A friend asked me recently if I found any similarities between the collectivist Home Owners Association (HOA) in the U.S. and living in communist Romania in cinder block apartments the size of the average hotel room. We did have a different HOA in these reinforced concrete high rises, the Residents’ Association (Asociatia Locatarilor). Its governing board was chosen from the least outspoken residents who sometimes doubled as informers to the Security Police, reporting on the comings and goings of the residents and on their political statements made accidentally in ordinary conversations with neighbors. The Residents’ Association decided when the water heaters were to be serviced, what kind of cold and hot water schedule we were going to follow, how much heat we received from the government mother ship, how much any repairs would cost, and how the due bills were to be divided evenly between all families, if the association would pay the electric bill for some widow who was behind on her dues, which mechanic they were going to hire to fix whatever was broken in the apartment complex.

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