Every person wants to live in a peaceful and friendly neighborhood. However, there are instances where we have that particular person or organization that ruins everything.
People from the Reddit Community shared their horror moments with the Home Owners Association. Dive in and check these out!
1. Bark At The Wrong Tree
We had this one strange guy in our neighborhood who liked to build strange things in his house. Well, one day he decided to take his hobby outside and build a tree house in his backyard.
Our HOA president was a city councilman at the time, and he was not happy in the slightest.
This literally turned into a two-year dispute where the HOA would keep asking him to add safety measures to the structure in hopes that he would eventually give up, and dismantle the tree house.
Eventually, the HOA told him that he would have to have the plans signed and stamped by a qualified engineer saying that the structure was safe.
At the next meeting, he handed in the blueprints signed and stamped by no other than himself. That was a great meeting.
It turns out that he had a PhD in civil engineering, and there was only one guy in the room who didn't find it funny.
Furlessxp
2. Merry Go Round
When I was younger, my dad started a limousine service. Before the company got big enough for its own office space and multiple limos, he'd bring his one limo to our home (detached condos with an HOA) to clean and stock and sometimes leave it overnight when it was needed for a job. It lived in a storage lot the rest of the time.
The presence of a limousine in the neighborhood was apparently distracting to the people on the board, so they passed a rule that you couldn't have a vehicle longer than X feet parked in front of your house overnight.
Then the main old guy on the HOA board got a huge RV that he would leave in front of his house for days at a time, so they got rid of the vehicle size rule and replaced it with a rule forbidding vehicles that advertised a business (the limo had a decal on the driver's side door with the name of my dad's limo company and the phone number).
Then someone else on the board started a landscaping company and had a pickup truck with the name of the landscaping company on the side, so they changed the rule to only allow such vehicles to be in your driveway, not parked on the street (since the pickup could fit in the owner's driveway, but a limo couldn't fit in ours).
Basically, rather than just make a "no limos" rule, they kept making rules that disallowed limos and then kept changing them when it would accidentally apply to anything but a limo.
wierdaaron
3. Trampoline Dispute
Got a trampoline for the kids. They loved it.
HOA asked me to get insurance coverage for it, so I got insurance coverage for it and made a copy of the statement for them as proof.
HOA then faxed every incident report involving trampolines in the neighborhood to my insurance company referencing my policy number and sent a letter of disapproval.
Now my kids don't have a trampoline, and neither do any kids in this entire neighborhood now.
The saddest part is, on Google Earth, it still shows the trampoline and my youngest daughter was sad when she looked up our address.
In the non-slummy parts of South Florida, the HOAs control everything. I can't even put up a fence either because I'm on a corner. The only benefit to having an HOA in my neighborhood is the free Comcast cable and the fact that they petitioned Comcast to get us 50mbit internet.
I'm moving soon to be closer to family, I can get a 10-acre plot up north with a house twice this size for the same price.
I can't believe I ever thought this was a good idea.
Justananomaly
4. The Homemade Queen
A woman on our Condo Board refers to herself as the 'parking nazi'. She makes homemade notices and has these huge red 'official warning' stamps she puts across them.
Whenever my father pulls out the car and parks it next to the garage because he needs more space to work she puts a notice on his car. He is literally ten feet away. Then he hangs them up in the garage on display.
She is such a prick, everyone hates her. She is such a witch to my dad because he can't speak English well so he just gets worked up.
My cat craps in her front yard though.
What a freaking team player.
[deleted]
5. Abandoned Vehicle
Some friends of ours lived in a condo development that had a pretty strict HOA.
One time overnight the wife's car was jacked up, placed on cinder blocks, and the wheels were stolen. She discovered this as she left to go to work, and then went inside to call some people to get things rectified. She had to go in to work that day so her husband drove her in on his way to work.
That evening when they got home there was a notice in their mailbox indicating the HOA was going to fine them for having an "abandoned vehicle" in their reserved spot.
Seriously?! Ugh.
