HOA Horror Stories That Will Make Your Blood Boil

Got fined $35 for keeping my daughters bike on the front steps during the day. Got fined $35 for sidewalk chalk (in a neighborhood full of families.)

Got fined $35 for a potted tomato plant on my back porch.

Had to fight a $35 charge that said I brought in a drink other than water to the community pool, even though there’s always someone there and no one ever said a word to me. I was told by the office it’s because I brought a water bottle that wasn’t clear, and they couldn’t confirm I only had water in it.

They dropped the charge on my account, but because it took 3 weeks for me to get a hold of anyone I wasn’t able to use the pool for those 3 weeks.

They’ve raised our HOA fees every single year we’ve been here, it’s outrageous.

They’ve threatened to charge every single dog owner in the complex if they find more dog poop on the lawn. I get it’s disgusting but what the heck, I’m not in kindergarten that stuff does not fly.

The icing on the cake is when they sent out a message a month into lockdown telling us they would be going around inspecting, and any violations would receive fines. Their examples included 1) having more than one chair on your front steps 2) keeping bikes on your back porch 3) keeping your recycling bins on your front steps 4) chalk drawings. During a pandemic.

| kay37892

I live in a non-HOA [neighborhood], but an HOA near me has been gathering houses for some time now.

On my street, maybe 10 of the 14 houses are non-HOA. So, I moved in and within the first month I got a visit from the HOA people.

Apparently the previous owner helped chip in for projects he thought would increase the value of his land. I didn't get any of that info when I bought the place, so I told them I wasn't interested in it. They tried to sell me joining, and I refused.

So they come back a week or two later and try a different tactic. Apparently my neighbor is HOA (I live on a corner, so only one direct neighbor on my street) and they try to say the imminent domain applies and I will be considered as a member going forward. I tell them no, that's not how HOAs work and I don't recognize any affiliation with them.

So, now they try playing hardball. They have a surveyor come out and survey my neighbors land to make sure my fence, my white vinyl fence that they hate, isn't on his land.

While doing this, they tried to survey my land. I wasn't home, but my girlfriend was and she told them to leave. They said the HOA paid them, but they did leave when she pressed on it. The surveyor came back and determined I was on my land and some of my neighbors plants were actually on my land. Whatever, I don't care so I let it be.

Now, they try to enforce their "imminent domain" and come by to tell me I'm late on dues. I tell them I'm not paying dues since I'm not HOA. They argue with me, I tell them to leave and they are no longer welcome if it is for HOA stuff.

So, they come by one more time and try to give me some BS fines about my backyard. My backyard is fenced and you'd have to be 7 feet tall to see over it. I checked the security cameras and they opened my fence, came in, and looked at my backyard. So, I called the police for trespassing and I haven't heard from any of them since in exchange for dropping charges.

| dreadknot65

I had the slightest dent at the bottom of my otherwise perfectly good garage door and received a letter that it goes against the covenants on home aesthetics.

I had to search for this dent and decided on an area they were maybe referring to but there was no way it could be spotted from their supposed drive-by’s of the homes in the neighborhood which meant they must have walked on my property.

I called a maintenance company who agreed that was the area they were referring to but that panels for my door were no longer made and I’d have to replace the entire door. $1000 dollars later, I couldn’t watch as they took off my working door to replace it with a new one all because of the HOA.

A week later, I got another letter about a dent in my mailbox. I lost it!

| Ecple0712

I know an HOA that foreclosed on someone because they had a pickup truck — not a commercial vehicle, a standard pickup — parked in his driveway.

The owner fought the HOA for years and accrued a fine and violations over the pickup truck. Eventually, it did lead to him being foreclosed on.

| KitchenCellist

I don't have any particularly crazy stories, but the one I'm in has:

• Tried to fine me for a U-haul that was parked in my driveway overnight while I moved in.

• Gone through my trash and recycling cans to make sure I'm correctly separating items. If you 'passed' they'd put a happy face sticker on your can. They stopped it a while ago I think because the cans are city property.

• The architecture committee inspector insisted I needed to repaint my garage door because there was a thumb-sized slight discoloration that wasn't even noticeable from the street or even 6 feet away. You had to get right up on it and squint really hard to see it, which is what he was doing. I blew him off for the longest time until I finally found the leftover paint and just put a quick swipe on. A little later he painted his house dark blue in an area where every other house is white, cream, or beige, so go figure.

