If you live in a neighborhood that has an HOA, it’s common sense that you often need to get approval before starting any major construction project.

In today’s story, a neighbor decides to remodel the backyard but doesn’t get approval from the HOA.

They also won’t listen to the advice of their well-meaning neighbors.

You know this is going to backfire.

Let’s see how the drama escalates…

Husband tries to warn neighbors about their landscaping, gets told to mind his own business…..

Some background: my husband is pretty handy.

Prior to Covid, he had done several flip houses as a “fun” side gig (it’s what he loves to do), and he became very familiar with a ton of city codes.

During Covid, seems everyone was suddenly buying houses to flip out of boredom and prices skyrocketed, so he put that on hold.

So then he started doing household repairs and upgrades, building fences, etc. around the neighborhood as well.

To get a better understanding of the neighborhood HOA bylaws and whatnot, he joined the HOA Architectural Committee.

Through that he learned all there was to know about what was allowed and what was not, how the process worked, how to work around things, etc.

Long story short, my husband was VERY knowledgeable in what to do and not do, and various processes with the neighborhood AND the city.

The neighbors wanted to remodel their backyard to make it like their backyard.

Our next door neighbor decided they were going to start landscaping their backyard, and they I guess planned to make theirs as similar to our backyard as possible.

Problem was, despite being next door neighbors, our land was quite different.

For one thing, behind our house was a bunch of brush and pine trees maybe 3-4’ from the lake that’s at the back of the house.

We didn’t have to do a whole lot to clear the area, but the brush on their property was about 1/3 of their yard (I’d say 10’ from the water?).

Also, the way the houses on our street are, the land naturally made like a valley, where the house to our right is at the “top”, we’re in the middle, and the next two houses are at the bottom before it very quickly rises again.

The neighbor didn’t get permission from the city to cut down trees.

First thing the neighbors did was cut down all the trees in their backyard.

They were not small trees either, but 4 story tall trees or more.

Husband and neighbor were talking about the backyard plans when my husband casually mentioned he was surprised the city gave him permission to cut down so many trees.

In our city, you had to have an arborist give permission to cut down any trees that were X ft tall.

Neighbor first said it wasn’t the city’s business what he did with his backyard, then told my husband to mind his own business.

Ok. Fair enough.

Her husband noticed another potential problem in the neighbor’s backyard remodel.

Then they started putting up the retaining wall to bring it up to level with our property, which would have been about 7-8’ tall.

Basically they were just stacking a bunch of cinderblocks.

My husband uneasily asked if their landscapers had ever done a retaining wall like that, and if the city approved it.

City says that if a retaining wall is over 5’ tall you need a structural engineer to come out.

Neighbor said again it wasn’t any of the city’s business what he did to his yard, and for my husband to mind his own business.

The neighbors created another problem that bothered a lot of neighbors.

While they’re filling up the backyard to bring theirs level to ours, the landscapers are dumping all the dirt, gravel, and sand in the street, blocking a little over half the road.

Several of the neighbors who had trucks would just hop the curb, but other neighbors with smaller cars were mad.

Before my husband could ask if they could put the dirt and stuff in their driveway instead of the road (like everyone else), neighbor went off on my husband to sod off.

Well ok then.

My husband let them continue working, and didn’t say a word as they started constructing a 10’ tall fence (which was against HOA regulations, fences couldn’t be taller than 6’).

Another neighbor complained to the HOA.

Between them starting construction 6 days a week before 7am and them blocking the road, I guess someone had had enough.

Next thing I know city officials are out there putting a big sign in the yard saying all construction was to be halted until further notice.

It wasn’t us, but my husband found out through the architectural committee that someone had complained about the noise and the road blockage to the HOA.

They came out to investigate, saw everything they had done, and then reported them to the city.

The neighbor had a lot of problems and had to pay a couple fines.

They got a hefty fine for every tree stump the city official found.

The structural engineer said their retaining wall was not sound and had to be redone, and it had to have regular inspections during its build.

The HOA also told them that not only did they have to take down their 10’ tall fence, but as they did not get prior approval and because it was not an “approved design” the HOA also hit them with a hefty fine.

The neighbor thought he was to blame.

Initially Neighbor came after us for tattling, but we told them it wasn’t us, as nothing they did affected us in any way (our kids are early risers, so even starting before 7 didn’t bother us).

My husband then said he tried to warn them this would happen but Neighbor told him to mind his own business and he did.

Landscaping had started on Black Friday, was shut down for 3 weeks while I guess they got things sorted out with the city and HOA.

Their backyard is still not finished.

The neighbors learned the hard way that they needed to get approval before they started construction.

The construction crew should’ve known better too.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

Here’s a rule to remember…

Another reader was surprisingly on the HOA’s side.

The neighbor was most likely creating a huge problem.

Don’t mess with tree law.

This person pointed the point of HOAs.

I hope they didn’t do any damage that will impact the structure of their house or the neighbor’s house.

It sounds like it might be too late.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.