Thankfully my HOA has been much better than what I've been reading here thus far. Makes me feel good that I have one of the good few.
redditaccount314
6. Eyes of HOA
When I was working as a lifeguard, we almost called the cops on this guy because he was spying on the pool with binoculars from a ways away (some creepy perv we thought).
We didn't because it turned out to be a HOA board member spying on the lifeguards/pool management to see if they were breaking any rules.
They would also drive by really slowly and stare.
changlorious_basterd
7. Puppet Community
My mom lives in a small subdivision where everything is controlled by the HOA. I mean everything. They have Christmas decoration inspectors and even a committee to approve landscaping.
Elections are held and the whole place turns into a campaign battleground.
There are posters and phone messages, as well as in-person visits from candidates.
Oh, and they have a committee to ensure the posters are placed correctly.
It's like a suburban retirement community version of 1930s Berlin.
robskii
8. The Disbandment
My long-time neighbors were the first to move into the neighborhood where we live some 30-40 years ago. Their home was the first finished and sold. They had 8 kids at the time.
The husband was out putting up an old-school cable antenna on the chimney. While on his roof a man (the developer) came up.
HOA Man: Hey! You can't put that up there, it's against the homeowners' rules!
He looked down at him confused
Guy: Are there any other members of the homeowners association?
HOA Man: Well no..
Guy: Then I hereby disband the association. The vote passes unanimously. Now get off my lawn
Saved us all a lot of trouble.
ficus_tree
9. Unwanted Decision
Nothing has happened to me YET, but this did happen in my city.. a vet who was deployed in Iraq got his home foreclosed on by his HOA.
It was because of failure to pay an $800 dollar fee (apparently his wife forgot to pay it while he was gone) and sold his 300k house for 3.5k.
Luckily the guy took the HOA to court because when they filed for the foreclosure, they said he was off-duty knowing he was deployed and that the law protects servicemen.
jlb0494
10. Forbidden Grass
I was watching a documentary about some gated communities and how they needed to have this specific type of grass.
But the grass wouldn't grow well on the lawn. He'd keep getting fined and even had jail time for it.
The only thing I could think of during that segment. If that were me, I would spend my time finding new and creative ways to throw salt on the HOA's president's lawn.
Fakyall
11. Anything Will Do
When my parents moved, they wanted to move the animals too (they have pigs, llamas, turkeys, and chickens). They fell in love with a house that had plenty of ground. The problem was that it had a covenant on the deed restricting things, enforcing an HOA of the small set of homes nearby.
It was a former farm and surrounded by farms so those restrictions were stupid. Since the people selling were majority shareholders (owners of 3/4 of all the land under covenant have to give permission and the actual homes were a small minority) they removed the restrictions on the deed.
When they moved the animals in, the busybodies in the neighborhood had a fit and tried to cause problems. After my mom told them they weren't under the covenant anymore, they even pulled a copy of the deed from the land records office to check.
After they found out they couldn't find my parents they started making bogus calls to the cops (one cop even said the turkeys had to be kept on a leash). After a while the cops ignored them, so they started killing the animals.
They even shot the llama my dad got when I was a baby and had for 21 years. The sad thing is the llama didn't die right away, shotgun blast was spread enough that he suffered for a week before passing.
Cops couldn't do anything because we didn't have any recorded statements (a guy came over afterward and started crap-talking while drunk but we didn't get the recorder out in time) or photos.
Hellmark
12. Money Scammas
My old condo HOA was a pain in the ass. A bunch of crusty old farts and witches. When I first moved in, the monthly fee was right around $250. During my first year of living there, they did a "special assessment" fee to fill the account back up. Everyone now owed another $1500.
I spoke with the board and told them that I just moved in, and should not owe the money. I even went through the by-laws which clearly stated that in this circumstance the homeowner would be exempt from special assessments within their first 6 months.
I had been there around 5 months and 2 weeks. So what did they do? Apparently, there were a handful of people, like myself who had moved in around the same time. What did they do?
They voted to change that by-law to 90 days. Bam. "When can we expect your check sir?"
Another incident was when I wanted to install a security screen door. A "normal" security door is like $80 at Home Depot. I noticed that the other homes with security doors seemed to all look the same.
