For those unlucky souls who live in a neighborhood with a homeowner's association, they are forced to deal with the childish antics and pettiness of the men and women who have enough time on their hands to run the operation. It usually doesn't take much to get on the HOA's bad side, but when they do, they have to do something about it.
A Reddit thread recently asked people to reveal how they finally got back the at the HOA that made their life a living nightmare. There's only so much someone can take before they decide to take action, and the people in the following stories had more than enough of the people running their HOA. It's safe to say that each of these responses were more than justified. All posts have been edited for clarity.
This HOA Didn’t Last Long
“I spent years saving up for the down payment for my first house. It was a new neighborhood, and the HOA had just been established with a retired doctor serving as the first president.
I had two flag holders on the two posts in front of my porch. I flew the Tennessee state flag and another flag that I would switch up from time to time.
One month, I decided to fly the Culpeper flag (a militia in the Revolutionary War). The HOA president came knocking at my door demanding I take it down because his wife was British and she was offended. I told him in nice words that he could get bent and so he tried to fine me. I contested it with the board and got the fine overturned.
Later on, he’d try to bust me for other things. I told him I do not want him on my property at any time and if I catch him on my plot (a good couple hundred feet from the sidewalk and surrounded by trees on the other three sides), I will call the cops. I left him a notice on his door and let the HOA board know about the notice.
I came home a week later to a fine because the lettering on my door was not standard. It included a picture up close and a signed confirmation from the president. I walked over to the HOA president’s house and got into a verbal argument with him. I called the cops and eventually took him to court, which resulted in a restraining order.
It got so messy after that, the HOA dissolved and my neighbors threw a huge party.”
She Picked The Wrong Guy To Mess With
“They had someone go around and check if the dogs are leashed, if not they call animal control to have them taken away, yet HOA has called animal control on people who have their dogs leashed. Their reason? The length of the leash was either too long or too short.
They tried to take away one guy’s dogs for that reason and that sparked a war between the HOA head and the homeowner who was a former Marine, a former police officer, and all around ‘madman.’ HOA head did not stand a chance against a retired ‘crazy’ person who had a lot of time and money and was well-liked in the neighborhood (what he did was completely not normal to the mostly conservative community, so they started calling him crazy and it kinda stuck).
Crazy guy built a pool and let everyone used it for free, making the $20/month pool the HOA set up useless. Crazy guy also held a giant all-inclusive party that had menus for everyone dietary needs. Any police officer that came to check on it left with to-go bags (they hated the head too). He also had a Halloween party, as the HOA did not allow trick or treating.
The head was ousted from the HOA after she tried to break into crazy guy’s house. She was the trophy wife of this big shot doctor and her father owned most of the land in the neighborhood. She was losing support and I don’t think she was thinking at all, just desperation and anger running her in her system when she did it. The new head mellowed out some of the rules but after this debacle, they realized that they didn’t have much in the way of authority compared to before.
The crazy guy never ran for HOA, but he did start a restaurant, sponsor a drag competition, and possibly took up karate.”
With Time And Money On His Side, He Put His Plan Into Action
“My mom told me a great story of the vengeance one of her clients enacted after being harassed by a tyrannical HOA. The guy is a surgeon, and very wealthy. He bought a piece of property and the HOA started really messing with him bad – ripping his trees out, fining him large sums of money for infractions that were baseless, etc. When he would fight them and ask for proof, they would retaliate by messing with him even more. They fined him for the paint color of the house (which was already on there when he bought the property), so he paid to have the house repainted. Then they fined him because ‘the mailbox wasn’t the right color’ – the list goes on and on. This guy even stopped coming to the property after a while and lived in another house because he couldn’t take it anymore. The pettiness and retaliation were becoming overwhelming and he was done.
The revenge: Being a pretty prestigious surgeon, and having a ton of money, he decided to buy every piece of property that became available in the neighborhood. This plot took over a year of buying property after property in this neighborhood, he would put them in names of different businesses he owned as to not raise suspicion. The HOA didn’t even see it coming. He showed up to an HOA meeting where they were re-electing all of the board members for the year to discuss a grievance he had about one of the many letters he had received, fining him for yet another ridiculous ‘violation.’ They basically told him to pound sand. He said something to the effect of: ‘Here’s a list of all the properties I now own in this neighborhood, and that makes me the majority owner. I’m disbanding this HOA.’ They were stunned, but there was nothing they could do. He defeated them.”
He Was Going To Show Them
“My family lived under the dictatorial regime of an HOA for about a year and a half. When we moved in, everything was fine. The rules weren’t that crazy – no cars on the lawn, or stupid ornaments, things like that.
My dad, who is into HAM radios, without consulting the HOA, put up a small but hardly visible antenna on the back of the house. The top of it could be seen from the front, but only just the very top. Well the HOA president decided to spoil my dad’s harmless hobby by calling him into a meeting to have the high council tell him that he had to take it down. He told them he would although there was nothing in the bylaws saying he couldn’t have it.
The next day, he thought he would enhance his pettiness.