• Someone's been sending out nastygrams about people not picking up after their dogs. I walk my dogs but always clean up after them, so like ... get some photographic evidence or something because it's not me.

• During the COVID-19 quarantine they've been wrapping the jungle gyms and swings in warning tape ... and a day later someone tears it down. It's happened a few times. Pretty funny.*

|thirdangletheory

I got fined $50 because they didn’t like my patio furniture and thought it looked too much like interior furniture (it didn’t, I bought it in the patio furniture section of the store).

We are also only allowed to have beige pillows on our patio furniture, the right beige too apparently, or you will be fined.

| jcr5431

Moved into a condo in a vintage building. HOA fee in April 2017 move in? $260. High, but all maintenance, building insurance and utilities except electric are covered. Ok, fine. Well, the parking lot needs to be repaved. Not everyone has a parking spot, including the HOA president. (They were deeded per unit at sale, limited spots in a downtown property.)

So now parking spot owners get an extra $50 fee.

[I] lost [my] high paying job [and] immediately got two part time jobs. Missed two payments. Accepted fines with no other action, worked with the board for a solution.

One day I overheard the board secretary on her phone talking about how HOA paid for windows in her personal unit … windows are not the responsibility of HOA? I did some digging. She’s basically embezzling funds.

I raise hell. [The] boiler was about to go out as well- 100k repair right there. I get treated poorly and slapped with fines because I missed two payments, but the board secretary — a lawyer nonetheless —embezzled funds for repairs on personal units by using lawyer language? That ain’t right.

She and I go to court, because even though I paid, per bylaws, missing two consecutive payments = lien on property. Oh, and fees are now $335/month.

I ended up selling because it turned into a nightmare. She used her firm to drown me in paperwork and the other two on the board were indifferent about the whole thing, even the fact that she was misappropriating funds. The best they said they could do is draft new bylaws.

By the time I sold, fees were $350/month and they were about to hit everyone with a special assessment of several thousand per unit for the boiler. | General_Distance

Before we moved into the condo, our HOA needed to replace the roofs. It turned out that the cost wasn't budgeted, ever, into the costs of running the HOA. So every member had to pay a special assessment of $10,000.

The cherry on this crappy sundae? The guy who went out and found the company to do our roof wanted a $10,000 finders fee for getting the bid from the company we went with.

| Haki23

I don't live in an HOA but my friend does (in a newer neighborhood). We both live in the same Township. In Ohio rather than saying you live in the county you live in a Township and there are multiple townships in a county, run by an elected board of Trustees, in addition to the County Commissioners but different neighborhoods. This is what happened to him and his neighbors when their HOA didn't check the Township ordinances before writing their CC&Rs:

The HOA allowed them to put their trash down at the curb the night before pickup (cans and loose trash bags, this distinction is important). Well the day after trash day everyone had a fine in their mailbox for the loose trash bags.

HOA told them they weren't the ones that fined them and that they could ignore the fines because it was probably an error and they would fix it. After a month of continuous fines for loose trash bags my friend mentioned it to me. I asked to see the ticket. Once I did I pointed out to him that it wasn't his HOA listed on the ticket but the Township.

I then explained to him the Township ordinance that restricted placing loose trash bags at the curb until an hour before trash pickup due to being next to the largest County Park and having raccoons raiding the trash.

Everyone in the HOA had to pay a month's worth of Township fines and late fees as a result of that mistake. Because of this issue the Township banned loose trash bags. All trash must be in a bag and in a trash can in order to be placed at the curb, the only exception is yard waste and then the bag must be clearly labeled.

Our Township also bans parking of recreational vehicles (not a big deal because we live near several State Parks that allow RV/boat storage for a reasonable annual fee). You can get a short term permit to park the vehicle at your house temporarily but you can't keep it there for more than three days. Included in their definition of recreational vehicles are campers, boats on trailers, jet skis, trailers.

This ban went into effect as a result of jerks using RVs as party sites on their property and holding loud parties in them. Others were using them as guest housing. A few people in my friend's HOA ran afoul of this ordinance too. The HOA permitted indefinite RV parking, the township didn't. You can guess how that went.

| naranghim

So everyday I would come home (1.5 hour drive.) I would hose out my lunch box, water some plants and flip my lunch box over to dry out.

