Remote Bunker Community Faces HOA-Style Problems

The dream of riding out doomsday in comfort on the South Dakota prairie is colliding with a more mundane threat: neighbor disputes and courtroom battles. Joe Barrett of the Wall Street Journal digs into Vivos xPoint, a self-described luxury survival compound built on a former Army munitions depot, where tenants sign 99-year leases (after paying $55,000 up front) for concrete bunkers marketed as "5-star" apocalypse hideaways. It sounds like an ideal setup for preppers, but the community is mired in disputes that look a lot like an HOA gone off the rails, writes Barrett.

Residents say they've faced broken septic systems, soaring fees, roaming dogs, shifting rules, and promised amenities that haven't appeared. Tempers have flared badly enough to involve guns, with one confrontation leading to a shooting that the state's stand-your-ground law ultimately shielded. Multiple evictions, countersuits, and lease challenges have reached the South Dakota Supreme Court, and a proposed class-action suit now accuses Vivos of violating landlord-tenant laws and exaggerating what tenants would get. The company denies wrongdoing and blames a small group of disgruntled residents. Read the full story, which explores how Vivos founder Robert Vicino got the idea decades ago to build a community to save people from a "life-extinction event."