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23 Homeowners Who Had Enough And Got Even With Their HOA
America’s Homeowners’ Associations, or HOAs, are designed to promote community well-being and keep neighborhoods orderly and enjoyable. But in practice, their overly strict rules often go to absurd extremes, earning them a reputation so notorious it’s recognized far beyond the U.S.
Tired of dealing with the nonsense, some residents decided to strike back and share their revenge stories online. Scroll down to read some of the most spiteful ones and share your thoughts in the comments!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
My mother in-law's HOA was run by a retiree who had nothing to do but get in everyone's business all day. He fined people for leaving their trash can out 10 minutes too long and other rediculous things.
The community became so irate they staged a coup. They showed up and forced a vote for a new HOA president (selected before hand). The moment he was voted in, he raised a proposition to abolish the HOA. Everyone voted yes and the HOA was no more.
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#2
The story as I was told by someone personally involved:
A piece of land was purchased by developers next to a farm and houses were built. When the houses were sold, an HOA was formed. The HOA started harassing the farmer demanding he join the HOA and follow the HOA’s rules. They even attempted to fine the farmer for violating the rules of the HOA, even though the farmer never joined the HOA.
The HOA decided to install an in-ground swimming pool and a playground/picnic area for the use of the HOA’s residents next to the farmer’s land. Annoyed by the constant harassment from the HOA, the farmer moved the pens where he kept his pigs right to the edge of his property, directly on the border with the HOA’s recreation area. So when the HOA’s residents wanted to use their brand new swimming pool and the wind shifted, they had to deal with the smell of approximately 100 pigs.
#3
HOA in California tried to limit lights and decorations to December 1st through December 31st. Our multi-ethnic, multi-religious complex went balls to the wall - Hanukkah, Halloween/Dia de los Muertos, Eid, Easter, Holi, Solstice...lights everywhere, people were getting inflatables, I put a light-up tinsel polar bear on my roof. It was really awesome. I've never been so proud to be part of the melting pot.
#4
I read of a fam who was mad the HOA would not approve their preferred color of house paint. Apparently there were 5 or 6 approved colors. Period. So they painted the house striped in all the approved colors.
#5
I’m single and own two vehicles. The per unit limit. The one I drive the most I keep parked in my reserved space and the other in a remote lot. I work nights and one day shortly after going to bed there was a persistent knocking on my door. (I had disabled the doorbell) finally when it was obvious they where not going away I went to the door and the property manager was there holding a clipboard and wanted me to sign over my proxy for the upcoming election. Instead he got an earful and that is when the harassment began.
Several months go by and my brother asked to borrow my pickup truck, the vehicle parked in the remote lot. When I got home that morning I went to the lot an my truck had a towing sticker on the window. I removed the sticker, drove to the corner to gas it up and ran the truck through the wash. Returned it to the lot and went to bed.
A few hours later my phone rings and it’s my brother asking where the truck is.
the rule is a vehicle not moved in 12 days is considered inoperative and subject to being towed. I honestly do not remember how long it had been since I last moved it to warrant the sticker in the first place but it had been moved that day and he towed it anyway.
So after recovering my truck and paying the fees I no longer parked in the remote lot. I parked next to the property manager’s reserved spot. And everyday I would turn it around in the space and take a picture. after 11 days of this he towed it again.
The association paid me back for both tows plus $1000 and we got a new property manager.
#6
I pressed trespassing charges. I had a compost bin against the house. The only way the Karen in charge of the HOA could have see it was to go onto my property. She said something about having an unauthorized structure. What are you talking about, Karen? Against the back of your house. You mean the 4 pallets I screwed together? Yes, take it down immediately. Eff of, Karen. She sent me an “official” letter which I took to a lawyer. So we sent a cop to her place to give her a citation for trespassing. Got her name in the local paper (back when local newspapers were a thing) for being anti environment because she was against compost bins, she rather see it all in landfills. Things like that. She ended up backing off.
#7
Not exactly revenge, but we got a dinger notice about a few bald spots in our lawn. The spots we get always fill themselves in once the summer temps go up enough so I didn’t worry about it. What I did do, because it was such a petty complaint, was to go to the HOA-maintained clubhouse and took pictures of its many bald spots….the kind that don’t fill themselves in (different grass, different lighting, etc). I sent the photos in an email telling them that I’d fix mine when they fix theirs (knowing full well that my grass would be all filled in within a month). All HOAs need to have a petty meter. Sigh.