In the morning I would wipe my lunchbox dry & pack for the day. So I guess an HOA “officer” would make rounds every evening & spotted my lunchbox and [fined me $50.]

I called to tell my story, they don’t care.

| wilham05

I live in an HOA community which uses a separate property management company. We got a new representative from the property management company who was not suited for customer service.

She was loud, abrasive and would retaliate against anyone who pushed back. I encouraged others in our community to review the company and outline the issues with the representative. A few weeks later I got a certified letter which was a Cease and Desist. It was from the property management/HOA Lawyer.

It stated that I would be subject to civil and criminal charges if I continued to make negative statements about the issues online.

I consulted a Lawyer. The Cease and Desist was found to be invalid. In the end the Attorney was disciplined by the State Bar Association for false claims and intimidation. Several months later the representative was fired over the exact same issue with another resident.

| Remarkable-Farmer879

My current HOA threatened to kick me out unless I got rid of 3 of my cats. Since I don't own a single cat, I sent them an official 2 page notarized letter denying their request as the number of cats I own must be expressed as a non-negative number.

| LessThanHero42

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 a 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 drivers 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 it when it would accidentally apply to anything but a limo.

| wierdaaron

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.

The saddest part is, on Google Earth it still shows the trampoline and my youngest daughter was sad when she looked up our address.

| Justananomaly

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 jerk, everyone hates her. She is rude to my dad because he can't speak English well so he just gets worked up.

My cat poops in her front yard though. What a team player.

|Anonymous

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.

| Redditaccount314

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

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

Nothing noteworthy, but I lived next door to the president of the HOA once, and literally EVERY single week we had a ticket for something new. Trash touching the curb instead of just being on the grass awaiting pickup, cars in the driveway protruding one inch into the side walkway ... many many more extremely pressing matters as well.

| TemporalDistortions

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. 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 fine 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.

Cops couldn't do anything because we didn't have any recorded statements (a guy came over afterwards and started trash talking while drunk but we didn't get the recorder out in time) or photos.

| Hellmark

My old condo HOA was a pain. A bunch of crusty people. 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 $1,500. 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 six months. I had been there for around five months and two 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. Almost $600 for a stupid security door that should have cost me under $100.

| BZLuck

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"x10" 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 expired for six hours on the street. It took me longer than that to get my car cleaned off.

| druishprincess

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 made 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

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

Some brainiac 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

My at-the-time girlfriend (now wife) rented a townhouse with friends in a community that had an HOA. There was 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 transmission 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 violate 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

We live in a condo and began receiving $100 fines for not picking up dog poop. The area behind our building is common 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 time stamped 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.

| jemmaline

Rented a house in an HOA. It wasn’t too bad, just normal stuff, but now and then some board members would tool around and hand out fines for dirty driveways and such.

Wouldn’t have cared if the President and a board member didn’t live on the same street as me, and their driveways were in massive disrepair. The board member’s son did some work on his truck and there was a massive oil spill, partly covered with a red towel that sat there for 8 months... while a few “rust-colored” streaks on our concrete was worthy of a fine.

The funniest was when the HOA decided to install very aggressive speed bumps. The ones that were there previously were fine... graded to not be too jarring but required you to slow down. The only accident that occurred while we were there was the spouse of an HOA board member driving drunk and plowing into a tree, but there were always notices and mailings for people to slow down as “this is not a racetrack.”

I guess they felt adding in a couple of literal asphalt “curbs” in the middle of the street would “show people” who dared to drive over 10 mph on the main road.

The only way over these things without feeling like you were going to break something on your car was to ease up the first side. Come to a complete stop. Then slowly ease down the drop. Once for the front wheels, and another for the rear.

Some people had just taken to driving on the grass around them, so they put up concrete barriers there.

After a few weeks, someone decided to pour diesel fuel on the speed bumps the day before the garbage trucks did their rounds. The Speed bumps got destroyed.

The HOA reinstalled the bumps, and somehow made them even more aggressive... and a week later, Captain Diesel struck again.

They yanked them out again and just paved over the holes. It was beautiful.

They did end up installing speed bumps a few months later, but they went with the stock plastic ones that bolt to the street. Which was much preferable to the man-made Cliffs of Dover that were there previously.

| Debaser626

I would sit in my yard with my dog between 4 and 6 pm every Friday for 3 months.

