The HOA Madness Continues

On our way out to Nebraska on Saturday we notice that our gas meter was all banged up and looked as though the lawn crew had run right into it with one of their mowers. As Bryce took a look and stuck his head closer and smelled gas. Instead of calling the wrong people (as we always seem to do), we emailed the property manager and HOA president to find out exactly who to call.

Without any contact, the president came by and immediately called 911. Several fire engines, ambulances and police cars showed up at the house. Since we were already in Nebraska and Joe was the only one there, he had to deal with the situation. I then chatted with the president who was incredibly disturbed that I hadn't called 911. He thought I was putting the entire neighborhood in danger and it could have ended up in a massive explosion like the California incident a few weeks ago. For real?!? We were actually at dinner with one of Boulder's firefighters and he said that the line that exploded in CA was 3 meters in diameter and this was only 3 inches and because it was outside and not in the house, calling Xcel would have been absolutely sufficient. Whatever...

After the fire department turned the gas line off, the gas company (Xcel) came by to fix the meter and let us know that whatever caused the accident also created a gas leak under the deck and we needed to have a plumber repair it, have the city of Boulder test it then Xcel would turn the gas back on! Luckily the only thing our entire house uses gas for is the basement fireplace - which obviously in not in use right now.

After informing the HOA committee of the entire issue and letting them know that it must have been our lawn care service (as we don't regularly go running into our own house), they contacted them and took care of all the costs.