I asked the HOA where I got one of those doors. Turns out, it was a special order door from Dixieline and ran me over $400 for the door plus shipping. THEN they wouldn't let me install it myself.
I had to call their "authorized" installer, who charged me $150 to put it up. God damn almost $600 for a stupid security door that should have cost me under $100.
Fudge HOAs.
BZLuck
13. Got There First
I rented a townhouse in a community with an HOA. We always tried to abide by their rules and never caused any trouble apart from when we'd go on vacation and let our grass get a few days too long.
I had to park my car on the street (in our assigned spot), but it was less than 50 feet from my front door. It was the end of the month and with my luck at work, I had to close that night and open the next morning.
By the time I got home, I made a bee-line right to bed. As I drifted off to sleep, my brain made that frantic reminder that the next morning was a new month and I needed to put my registration stickers on my license plates or I would be given a ticket by the police.
That would have been less hassle than what happened.
I had come home at 10:00 that night. I opened the door, registration stickers in hand, and was ready to leave at 6:00 that morning. When I saw my car, I thought it had been vandalized. Upon inspection, the HOA's towing company had placed no less than 15 10"x 10" stickers over every window that explained my car was illegally parked due to expired registration.
I had to call out of work because I couldn't see out of my windshield enough to drive.
I admit to having been a bit lazy in not putting the stickers on, but it was expired for 6 hours on the street. It took me longer than that to get my car cleaned off.
druishprincess
14. All For A Swing
My daughter has severe asthma. We bought our condo because it was affordable, clean, and move-in ready. We were trying to move before our son was born for fear a moldy house would make our daughter sick and would do the same to our son.
Our first summer in the condo the president's wife went psycho and cut down the tire swing that the majority of the owners agreed to let us have for my daughter because she thought it was ugly.
Or maybe because we told her teenage son to get off the toddler-sized tire swing. After threatening legal action the association agreed to let us have the swing so long as it's removable.
We hang a birdhouse there when the tire is down and only put it up when the little kids are out to play. The whole ordeal took over a month to settle.
I dread this summer when we petition for a swing set.
NonReligiousPopette
15. Democracy For Basketball
I lived in a middle-class development of about 900 houses in Northern California. Our neighborhood/part of the development was unusual because people spent a lot of time outside, kids playing, people gardening, chatting, etc. (Which is why we moved in there.)
I got a basketball hoop for my 12yo daughter. She and lots of neighborhood kids would use it. They all knew to call "car" and get out of the way immediately if a car was coming (neighborhood street, into the cul-de-sac... no through traffic).
Sometimes grown-ups would play too. A great situation.
Apparently, some retirees had a habit of walking around the development and called the HOA on us because basketball hoops weren't allowed. I knew of several other ones but I didn't want to mention them because I didn't want to give them trouble too.
And the HOA said I could only have a hoop if it was put "away" in the side yard when not in use. The 200-pound hoop was a bit beyond my daughter's ability to take out and put back...
Instead, I surveyed the 65 houses in our neighborhood, putting a slip of paper in everyone's mailbox -- "Yes", I should be able to keep the hoop, or "No", I shouldn't. I kept their responses anonymous because I didn't want anyone to feel pressured. I got 22 "yes" responses...
I went to the HOA meeting armed with my data. One of the Board members said, "So 2/3 of your neighborhood is against it!" I explained, my anger rising, that no, I'd only received responses from 1/3, and no one could know what the other 2/3 thought.
Then they said I would need to change the CC&Rs (basically, the association by-laws) -- which could only be done by a 2/3 "active" vote of the entire association. "Active" means I would need to get 600 "yes"-es... not just 2/3 of the people who voted.
I told them you couldn't get 600 people to bother voting yes for oxygen.
And I put away my basketball hoop.
And, as it happened, my daughter stopped playing sports.
papadoob
16. Band Aid Solution
We moved in when I was young, 3rd grade. The HOA was run like crap, many things were falling apart, namely the boardwalk and dock behind 1/2 the townhomes which could have resulted in a lawsuit if someone hurt themselves.
