Do they determine how many kids you can have too?
I loathe my HOA. They have been on my case since I moved into the then new development 20 years ago. I got a letter shortly after moving in because I left my Xmas ornaments up one day past New Years Eve. They’ve been peppering me with letters ever since, threatening big fines if I don’t immediately comply.
They get me for not pressure washing my driveway and roof often enough (though I pressure wash them at least twice a year, and they never look bad). They get me for not bringing my trashcans in by 5pm the day of pickup (sorry, I’m not always home by 5). They get me for not hedging my shrubs and edging the lawn enough (sorry, I think once or twice a month is enough). They got me for having the wrong kind of fence (though it’s the fence the development builder put up when I moved in).
They got me for not pruning a tree to their satisfaction. So, I paid to have it pruned. Then I got a follow-up letter saying I pruned the wrong tree. I wrote back, telling them to take and send me a damned photo of the non-compliant tree next time.
They even got me for not installing the new model mailbox they demanded fast enough. That one really ticked me off because my ex, who lived next door at the time, not only didn’t get the new mailbox, her box was leaning over, nearly onto the ground. But she never gets letters from the HOA! I guess they felt her leaning tower of mail was some sort of modern art installation, and they approved. The mailbox fashion police are a fickle lot.
And, more times than not, when I receive the first infraction letters, they are marked “second notice”, leaving me only a few days to comply lest they levy a big fine, or put a lean on my house. Time-traveling second notices that arrive before the first, how convenient.
They also nailed me for swimming in the community swimming pool a little past the 7pm curfew. They must be following me around with binoculars and notebook.
I’ve sent them plenty of complaint letters, telling them my house and lawn look as good, if not better than all my neighbor’s—who don’t get letters. I just get snotty reply letters.
I got a letter just yesterday, telling me I have to remove my second car from my driveway, because it hasn’t moved for a while, and the tag registration expired (it broke down, and I haven’t had a chance to get it fixed yet). Who knew cars could be evicted for just taking a little driveway nap?
The HOA investigator must drive by my house at least once a day, just looking for anything he or she can penalize me for. I imagine someone wearing an SS uniform and a monocle, snapping a riding crop.
I’m surprised I haven’t gotten a letter about my cats looking out the windows too much.
Only allowed during the hours of 9am to 5pm.
Well, they have been up for 20 years now…
I saw a YouTuber tell how he was harassed about his Pride Flag. He finally got ok’d to fly it only on days there were actual Pride events happening in the larger community.
But some neighbor snuck up, pulled it down while they were out and burnt it in the front of his house.
They got dinged for the burn spot on the lawn.
He reread the bylaws on lights. Apparently lighting your landscape hedges were ok year around. So he lit his in rainbow colors year around and they couldn’t stop him.
(Remember this is YouTube, I have no way to know if it’s really true)
My brother has served as president of his neighborhood association, comprising maybe a half-dozen homes. According to him, the main duty is contracting for snow plowing, not a big deal in his part of Virginia. There are no bylaws covering what color you can paint your shutters, no landscaping committee and no busybodies or hired patrols scouring the neighborhood for violations.
Where I live, an HOA is rather…impractical. I can just see someone being written up because their cows are bellowing too loudly.
Well, there’s your solution. Get a few neighbors to chip in and buy him a few more shrubs. A few years more overgrowth and nobody will be able to see his junk. Visitors can be told that it’s a nature preserve.
There is a whole subreddit called Malicious Compliance which is dedicated to stories like these. He should submit what he did there. They love that stuff.
ETA: Or maybe he did. Is this his house? https://old.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/comments/nq4eui/hoa_wont_let_us_fly_our_modest_pride_flag_so_we/
I have the opposite reaction. How dare they object to how a neighbor makes a legal living? How dare they extend their noses beyond their own property and try to impose their own tastes on someone else’s life?
If you can’t bear to see the truck your neighbor drives to work, then you need a bigger property. Get thee to the outskirts.
The only exception I ca think of is like a honey dipper’s truck, if it smelled bad. That can seriously interrupt one’s enjoyment of one’s dinner. But otherwise, MYOB. Too many people were never taught that.