#8
Not me but a friend. They lived in an HOA where the people on the board had their own little clique that could do anything they wanted but, they would threaten and sue anyone else who tried to do the same thing. One day, while in the process of trying to have some work done on their home, one of the HOA board members came by and put a stop work order on the property (in this particular instance the work was inside of the home so the HOA had no say in the matter but this board member decided that they didn’t like the construction noise and they wanted to stop it). By this time my friend had been collecting evidence of harassment and proof of inequitable behaviors (do as we say, not as we do) by the board. So they took them to court and sued the HOA. When they won the order, my friend requested that as part of the settlement, that the board members should be required to pay the fines out of their own pocket and not be allowed to use the HOA funds or HOA insurance to cover the costs and restitution that was won and that the board members must recuse themselves from their positions. Because my friend proved that the Board Members were acting outside of the HOA bylaws and had been abusing their position of power, the judge agreed and enforced in the ruling that the board members must pay out of their own pockets. Needless to say, all of them ended up selling their homes and moving out of the neighborhood after judgement was issued. The new HOA board voted to disband the HOA.
#9
I was told I couldn't store my sawhorses on my balcony. I bought a used coffee table, used said sawhorses when cutting off the legs, and placed the legless table on top of the sawhorses. Now they're a "table" that doesn't look aesthetically pleasing and draws more attention than two stacked sawhorses. Best $10 I've spent in a while.
#10
Not me, but my friend lives in an HOA and they have all kinds of weird rules. All cars must be in the garage unless being loaded or unloaded and no cars in the yard or parked in the street which means that if you have two cars you can't have anymore visitors than can park in the driveway. Forget big family holidays or Super Bowl parties. She is a biker with her husband and her having their own Goldwing motorcycle. She decided to put their rules to a challenge and invited everyone she knew from their riding club to come over for a cook out pool party and advised them all to ride their bikes for parking space. The HOA rules specifically said cars, not pickup trucks or motorcycles or vans or motorhomes for that matter. It was always assumed that the intent was to include all types of motorized vehicles, but not specifically ever defined as such. Sure enough, 20 motorcycles ended up parked in the driveway and in the yard and the HOA had a fricken fit. They tried to send her a citation and a fine. The whole thing ended up in court and dismissed. Apparently the judge said something to the effect that the language is specific about cars and not ambiguous enough or broadly defined as motorized vehicles to be a violation. I don't know if the rules were ever changed, but the HOA ended up paying for her lawyer and any fees associated.
#11
My parents lived in an HOA area. The HOA was called the Art Jury then, and had a lot of power respecting things like roofing materials, exterior finishes, paint colours and the like. The area was a sort of “Spanish colonial” looking area (red clay tiled roofs and stucco'd houses painted white, cream, pale gold, pale tan and the like).
A neighbour of theirs wanted to paint the exterior of his house a pale blue. He submitted his colour and was turned down. He had a careful read of the rules and discovered that he could resubmit up to three colour chips, but the Art Jury, having refused him once, was legally obliged to select one of the three resubmitted colours. So he submitted a black and a vivid purple chip, along with a pale blue chip almost identical to the one the jury had rejected. The jury had little choice but to okay the pale blue.
#12
A friend of mine was forced to purchase a $200 mailbox from the HOA president despite having built an exact duplicate.
So he poked around and learned that he could legally paint his house any color he wanted. He chose Blue and Orange (the colors of the rival football team)
It was such an eyesore it tanked housing prices by 10% for everyone on the street.
#13
A group of us ran as a slate of officers and got ourselves elected to the board.
Our board had three officers and all were elected annually and the same group had been on the board for several years. They had a sweetheart deal with a management company and too much money was being spent on management fees and the amenity infrastructure was not being maintained properly. For three months prior to our January meeting we very quietly canvassed the neighborhood gathering support as well as proxies and at the January meeting well over 100 homeowners showed up and we took over the board. We immediately initiated an audit and we were able to secure the return of some funds from the management company and then terminated their contract for cause.
People often forget that the HOA is the homeowners and not some foreign entity. If taking control back into the citizens hands is revenge then I suppose we got revenge.
#14
Not really savage, but entertaining, to me at least.