Parents were receiving tickets for everything that would happen. Board members would commit acts against the rules but were untouchable.
So, my parents led a coup. They hired a lawyer who would sit in on meetings, made a few neighborhood friends and my Mom's best friend moved into the neighborhood.
The coup was successful, so the HOA straightened up and fixed most everything. Once we moved out, it went back to crap.
[deleted]
17. Full Inconsideration
Mother-in-law got a fine for her house/yard not being well-kept.
Apparently, after a storm comes through that breaks tree branches and rips shingles from your house, you have ONE day to fix everything before being fined.
It probably didn't help that she had butted heads with the board over her fence a few months before.
kemikiao
18. The Logic
My wife and I wanted to build an addition for an exercise room at the back of the house. We back up to the woods, but nobody could see it. We applied for it 2 years in a row ($300 per time and only allowed to apply once per year).
We were denied both times.
In year 3 we applied again but this time we called it a wine cellar. Same plans, same everything. Of course, it was approved unanimously.
We make sure we keep a bottle of 2 buck Chuck on the window sill.
[deleted]
19. Essence of Curbs
Some brainiacs on our HOA board decided that they wouldn't allow the builder to add curbs and sidewalks to our neighborhood because he didn't like the way it looked.
Fast forward 6 years…
I've spent literally hundreds of dollars constantly fixing my front yard because people keep driving on the grass.
Everyone's front yard by the street looks terrible because of people who can't drive and water erosion when it rains.
tomstimpy
20. All Eyesore
My parents lived in a HOA neighborhood when I lived at home.
I work as a painter, so they asked me to paint their house for a little cash. They wanted a neutral beige color, absolutely nothing obtrusive. I went through HOA, approved the color, they said it was fine, so I went ahead and did it.
A few days after I was done, we received a phone call saying that the new color of our house was an 'offensive shade of beige that didn't fit in with the setting of the neighborhood', and that we'd have to revert it.
Nothing I did seemed to work, I couldn't win and didn't really have the time to take it any further, we had to paint it back and lost a ton of money.
Another time, my stepdad and I built a (pretty awesome) trailer from scratch when I was a bit younger, it was a few inches taller than our fence when it was done and could be seen from the front of the house wherever we put it.
HOA told us that we'd have to dispose of it for this reason and that we couldn't just make our fence a little higher instead, because it was an 'eyesore'.
FuzzyManPeach
21. Gated Mind
Grandmother's house was in a gated community, across the state from me. Grandmother passes away. Spend a few days at her home packing and clearing in prep for selling her home. Must be at work on Monday.
Leave first thing Sunday morning to Goodwill with a bunch of donations inside a rented UHaul so that when I return, I can load all the furniture and items we will keep in the truck to make a long drive back home.
Upon return from Goodwill, the lady at the gate will not let moving trucks in the community because they are not allowed on Sunday. Refuses to budge.
Had to move all the things from the house, using a small vehicle, to the Uhaul parked on the side of the road outside of the community. Curse HOAs and gated communities. You will never see solebluesoul pay anybody monthly for the pleasure of residing in their midst…
solebluesoul
22. Grass Are Coming
I bought it about 7 years back in Atlanta and it was a new development. We were one of the only houses on our street so there were empty lots all over the place. So the housing bubble burst and the lots were left empty for years.
They turned into large meadows full of overgrowth and weeds.
So what happens when you live right next to this? You get weeds in your Bermuda grass.
So they would send out violation notices of weeds in my lawn when half of the neighborhood was literally made of weeds.
[deleted]
23. I See Red
The homeowner's association president was a crotchety old man who would leave nasty messages on people's cars that were parked outside his window. These notes would complain that the parked car spoiled his view, of which the view was the house across the street.
Several of my friends and family had these messages put on their car, and it was getting ridiculous but I bit my tongue. Then one day I woke up and noticed the old man had painted the entire curb along his home bright red.
This pissed me off. I went to the homeowner's association meeting and complained that this behavior was setting a precedent where anyone could paint their curb red. If everyone did that there would be no parking in the entire community.