Quick fix: Plant a kudzu seed under every dead appliance. You could make it into a lawn reef exhibit.
Kudzu would get letters from the HOA for encroachment.
They’ll have torch the whole subdivision and it still might swallow up the surrounding area.
Kudzu don’t play.
Precisely. :rubs hands:
I don’t quite get the strength of your reaction. First off, they don’t necessarily object to how anyone makes their living, just where they park their work trucks.
If you don’t agree with people who feel a certain way, simply don’t move into their neighborhood. In fact, maybe you should be glad they readily identified themselves as people who don’t share your values before you moved in.
It’s been said multiple times in this thread that there are areas in which it may be next to impossible to avoid winding up in an HOA, presuming that you have other reason to need to live in that area.
I don’t live in an area like that. But not everyone can choose where to live on that basis.
I don’t know to what extent all or most of the HOA’s in those areas have the same rules. And OK maybe if you’re going to live in City X you’re going to need to mow your lawn. But if it’s actually common for them to have terribly written agreements that leave them open to abuse, that’s a major problem.
Well, a lot of things have been “said”, but I just re-read through the thread (somewhat quickly) and saw a single somewhat reliable citation:
The rest were all anecdata saying things along the lines of, “When I was looking…” and “A lot of the time/In many places…”
So, using the Census data, someone not wanting an HOA has a choice of 16% of brand new homes, or who knows how many older homes. Doesn’t sound to me as though they are being excluded from the housing market.
Instead, what I perceive is people whining that they cannot buy a specific type of home that they wish in a specific location, without an HOA. (My guess is that many such homes are suburban or urban in-fill subdivisions.) Well, that’s just too bad. Go live in the middle of nowhere like several posters upthread.
I know nothing about the housing market in southern states. In the only markets I know something about, Chicago and Denver, one has plenty of options of either buying in areas with an HOA or without. Same was true in NW Indiana. Of course, if I want a home in the Whispering Pines subdivision, well, I don’t get to change the rules for the entire neighborhood just because I want to park my pickup in the driveway.
It’s really not a major problem. There are 370,000 HOAs in the US. You only hear about the bare handful that run amok.
In most cases, the HOA is a good thing. There is a reason there are 370,000 of them and millions living in them.
I live in a hi-rise. We have the equivalent of an HOA. The building could not possibly operate without one. And it works really well. YMMV
Have you ever shopped for a home? Now imagine it being 5.25 times as hard.
Well, Homeowner Associations in the United States | About HOA-USA says that 53% of owner-occupied homes are in HOAs, so that’s a one in two chance overall, or a one in six chance by your census stats.
https://foundation.caionline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2020StatsReview_Web.pdf has some useful numbers about where these are.
HOA Statistics [2024]: Average HOA Fees + Number of HOAs has it broken down by state. Less than 2% of homeowners in Mississippi; around 25% in California, Florida, the Carolinas, and some other states, but that seems to be around the maximum.
I don’t know if I really buy that - I mean sure, if you define the area restrictively enough it’s probably true. Or if you are only willing to buy a new house, or a single family house or one that includes amenities only open to residents of that development - but at some point it’s less “impossible to avoid” and more “I want these other things more than I want to avoid an HOA.” Which is fine - at some point I’m probably going to sell my house and buy something with an HOA equivalent. But it won’t be because it’s impossible for me to find anywhere else to live - it will be because it’s impossible to get the amenities and services I want without an HOA equivalent.
Sure - my not wanting to adhere to a specific community’s standards restricts my options. So what? Or, maybe I forgo my personal preference to conduct myself in some manner that this particular community dislikes.
Like I said, you wanna park your pickup in your drive, amass washers in your front lawn, and paint your house with polka dots - buy a house out in the sticks. Oh yeah - and then complain about lacking the services provided in other neighborhoods! 
I’m curious as to the prevalence of HOAs. Are they so common because so few people like them? Seems odd.
On edit - very well said:
No. And no one else does either.
The statistic was for new homes only which is a small percentage of overall homes. Also, as has been noted over and over and over, the overwhelming majority of HOAs just do things like road maintenance which can’t really be done any other way.