No one likes an HOA, but those of us who buy homes in HOA neighborhoods don’t have a whole lot of options other than complying with their bylaws.

What are the responsibilities of renters, though?

Let’s take a look at a story on Reddit…

AITA for ignoring the HOA in the house my friends and I rent?

My friends Jess, Megan, and I rent a house.

We’re all recent college graduates, young professionals, and we’re decent roommates to each other and decent neighbors, as far as I can tell.

The neighborhood has an HOA, but as she understands it, the rules apply to the homeowner, not her, and there are no specifics in their lease.

The house we rent is part of a homeowners association, and the way the laws work is that the HOA has a legal contract with the homeowner. And the homeowner who is leasing out a property has a legal contract with his tenants.

But the HOA has no authority over the tenants legally; it’s on the landlord to include the HOA rules in his lease with the tenants.

Anyway, some of the HOA rules were in the lease, like only having cars parked in the garage and driveway, none on the street. And like no political signage in the front yard.

But there were relatively few; the lease was pretty much your standard lease.

So, when the neighbors complain – and they complain a lot – she tells them to take it up with their landlord.

Anyway, neighbors have come over several times to tell us about HOA laws were breaking. Not just the same few neighbors, there have been like 8.

For example: They said we could not have junker cars in the driveway, and I was like “it’s not a junker, it runs, I drive it everyday. Plus you should be taking this stuff to Landlord, he’s the homeowner in your association.”

The guy went off on me about how having car’s like mine around lowers the property value and I was like “my agreement was with Landlord, my lease says nothing about what cars I can have.”

They don’t like how my roommate has astrology wall tapestries over the windows instead of curtains.

Or how we have a fire pit outside.

Or how many friends we have over even though we never break the rules about cars. Few of our friends drive.

They told my roommate it’s not allowed to do DIY projects like woodworking or car maintenance in the driveway.

And told me about noise rules that do not line up with the city noise ordinance. They told my roommate her friends can’t lock their bicycles up to the deck railing.

Anyway, every time, we tell these people, that their contract is with the homeowner. And our contract is with our landlord.

We’re following our contract, their contract is between them and Landlord.

They want the girls to do what they say since they’re in the house and he’s basically ignoring their calls.

And they’ve complain that The landlord is hard to get a reach of, he travels a lot, he’s not communicative.

And we are the ones living in the community, we need to follow its rules.

AITA for blowing all them off?

She wants to know if shrugging it off makes her the jerk, here.

Reddit is going to weigh in below!

Predictably, no one is on the side of the HOA.

That said, some folks think the HOA might have a point.

But it really does seem like the landlord’s problem.

HOAs do have a reputation for being relentless.

The car jab really ruffled some feathers.

I’m sure these girls are doing their best.

I’m equally sure their neighbors hate having a rental in the neighborhood.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.