People listened but nothing was done, and I was later approached by a member of the board who said everyone was scared of the president and although my argument was valid, nothing would be done.
I was going to test the HOA president by parking there and seeing if anything happened but decided on something better.
My best friend and I bought some concrete colored paint and at 2 am in the morning completely repainted the entire curb. Three days later he painted it back to red. We repainted it grey again. He painted it back to red.
Then a few days later I got another job, realized I was moving away, and said to hell with it, I had had my laugh.
drummer9
24. Crazy People
I used to work for a homebuilder and we had a hell of a time with some of our community HOAs. Examples:
We were going to build a house for a guy who was a plumber. He worked for himself and had a large van that he used for his business. The van couldn't fit in the garage, so he intended to park it in his own driveway.
Apparently, this wasn't okay with the HOA - some rules about trade vehicles not being allowed overnight. So we weren't able to build his house. Fortunately, this was caught before we broke ground.
Had an HOA get mad about a fence we built. Don't know why, but they didn't like it.
The HOA rules said that the fences couldn't be more than 6' high, so the HOA president went out and measured the fence plank by plank until he found one plank that was over a slight dip in the ground. The dip made it so that the plank was technically 6'1" high.
That man tore down the entire fence himself.
HOA didn't like the shape of a curb that went in on someone's driveway. It was a standard drive, they just decided to throw a fit. Someone on the HOA rented a jackhammer and tore out the curb himself.
tah4349
25. Neon Green House
The issue we had was with painting the house. Not sure where it was in the HOA paperwork (which was not signed by us), but it was a requirement to have your house repainted every 5 years.
The problem was, that it had to be the same color as the other houses, and the HOA almost demanded we use the same contractor as everyone else. What ended up happening, as we painted it ourselves, it was 2 shades off the other houses, and we ended up getting notices, meetings, etc.
Finally the following spring, we painted the house a very classy neon green color.
Obviously, this set the HOA off, but the people beside me laughed at it because they hate the off-tan color of the house anyway.
Overall it turns out that the real estate company made a serious violation. They told us about the HOA, but we never actually signed the contracts involving them.
The attorney who signed off on everything noted the same (not sure how he missed it when he got 1k for signing it) and we got to keep the neon greenhouse.
The end.
Dasbaus
26. Taking Advantage
My mother's English isn't the best, and they made sure to take advantage of that. Each month, they fined us for some random bullcrap that they couldn't even prove and refused to speak to me whenever I tried to fight it on her behalf.
The most ridiculous one I can think of was a $300 fine due to our garage being "untidy", which makes no sense seeing how no one knew what the inside of our garage looked like (we never opened the damn thing).
It didn't help that the guy in charge was also a twisted cop who was a known racist. Lucky for us, he eventually moved away after a bunch of minorities moved into our neighborhood.
NabiChan
27. For A Change
My HOA when I was growing up made a rule making everyone take down their basketball hoops on their driveways, saying it was bringing down home values.
This was in a neighborhood where over 60% of the homes had kids, but the people on the HOA were all older people.
The meeting they had after they made that rule was the only one in which pretty much the whole neighborhood showed up, all the HOA people got kicked off the board, and new, more kid-friendly people got on the board.
In the end, they went from banning basketball hoops on driveways to making a full basketball court near the swimming pool.
elephasmaximus
28. Nonsense Concern
I used to live in a gated community.
I wanted to plant flowers in my yard, so I made up a garden in the front yard and bought some flowers (can't for the life of me remember what they were, but they were pink and that's all that matters here).
I later got a letter from the HOA saying that my flowers were the wrong shade of pink and that I had to remove them.
AnonymousAgent
29. Bunch of Clowns
This actually just happened pretty recently. We found a nice townhouse that was near my workplace for a decent price. When we signed the lease, we were told the HOA owned it and concerns over foreclosure were not really necessary.
Unfortunately, at no point did they state that they didn't own it. In fact, a previous owner had stopped paying their bills and moved prior to foreclosure proceedings. The HOA decided to rent the place out to us without legally purchasing the unit.
