Didn't sleep well last night, sore too. I'm taking a day off. Sue me.
Florida is pretty much a microcosm of everything that ails America, not the least of which is Republican governance.
This is an Apple News link, so apologies if you can't open it. It's a story about a "sticks and bricks" (Actually, I don't see any bricks. It's just sticks and stucco.) apartment complex that was built in 1988 and converted to condominiums in 2006. (Some details here.)
If you recall those heady days pre-financial collapse, our "innovative" financial industry figured out how to make a bunch of money with sub-prime mortgages. Everyone wanted to get in on the action. Low mortgage rates, easy money, can't build houses fast enough! What to do? Buy apartment complexes and convert them to condos!
Go in, do a bunch of cosmetic touch-ups, add some amenities, some landscaping, new pool furniture and voila!
I know this, because I lived in one.
If you think back to 2021, Florida had a high-rise condo collapse and kill a bunch of its residents, Champlain Towers. That was built as a condominium, but it wasn't built right, because "Florida," and condominium owners are like Republicans everywhere, they don't like to pay taxes, or condo assessments. So they put off all their maintenance to "someday," (presumably after they'd cashed out).
So the Florida legislature, governed by the Republican Party for more than a generation, took action! (Too late, but hey, it's Florida. "Pro-active" is "pro-gressive" and that's too close to socialism for their liking.) (See also: Everglades, sea level rise, climate change, water quality, wetlands, insurance reform, the list goes on.)
Where was I? Oh yeah, they made a law that said all those lazy condo owners and their do-nothing boards of directors had to act responsibly! (Unlike the legislature.) They had to fully fund reserves and not defer maintenance! And they had to have their buildings inspected by professional engineers to make sure they were safe and wouldn't fall down.
Well, there are a lot of rather old condo buildings in Florida, with a lot of deferred maintenance and, um, little in the way of actually "funded" reserves. All of a sudden, monthly condo fees ("assessments") went up by enormous percentages.
(Add to that the cost of insurance increases, because "Florida.")
People are screaming. Screaming!
Anyway, back to the subject. This Heron Pond condominium that is being essentially shut down, is a lot like my old condo. It's about six or seven years older, and judging by the pictures, it's only two stories so it didn't actually require the inspection.
But... It's sticks and stucco, and in Florida that means... Water intrusion!
Basically, all the framing behind the stucco is rotting away. We had the same problem at Belleza. But we went after it and paid the high price of assessments to do so. Heron Pond is mostly owned by "investors." This class of scum includes absentee landlords who love to collect rent but hate paying assessments. So Heron Pond has been rotting away. The steel stairs rusting? We had that problem too. And we went through every staircase on the place and removed all the steps, replaced all the rusted steel and repainted them all. Paid for it out of the "paint" reserves. (Under the old law, the only statutory reserves were roofs, paving and painting. We funded them all.)
And our petulant, adolescent, would-be autocratic, humiliated ex-presidential candidate with funny cowboy boots with enormous lifts governor seems to have heard the screams of condo owners ("investors"), and says it's up to the legislature to sort this mess out.
Bad news, boys and girls: There's no cheap way out of this.
But hey, it's kind of a "teachable moment."
See, this is what's going to happen with the sea level rise thing. it's too late to fix it, because we've denied it for so long. The problem wasn't going to manifest itself in any politician's actual term of office, so no politician wanted to be proactive (because that sounds like "progressive).
And the insurance thing? Well the legislature "fixed" that the way they fixed the condo problem.
They didn't.
Because they can't. You can't pass a law that makes climate risk artificially "affordable." (That's the National Flood Insurance Program.)
What they did do was make it easier for insurance companies to deny claims, and harder for policy holders to sue insurance companies who deny claims. (If you sue your insurance company and they prevail, not only are you not made whole by your policy, you get to pay your attorney...and theirs! Winning!)
Which has made Florida pretty attractive to a lot of second or third rate "insurance companies" who see an opportunity to swoop in and grab that sweet, sweet premium money and skate out when the big one (or more than one) hits.
I'm insured by USAA, and there are a lot of retired military (to say nothing of active duty military) living in Florida because winter and no state income tax. I'm hopeful that USAA is financially and ethically strong enough to do right by its policy holders in the event of a loss. But who knows? I'm not an insurance expert, but it seems to me that USAA is massively exposed in Florida. But they seem to be run by smart people.
And I buy flood insurance. When I was president of my condo association, I made sure we bought flood insurance every year too. And people bitched about that. "We're not in a flood zone!"
We were less than a mile from the beach.
Because, apart from living in Florida, I ain't stupid.
Anyway, we're just whistling past the graveyard down here. Hoping every year that this year won't be the one that brings the big one, or two, or three, or four.
If you're dreaming of moving to Florida. Wake up. It's a nightmare.
Originally posted at Nice Marmot 05:55 Saturday, 27 July 2024