Why?

Because the HOA would measure my grass every 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 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' 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

Upscale beach neighborhood, repeatedly refused my solar panel application, sighted the location of them as being an eyesore (top of the back side of the house....not visible from the street), and fought me at four different meetings, delaying my installation, ultimately cited the state law and they immediately backed down and amended their covenants.

| Gimp2x

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 few months, I woke up to a foot and a half of water. Over time, my brick fire pit 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 cleaning 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

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 waste receptacles, even though 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, and if they didn't like his authority, they should change the by-laws.

Then someone left a bunch of dog poop in his driveway. Then he resigned from the HOA.

| scottevil110

My mother-in-law was fighting stage 4 ovarian cancer a few years ago. Had no desire to take down our Christmas lights. We were constantly visiting the hospital, which was very touch and go. Had a child under 1. Was a very emotional time.

HOA compliance officers constantly would stop at our house at all hours of the day. We had security cameras so finally after reviewing the footage we called the guard shack to see what the emergency was.

We were told that Christmas has been over for 3 weeks and we need to have our lights down before the end of the month or he would fine us $25 a day for the first week, then $50 each day after that. We explained the situation, and the guy said “well it’s not my problem, take your lights down.”

My wife exploded on the guy. Went to the next board meeting and let loose on the board and general manager. Turns out it wasn’t an HOA policy. The guy worked for the security company that was hired to work the main entrance guard shack and would get a bonus if he would patrol and hand out fines for HOA violations.

This jerk would just drive around and make up his own rules and fines and by the next meeting was fired, and a new security company was hired when the contract was up in the summer.

Everything worked out in the end. Jerk fired, MIL cancer free for over a year.

| Jmpa87

They charged me $500 for leaving a glass cup on the bbq.

Damn, I was made. My blood boils just thinking about it. I have so many other horrible stories like my wall was flooded inside and they refused to fix it even though it was a HOA problem. I pay $617 monthly.

| PsychNurse6685

My family has been part of one for maybe 5 or 6 years now, and they 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 approval to cut it down and that took a few weeks. So we couldn't take a shower or flush the toilet for like 2 weeks.

They also keep 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

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

We have the HOA president from the Third Reich. This man is on such a power trip you'd think he was running a massive gulag with the lives of a million peasants at his disposal. He protects even the most trivial information as if it were top-secret intelligence and dispenses his brand of justice with no regard for the actual rules. And he's a liar.

At the last general HOA meeting, we sat for 40 solid minutes while he regaled us with his vague crap stories about his years as a special forces officer in the United States Army.

According to him, he's been shot (twice), held for ransom in an "undisclosed foreign hellhole," and awarded "top secret" military honors" that he "isn't allowed to talk about." (??)

Here's the thing, though. He's maybe 5' 5", weighs at least 350lbs, didn't know how to break down the gym weightlifting equipment, and made a complete jerk of himself by saluting a neighbor who came to the meeting late still wearing his BDUs. The neighbor, who works at the nearby military base, laughed out loud and said, "Dude. I'm an E4."

Guess who got written up for leaving his garbage cans out?

| SuzQP

A former co-worker's HOA had a 4 PM requirement. He was livid. Both he and his wife work and the trash pickup typically hits his house around 11:30. To avoid fines, one of them has to take a long lunch once a week to haul the garbage can back up to the house.

Of course, the board is almost all retirees so it's no problem for them to do it in the middle of the day.

| poorbred

My best friend, S, grew up in Suburban Arizona. His family owned their home and rarely had problems with their HOA other than it being generally fascist.

It all started with some cardboard boxes. S and his sister, at the ripe age of around 6 or 7, wanted to make a fort in their front yard, their dad being the great guy he was, helped them build a shitty cardboard box fort for them to play in. Being kids, they played in the fort for a couple of hours and proceeded to get distracted elsewhere. Not a day later they received posted notices on the door and phone calls informing them they need to clean the "unsightly" garbage out of their yard or be faced with fines. It wasn't a huge deal but left the family a bit jaded towards the HOA.

Fast forward a handful of years later, S's dad decides he wants to paint the house. Now if you don't know most HOAs have strict rules on the color and send templates for you to pick off of. He said the templates ranged from tan to slightly different tan. S's dad finds a color he likes that's more of a greenish tan and sends it, painting the whole house.