Months after living there we found out that a bank bought the place when it was in foreclosure. The bank then sold it to new owners who assumed we were the original owners and had the police post an eviction notice on our door.
We had 48 hours to pack up and leave in the middle of our 1-year lease. Lucky for us, we were able to get in touch with the new owners to explain the situation and they stopped the eviction until they could get some answers from the HOA.
They were nice enough to give us time to find a new place as long as we paid them the rent instead of the HOA during this time. The situation could have gone a whole lot worse, but it was very tense living there and receiving threats from the HOA and its lawyers when we made the deal with the new owners.
Lots of legal battles ensued between the various parties.
xploited13
30. Selfish People
Does the Condo Association apply here?
One summer, the CA proposed a rule that children would not be permitted to use the pool or play in the field near the pool area. This is in addition to the existing rule that bikes, skateboards, and such were not permitted to be ridden anywhere on the property...
So they basically expected kids to sit inside all summer long. All because a bunch of old ladies wanted to have the pool all to themselves and didn't want noisy kids around the pool area.
It ended up being shot down, but they weren't satisfied. They tried to pass it again.
Oh wait, they made it EVEN WORSE, saying that all parents of children between a certain age range MUST enroll their children in summer camp as they were not allowed to be on the property AT ALL during summer. This too was shot down.
But they didn't give up! They tried one more time! This time, kids were banned from the pool except on Sundays and they could only use the field during certain hours on weekends and not at all on weekdays. This was, of course, shot down.
So you know what they did?
They closed the pool. Locked the gates and forbade anyone from entering the pool for the rest of the summer.
The kids still got the field though.
FFandMMfan
31. Deep Grudge
Our HOA treasurer embezzled about 30k from the HOA funds over a period of about a year.
He was caught and the money was returned to the HOA, but he was able to keep his house and continues to live in the neighborhood to this day.
Now, a few homeowners want to use the HOA to force this guy out of the neighborhood, so they're constantly on his case about everything - landscaping, parking, noise, etc.
MadDogTannen
32. Visitor’s Pass
My at-the-time girlfriend (now wife) rented a townhouse with friends in a community that had an HOA. There was a parking reserved for guests of the tenants. Ironically, parking was always an issue for my wife and her roommates but always simple for me - I just popped on the visitor's pass and was good to go in that lot.
I spent the night probably once or twice a week, and one day I awoke to find my car missing.
After some ace detective work, I found out that my 10-year-old (at the time) 5-speed manual transition Honda had not been stolen, but just towed.
When I reached out to the HOA, they told me that there was a provision in the bylaws that said a car could only be parked in a visitor's spot for a maximum of 72 hours and that a board member submitted my car to a list of cars to be towed due to "abusing" a visitor's pass.
They argued the language in the bylaws was such that the total amount of time that a car may be parked in the visitor's lot was 72 hours, non-consecutively (i.e., if you park there once a week for 10 hours each week, on the 8th week we are in violation of the policy).
This is in opposition to the clear purpose of the provision, which is to prevent people from storing their cars in the lot. They summarily denied my request at the next HOA meeting to recover the $150 towing fee.
Long story short, I sued them in small claims court and got back the towing fee plus court costs (plus, they engaged a lawyer, so I feel good about wasting some of their retainers as well).
rbf2000
33. Dog Poo
We live in a condo and began receiving $100 fines for not picking up dog poop. The area behind our building is a common area and lots of people walk their dogs around. I offered to submit DNA testing for my dogs and they ignored me and continued to send notices of fines.
I began taking my phone with me on every walk and took photos and videos of me picking up poop with timestamp evidence. I sent a folder full of photos to the HOA with photographic evidence that I was picking up after my dogs.
We continued to receive fines. I got a small trash can and kept it on my patio and began saving my bags of dog poop for two weeks. I did tie the bags but they were still obviously smelly as poop bags are very thin plastic.
I then mailed a box of poop to the HOA office along with copies of timestamped photos showing I had picked it up. I told them that I had better not ever receive another fine for dog poop because I had provided more than sufficient evidence that it wasn't us.
Miraculously, the fines stopped and we haven't received any for over 2 years.
