it.  One of our 3 neighbors just so happens to be on the board and just so happens to have been out of town on the date that I made up.  He knows he didn't sign it so now they are questioning the others and claim they both look fake.  Now they are requiring us to get notarized signatures of all three or they have to go in person to a meeting to sign it.  On top of that they say there is some sort of down spout or something missing on our diagram and we might have to re submit our estimate.  One of the signatures is real but they are questioning all of them for obvious reasons and if I tell them that one is real that's admitting the other two are fakes.  I don't want to verbally admit anything at all.  Hubby had nothing to do with this so not only did I have to tell him I got busted but I have to be the one to fix it as embarrassing as that is going to be.  The lady told me that there are no legal repercussions they can take.  It would be up to the individual homeowner to pursue some sort of suit if they were going to and I doubt that anyone will do that over a signature on HOA paperwork for rain gutters on someone else'' house.  At least I'm hoping so.  Chances are I won't go to jail over this but I feel sick, embarrassed and mortified.  This may bring more scrutiny to us in general from the HOA for anything.  HOA's are awful enough but no one wants to be on their hate list.

I'm going to have to go around to my neighbors and ask them to inconvenience themselves and go to the meeting to sign, pay to have them go to a notary or pay to have the notary come to us with all of us meeting up.  It's $10 per signature for a notary and $35 to travel.  I don't even care about having to pay.  That's my punishment for getting busted.   The other two neighbors are going to wonder why in the heck the HOA is requiring a notary.  I can tell the one who's signature we got for real that they are accusing us of forging and play it off by saying it's not true but the other neighbor may remember that he hasn't signed a thing for us since 2010 and I'll have to face him.  Even though it costs money I'd actually rather have them go to the notary instead of the meeting.  If they go to the meeting I think they will be for sure told what happened whereas if they just do notary I can possibly just decline to discuss why they are making me do this.  The HOA may notify them anyways though no matter what.

When I got home last night I was bawling.  Literally sobbing.  I felt so awful and was so worried hubby was going to be mad at me.  The thing is, he wasn't at all.  He hugged me and comforted me and told me it was going to be okay.  God, I love that man.  He is rarely in a bad mood or down because that is his nature and he hates it when I am.  He just doesn't see the point in wasting energy on negativity.  He literally wouldn't let me be sad.  He asked for Subway so I'd picked that up on the way home.  I didn't even think I'd be able to eat but I went with the flow and I ate my sandwich and we watched a movie.  He never said another word about it and he said he doesn't think any differently of me.

I can hardly stop thinking about this mess.  I'm pretty much a goody goody so it makes me feel like such a bad person.  But when I think about it who hasn't falsified something in some way?  I used to say my income was less then it was to get a discount on my phone bill and I know I'm not the only person who has done that.  I only did it when I was really struggling but technically that's fraud.  Anyhow, I've written letters to the neighbors asking for their help.  My plan is to leave it on their doors at night so I don't have to straight out explain all of this to them face to face.  They can leave a note for me, knock on our door and I also left my e mail so they can contact me that way to say what they want to do.  I'm trying to make this as easy for them as possible.  I still haven't received the official letter from the HOA on this so I might wait for that before I leave the letters.  When something like this happens the only way I can combat my hysteria is action so I started writing the letters immediately and I have them all ready with the HOA paperwork.  I am not even presenting the HOA meeting option to the two that aren't on the board.  I actually don't want them to go because then they might find out more about this situation if they haven't already been told.  Also, I'm not 100% clear on if that means I would have to go too and I absolutely DO NOT want that.  I  think I can get my husband to deal with the estimate part of it 'cause I'll have no clue how to respond.  As for the criminal part of it ideally I won't have to talk with anyone about it again.  I'll try to just e mail if I have anything else I need to ask them on it.

Uggg...what a mess I made.  Oh well. Hopefully this will all blow over soon.  Hopefully some day we will actually be able to put rain gutters on our house that we bought and pay the mortgage on.