The HOA proceeds to have a meltdown because they painted their house outside of the allowed color spectrum. S's dad says no way it's the same color I'm not repainting my entire house. So the HOA hires a contractor to come down with a paint color tester and posts notices on their door with a detailed analysis of how his color is yucca tan and doesn't fit the spectrum and if they don't repaint by the end of the month they will be fined.

Instead of folding, S's Mom finds out when the next meeting is and discovers no one votes, the same dude has been president of the HOA for way too long, and there is some shady stuff going on in terms of contracting.

So she walks around the neighborhood the next few weeks "campaigning" and runs. She wins by a landslide. The largest turnout for an HOA meeting since its inception. Everyone was also sick and tired of it but just bent over.

So S's mom is elected president and discovers that the previous regime was doing the ole hookup with my son-in-law by contracting his company and paying him stupid amounts of money to water the sand wash. She quickly ends all that. Rather than change any rules other than a few stupid ones. The S Family office just decided to refuse to enforce any of them.

S's mom goes years as president. Recently she decided enough with it and didn't show up to the election and someone else got elected. Now the new guy is trying to enforce the old rules, but everyone is so used to the freedom that there is a war going on.

| WhiskeyIsntEnough

I was a new homeowner and rather young. My neighbors were all 50+ and my wife and I were in our mid-20s. I loved my neighborhood because it was so quiet.

I decided to take an interest in my local community so I went to the HOA meeting. 3 guys showed up about 45 minutes late (I waited around since the firefighters at the station we used said they were always late). They said, "Great, if we can get 3 more people here we can vote to end the HOA". Caught me off, guard. I guess from the very beginning, the HOA had been trying to dissolve itself but didn't have enough members to show up to take an actual vote.

By the time I sold my house 8 years later, they still existed but hadn't had a dues payment in 6 years from any of the households on the street, including the HOA board members.

| run farther

It didn't happen to me but the city I grew up in was briefly in the 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.

| MY-DICK-FELL-OFF

My aunt is in her 60s and lives in a retirement community with an HOA; my older sister was going through a rough time a few years back and moved in with my aunt. The HOA made my sister leave because she was under 55.

She was in her mid to late 20s at the time, and she couldn't stay.

It's crazy to me that grown people will voluntarily live in a neighborhood that controls who they can have in their own homes. Is it even really your home at that point?

| Dulcius_ex

We had a member of the HOA who “was in charge” of the pool (in her mind). She spent four hours a day at the pool, harassing the hired attendants and residents. Her daughter was a nightmare and would tell people “she could do whatever she wanted because her mom was on the HOA.”

After spending 20 hours or more at the pool a week, she would complain at the meeting that she didn't have any spare time to complete her required duties.

Source

/*Remarkable-Farmer879

My sister got in trouble for having a muralist deliver supplies to her house on a holiday weekend. My sister-in-law and her husband, who is a disabled veteran, disabled veteran, were fined several times for their grass being too long when their second child was born.

/*storm_queen

Our HOA attempted to hold a “secret” community meeting where they'd vote on turning the large field and walking path everyone used for recreation into an RV park.

It was “secret” because they didn’t tell anybody and put the required notice where no one would see it. Most of the board members owned RVs.

Thankfully, a few neighbors noticed and started knocking on doors. A crowd showed up, and the proposal was starkly shot down.

/*CloudsOnTheBrain

The HOA president lives one street down from me. One day, I was in my driveway changing the oil in my car. My dogs were sunbathing in the grass of my front yard. The HOA member saw and yelled at me for having my dogs off-leash.

I politely told her that I was on my property, the dogs weren't in the street, and they were allowed to be off-leash on my lawn. She said she would report me to my landlord. I told her that I was the landlord, and she got even more angry.

Finally, she wandered off, but the next day, I had an envelope in my town's mailbox full of all the dog laws.

/*AKMusher

Growing up, my family was issued tickets for cars, fences, lawns, etc., so we placed a few cameras around the house with one pointed at the mailbox.

Anytime an HOA member placed a ticket in our mailbox, we would have them arrested. It's against federal law for anyone besides a postal service worker to put anything in a mailbox. The tickets stopped.

/*Username deleted

I once left a bunch of roses on my girlfriend's lawn to spell out “I love you.”

She never saw it; one of her neighbors threw them in the trash because it was against the HOA rules.