[deleted]
34. No Dog
When I lived with my buddy who owned a condo (he had an end unit with a grass area next to it) he got a fine for dog crap being in the side yard next to his house.
He called the HOA and explained that he didn't even have a dog.
They told him they didn't care and that since it was "his yard" AKA next to his house he was responsible for cleaning up the dog poo.
He told them to get freaked and to never send another letter. I think they tried it one more time and he got them to stop after that.
zerobot
35. Man With a Plan
I would sit in my yard with my dog between 4 and 6 p.m. every Friday for 3 months.
Why?
Because the HOA would measure my grass every freaking Friday. My lawn guy was the best and I refused to switch. However, he could only come on Saturday. HOA let us choose which day we inspected. Everyone voted for Saturdays.
They secretly vetoed it and came on Fridays but CLAIMED it was Saturday they were coming. To prove this, I sat with my dog every Friday waiting for him. He would park, wait a while, then go to another street and measure there.
My street was the only one that didn’t receive fines for breaking the agreement. It became a party when everyone figured out what I was doing.
People would cook out in the front and we would all go throw on coals and food as needed. I got reported for something or other after the 3-month marker, so I brought my supercut 3 months of time-stamped videos and submitted them to the HOA distribution list before I went to meet with them.
There were 40/50 people there because we had organized a day to go and air grievances. It was maybe the best time I ever spent with any HOA.
naigung
36. Sustainable Application
Upscale beach neighborhood repeatedly refused my solar panel application, sighted the location of them as being an eye sore (top of the back side of the house....not visible from the street)
They fought me at four different meetings, delaying my installation, ultimately cited the state law and they immediately backed down and amended their covenants- ps, a clothesline is a "solar collection device" and they cannot deny you use of that either.
So if you want to play dirty- hang a bunch of beach towels in your yard!
gimp2x
37. Flood Hates
I lived in a neighborhood with a park in the center, located directly behind my back fence. The entire neighborhood was managed by the same HOA company, but the neighborhood was officially set up as two different HOA communities. Even though it was on the other side of my fence, the park was designated as part of the community I was not in.
On multiple occasions, the irrigation system in the park broke and completely flooded my backyard. Three or four times over a span of a few months, I woke up to literally a foot and a half of water.
Over time, my brick fire pit literally sank into the ground an entire layer of brick, water came into my kitchen on two occasions, and every time my home's foundation looked weaker and weaker after clean up.
I called to complain to the HOA each time. The flooding almost always happened on a weekend, and it wouldn't be until Monday that they came out, leaving my home flooded for a minimum of two days each time.
After the third or fourth complaint, I finally reported them to the BBB and the Water Authority, and I sent a video to the local news. The next business day the head of the HOA company called me furious.
Despite all the pictures and videos I'd sent, she said she was convinced I was making it all up. When I pressed her why she thought that, she specifically said it was because…
"The park can't be flooding your house. It's not even part of the same HOA community you live in!”
OPs_Mom_and_Dad
38. Fast Escalation
We've only been part of an HOA for the last few months, and it's already living up to every stereotype I ever had in my head.
They held our once-annual meeting with very little notice, and like 6 people showed up. They elected a new "association" and immediately decided to spend $700 on dog poo receptacles, even though like 4 people have dogs, and the whole neighborhood is one street.
This sparked an incredible amount of drama.
One guy on the HOA decided he was going to get super defensive when people started questioning this decision, and it quickly devolved into him just taunting people on Facebook because he was on the board and they weren't.
Also, if they didn't like his authority, they should change the by-laws. Then someone left a bunch of dog crap in his driveway. Then he resigned from the HOA. No word on the dog crap receptacles.
This has all happened in the past 3 days.
scottevil110
39. Too Much Money
Lived in a high-rise in Chicago that had an HOA full of old people with too much money.
Fortunately, I was only renting, but I was curious to learn about the HOA and they were gracious enough to let me sit in.
The condo had just built a brand new outdoor patio for grilling, etc.
The powers-that-be didn't like the shade of red of the cobblestone brick that they laid for the area, so they allocated $1M to redo the entire area with new brick.
