Who would I contact to get maintenance done on my street?

Submitted by iphone69plus t3_za6vht in ColumbiaMD

Hi everyone!

I recently moved into a townhouse in Harper's Choice, and while I love the house and the people, there's some work that needs to be done in common areas. The lines for the parking spaces are almost nonexistent, and the community mailbox is rusty, really faded, and the paint is peeling off. Is this a CA thing, is there someone else I should reach out to, or is this something the residents need to handle on their own?

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FineWinePaperCup t1_iykhda2 wrote

Do you have an HOA outside of rather CA? I think most townhome communities do. That’s the people to start with for community stuff.

When I was in a townhome community (not Columbia, but in MD), parking lot lines and open space in the community was the HOA. Even the mailbox, we (HOA) had to to buy a new cluster box when a car hit one.

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iphone69plus OP t1_iykiiux wrote

Maybe! I'm only renting, so I'm not sure, I'll ask my landlord or my neighbors. Thank you!

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Critical_Ad6764 t1_iykv40s wrote

Call your village office if you live in a Columbia village. They keep a list of all the townhome/condo associations and can tell you who to contact - but there’s a chance that the property manager may only want to hear from the landlord… good luck!

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howard_co_realtor t1_iym3czb wrote

Many HOAs and condo associations do allow tenants to participate in meetings, decisions, etc. so I would definitely check who the contact is and provide the feedback. :)

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freecain t1_iymfe4x wrote

HOA is responsible for parking space lines. You might have to go through your landlord for this. Most likely, as a renter, you don't have any standing in the HOA, but some bylaws may allow you to attend meetings and give input.

Community mailbox is going to be owned by the USPS. When I rented an apartment and had mailbox issues, they couldn't do anything about it and could only call the post office. They encouraged me to do the same thing, and eventually (I think a few months) someone fixed the issue. Granted - for ours it was that the lock was broken, cosmetic issues probably won't be addressed. However, to make things more complicated- the peeling paint issue probably goes back to the HOA, depending on who set up the mailbox and how it was built.

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FineWinePaperCup t1_iymn00f wrote

This may not be true anymore. Roughly 3-5 years ago, someone hit one of the cluster boxes in our neighborhood. The post office told us they don’t maintain the boxes anymore, and the HOA had to pay to replace it. Meanwhile, for 4 months, we had to drive to the post office to get our mail.

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ylime32 t1_iymfp5b wrote

Have you tried SeeClickFix? Might be a few issues they can sort out.

https://seeclickfix.com/columbia_4?

edit:there’s a spot on there for mailbox issue. I’ve never used it, but might be worth beginning a paper trail.

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