/*WadeWi1lson

I live in a condo complex, and the head of our HOA is a well-known slumlord.

He owns several apartment complexes that haven't had any updates since they were built, has corrupt management, and is generally mean to everyone. My first run-in with him was when he tried to give me a $300 bill for a piece of cardboard he found in a dumpster.

It didn't have my address or name anywhere on it, but he said he knew it was mine because it was an Amazon box, and I get a lot of Amazon deliveries. I haven't paid them a dime and I don’t plan to.

/*whoisthedizzle83

My late grandfather once hand-carved and bevelled a sign with our family name on it to hang on our mailbox. Our HOA told us it was against the rules to exhibit signs in front of our house.

My mother said she would happily take our sign down when she saw everyone else had removed their “home security” signs. That sign hung from our mailbox for years. Eventually, we had to replace the mailbox due to termite damage. I built and stained a new mailbox, and two weeks later, we got a letter from the HOA informing us there would be a neighborhood-wide mailbox standard coming soon. To avoid letting the mailbox I made go to waste, we donated it to some friends.

/*JustDroppinBy

My little brother dug a hole outside our fence. It was unnoticeable from the road, but his equipment wasn't, which piqued the interest of a nosy neighbor. He came onto our property while we were gone, took pictures, and reported us to the HOA.

They threatened my 12-year-old brother with juvenile detention, huge fines, and banning him from the neighborhood. We appealed.

The neighbor who reported my brother was never to be seen again, and the HOA board member in charge of our case dropped it under the condition the hole was re-filled.

/*ieditmyreddit

One year, my folks replaced their roof with a longer-lasting composite material. The HOA said a complaint was filed against them, arguing my parents had devalued the rest of the homes in the neighborhood by updating their roof.

My folks appealed and eventually won. Within the next few months, a few other houses hired crews to install composite roofs.

/*Ustaznar

My high school was in a residential neighborhood with a large parking lot for student and faculty cars. There was a series of car break-ins and a separate incident where some students drove through the parking lot fence, damaging it.

As a solution, the school decided to build a better fence.

My HOA sued the school because the new fence "ruined the aesthetic" of the neighborhood.

It caused a drawn-out ordeal that cost my already broke, state-funded school way more money than it had.

/*zooeyandfranny

A list of rules was made to restrict lemonade stands:

A boy aged 6 to 10 must be present at the lemonade stand. All profits must be reported to the HOA through a form on their website within four days of the event. 40% of the profits are taxed out to the HOA; 20% of the gains are donated to a foundation of choice, selected through an additional form on the HOA website; the rest is split evenly among the "shareholders of the business." Girls cannot "be in [a] leadership position" while working at a lemonade stand. An adult must check the lemonade stand at least once an hour. The child running the lemonade stand must receive written consent from the property owner, which the lemonade stand is closest to via a form found on the HOA website; this information must be submitted at least four days in advance. Lemonade stands may only be open from 9 am to 4 pm.

The president of the HOA is power-hungry.

Source

/*mjbmitch

We got a threatening letter saying “someone” had seen our dog pooping and we had neglected to clean it up.

We didn't have a dog at the time.

Source

/*TheGreatKimbini

My friend used to work for an independently-owned HVAC supply company. The owner, Let's call him Mr. J, built the company himself. He is frugal and practical.

Mrs. J wanted to live in a house that reflected their financial success. Mr. J didn't care, but he bought her a home in some upper-middle-class “Mcmansion” subdivision.

The houses were all new, so all the trees were small. A tree in Mr. J’s front yard didn’t survive the winter, so he removed it from the ground and topped off the hole.

He got a letter from the HOA stating he had to replace the tree. He said no, they went back and forth, and he came home one day to find a new tree planted in the front yard and a bill in his mailbox.

They argued some more, and it resulted in him pulling all the trees on his property out of the ground and throwing them onto the street.

It ended up in court, and Mr. J instructed his lawyer to drag it out until the HOA ran out of money. By the end of it, the HOA was so broke it couldn’t even afford to send out its newsletter, and Mr. J replaced all the trees on his property, including the first one that started it.