Got into an argument with the HOA president over some flowers my wife and I had planted - they said I needed the board’s permission to plant flowers, per the CC&Rs. I got my copy of the CC&Rs and showed them where it said I had to secure their permission to plant trees or large shrubs. I asked if annuals were trees? No? How about large shrubs? No? Get off my 1/114th undivided interest in the lawn.
Then, I studied the CC&Rs, and noticed that, per the rules, people were not permitted to ride bicycles, tricycles, skates, skateboards or scooters around the grounds.
Nothing about unicycles. So I went to my folks place, and got my old unicycle out of the garage and rode it all over the common areas for a couple of months until we sold/moved. I believe this could be categorized as malicious compliance.
Next place, no HOA - mostly good, but…there were a couple of things where an HOA would’ve been nice there. But that’s another story.
#15
My parents got a nasty letter one year about how chickens couldn't live in our yard. We keep it trimmed, it’s a nice suburban lawn. My parents bought plastic chicken and stuck them in the lawn
#16
a friend owned a landscaping company and after a number of problems with his HOA he got mad when they told him the verity of grass in his lawn was the wrong type.
he did lawns for a living and knew he had seeded his lawn with the right type of grass and the HOA board knew nothing about grass and he was the only person with the right type of grass listed in the HOA rules. he got mad and one dark and foggy night drove to each HOA board members homes and sprayed herbicide across their lawns. they went nuts and had to hire a landscaper to fix their yards.
They told the landscaper what type of grass they needed to plant by the HOA RULES and he did. Only to find there lawns did not match the rest of the HOA and they had no idea why.
the HOA board looked like fools when they found out they were wrong.
#17
My HOA had sent me a few complaints about a brick tree well I have on my property that had a few bricks fall out, 4 or 5. I don't check my physical mail often because I opt for most everything digital and wasn't getting email notifications of the violations, so it escalated to the point where a lawsuit action was FedExed to my door with signature requirements.
They hassle me quite often for ridiculously small things and I was already in a state of displeasure with them.
So, to assuage the complaints, I went out and bought some mortar, slapped as much as I could on with my hands, and just put the bricks on well enough that they wouldn't fall out of place. It looks like melted ice cream.
This stopped the lawsuit action and I now have something that makes me giggle everytime I come home and see it.
#18
Not exactly an HOA, but our small town city council had functionally become the same thing as one of the nightmare HOAs you hear about all the time today.
We were at war with the council for about 18 different conflicts our family were having with the town council in an official capacity and interpersonal drama with the councilmen themselves.
We owned a historically protected 100 year old automobile service station in the center of town. We took a wooden fence panel, cut and painted it to look like SpongeBob, gave him some arms and hands, positioned the arms and hands to be flying double middle fingers and planted him on the roof of the old gas station. We told the town council that our beautiful modern art piece would only come down of they repealed the subjective "lawn beauty" ordinance they had passed to selectively run people out of town who they didn't like.
#19
Our fence contractor accidentally built our fence 6 inches over an electrical easement for 4 feet of a length of our fence. Utility company approved it. HOA denied it. I had the fence company come out and move the fence the next week, but since the HOA was such a pain about a small 6 inches, I strung them along in a fake legal battle for 14 months (too many details to explain but it's funny) then eventually sent them a letter with the date of the fence construction and they were piiiiiissed to find out they were looped into 14 months of me just wasting their time.
#20
Nothing direct or intentional, but when I sold a condo because I was fed up with the HOA, I ended up selling to a man from Albania who was one of the biggest jerks I have even met. In any setting, he strove to be the Alpha Male and treated women like servants. I was delighted to close the sale knowing that he would never give in to HOA rules and would drive them crazy.
#21
The best revenge I heard of was about a guy who was forced out of a neighborhood for keeping homing pigeons. He sold, but didn’t take the pigeons with him. So the pigeons’ descendants continue to torment the neighborhood to this day.
#22
I wouldn't call it tyranical HOA actions but in my old neighborhood a guy refused to cut his lawn. It got so bad the city got involved and between the hoa and the city they told the guy that if he didn't cut it they would do it and bill him.
Mowers showed up with a couple of cops for protection. Guy took a shot at the mowers and the cops.
Guy ended up [taking his own life] and burning down his house.
#23
I was respectful at all times, and paid my dues ahead of the due date - every time.
Hahaha those fkin idiots will never figure out how much I hate them.
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