There were a few attendees who were young professionals who protested, but they were heavily outvoted by the contingent of wealthy old people who felt this was a justifiable use of funds.
Outrageous.
kukukele
40. Satellite Guy
Was moving to a different city and crashed at my dad's townhouse for a few months to save money for the move. One day a guy showed up to install a satellite dish that my dad ordered.
My dad isn't the type of guy to pay very close attention to HOA rules, and apparently missed a brand new (and HIGHLY contentious) rule that satellite dishes were "eyesores" and no longer allowed. So just as the installer guy is getting up to the roof, this couple (head of the HOA) comes SPRINTING from their townhouse across the street to shut it down, screaming bloody murder.
I had absolutely no issue with not getting a satellite dish, it wasn't even my house, but these two HOA thugs were absolutely awful. The wife was just hurling insults at the installer guy and I, and the husband immediately started climbing the ladder up onto the roof to "kick the crap" out of the installer guy.
None of this was provoked at all, it just went from 0-100mph in no time flat and this couple was out of control.
Well, the installer guy eventually had enough of having racist insults hurled at him and came down the ladder and started a full-on brawl with the husband in my dad's driveway. The wife was screaming at the top of her lungs at me, a stoned couch-surfer whose only contribution to this whole fiasco was to answer a door and let a guy on the roof.
I still vividly remember being absolutely dumbfounded watching these two grown men beat the hell out of each other while I tried to communicate to my dad on the phone over the shrill sounds of some strange woman absolutely berating me for "ruining the neighborhood".
It was wild.
Nicodroz
41. Just WOW Moment
My dad was telling me a story about their HOA this week. A homeowner in their neighborhood passed away and hadn't yet paid their HOA dues for the month.
AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE, the HOA president approached the mourning family and asked what their plans were for paying the back dues, and for paying any dues until the house was sold.
Simply amazing.
jeffbarge
42. Just The Root Of Us
My family has been part of one for maybe 5 or 6 years now, and they freaking suck.
We had to cut down a tree when we first moved in because its roots were cutting into the sewage pipes and backing up all our drains.
To do that, we had to get approved to cut it down and that took a few weeks. So we couldn't take a shower or flush a toilet for like 2 weeks. They also kept telling us to power wash our driveway, so we did once. We haven't done it again, but they think we did.
They also keep raising the fees and giving no reason for it. I would expect that if they were adding things into the neighborhood or fixing something, but they just took out a few fountains from the lakes and they don't keep outside lights on anymore so they should be saving money.
Also, you can only paint your house certain colors and I don't think you can use sidewalk chalk in the neighborhood either.
pigeonshark
43. Extra Mile
My parents modified the front porch, and now it was different from the other houses in the block. Once it was done, a middle-aged lady came out of nowhere (I had never seen her before, nor had she ever talked to us before)
She “kindly” warn us that we had just lost the right to vote on HOA or some crap like that since we did an "unauthorized modification". .
We replied with the equivalent of "K, thanks". And, once again, we haven't seen her ever since
It's like she crawled out of her lair to inform us that we lost a right we didn't even use, as if it were a huuuge major offense.
Fudge that.
elSenorMaquina
44. Late Fees
Two days before I bought a condo, I was told that I would be blocked from moving in unless I paid the first month's HOA dues. So the morning of the closing, I went to the management company's office and dropped off a check.
I moved in without issue and then continued to pay my dues on time each month. Like 4 years later, I got an invoice for $800+.
Apparently, they never cashed that first check. So when I paid the next month, they credited it toward my first month and assessed a late fee. This continued for 4 years where every month's check was credited to the previous month.
I got into a huge argument with the accounting office and they wouldn't budge on the $800+ in "late fees." I was irate.
elevenghosts
45. Completely Heartless
It didn't happen to me but the city I grew up in was briefly in national news because the HOA was trying to force an elderly couple to give their only grandchild up for adoption after her parents were killed in a traffic accident.
The little girl had no other living family and had watched her parents die but the HOA wanted her gone because it was a "retirement community" and told them to give her up or be homeless.
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