Source

/*TheBurningBeard

At least once a quarter, I get a notice of violation and a $50 fine, for failure to place my trash receptacle on the curb on Tuesdays. I'm single; I have no spouse, girlfriend, kids, or pets. I don't even fill up my kitchen trash can in a week, let alone the larger can.The violation letter requires me to call the HOA, leave a message, wait 48 hours, call again, leave a message, wait another 48 hours, call again, and leave a message telling them if they don't return my call, they'll be hearing from my attorney.

They eventually call me back, pull the file, realize the violation is dumb, and wipe the charge.

This has happened multiple times.

/*Username deleted

The HOA in my parents' neighborhood has gone mad with power. They have:

Enforced (with radar guns) a 5 mph speed limit in the neighborhood while their kids played in the street; Gave my parents tickets for having their garbage cans out in the street the night before the scheduled pickup; Fined people for leaving the garbage cans out 4 hours after pickup. Residents are expected to take a lunch break before noon on Tuesdays to return their garbage cans to hidden locations near the house. Told their kids to play in other people's yards to “spy” and find out who has dogs and report back on the approximate fecal size of the dogs; Fined my parents (one with a terrible hip and the other with feeble knees) for not mowing their lawn themselves after they hired a local lawn care company (a rival of the POTHOA's lawn care company) to do it for them; Mandated a complete renovation of the privacy fences around everybody's backyards as "new wood looks better than weather-worn wood";

/*Username deleted

There was an HOA Halloween event going on. The kids were playing, and everything was fine. There was a blind woman and her service dog in attendance. The HOA president told her she couldn't have dogs on the HOA meeting house property. The blind woman reminded her that she was, in fact, blind, but they didn't care. She was kicked out.

/*Username deleted

My wife's best friend got fined twice for parking violations. The first was when she gave birth to her son. They got a fine for not picking up their trash cans after the trash truck came around, despite still being in the hospital. The second was when her father died. They left their car on the street after coming home from his passing away. He died Christmas Eve.

Source

/*Username deleted

In my old neighborhood, the HOA had a ban on constructing fences. My neighbors had a dog and wanted to let it outside without watching it, so they had an invisible wall. Long story short, after a six-month argument, the HOA made them take it down.

Source

/*njchessboy

There was a big stink at an HOA in my city because a special needs kid got a playhouse after a therapist recommended it. The HOA said it had to go and imposed a $50-a-day fine.

Source

/*lolipopfailure

Every spring, I get multiple notices for weeds. There are never any pictures in the letters because they say it's too expensive to include print outs.

They don't print any or upload any images to a secure website. When pressed again, after multiple phone calls, I'll usually get them to email me pictures of the weeds. Almost every time this happens, the images will obviously not be from my property, because the gravel color will be different, house color will be different, etc.

/*Username deleted

I have a little sailboat that I keep in the garage, and when I get home from a day of use, I put it in my driveway and rinse it off to clean it. I dry it out for about an hour before putting it back in the garage.

I've received three tickets for having a boat in the driveway for over 24 hours.

One time, it was even out between 2 am and 3 am, but somehow, they saw it and decided to ticket me.

/*HOPEFUL-ENTREPRENEUR

My HOA told my neighbor to store her garbage can on my property. I wrote them a letter and said that unless they wanted to pay my mortgage, my property taxes, and the like, they had no right to direct anyone to use my property.

The countered and said my neighbor had maximized her property line and had nowhere to store her garbage can. I told them that she could wheel it down the street and keep it in their yard and that if I found her can on my property one more time, that they would find their

properties littered. They left me alone and directed my neighbor to store her garbage can in her backyard.

/*Username deleted

The landscaper just kind of "forgot" to trim the hedges outside my condo until they eventually stood about 5 feet over my roof. I sent a few emails asking them to take care of it but got no reply.

I sent them a certified letter saying that since they had failed to uphold their agreement to handle landscaping duties, I was forced to address the problem myself. I would learn topiary on my own time until I was skilled enough to carve animal figures into the hedges outside of my condo; at this point, I would gladly send them a bill for services rendered.

The hedges were trimmed within a few days.

/*whoisthedizzle83

The HOA was picking on my parents by enforcing rules that targeted them only, like parking in guest spaces, even though members of the HOA board did the same thing.

I took pictures proving others violating the same rules but were not being punished or fined.

I then asked the board to apply the rules evenly, or not to apply them at all. If they didn’t, I would come back with a lawyer to clarify what discrimination means.

We didn’t hear from them again after that.

/*dancingsalmon_