Homeowners’ associations love enforcing rules, but sometimes those rules are more about personal grudges than any logical standards.

One HOA president thought a backyard trampoline was hurting his home’s value, but in trying to get rid of it, he ended up bouncing himself right out of power.

You’ll want to read on for this one.

HOA board tries to force me to remove my trampoline, I get them removed from the board instead

I put a trampoline in my backyard in early 2017.

I have three young boys, and we have enjoyed it immensely.

My neighbor, the HOA president at the time, went to sell his house in the spring of 2018.

And wouldn’t you know it, he began to set his sights on this very trampoline.

His realtor said the trampoline in my backyard might be a detriment to getting top dollar for his home. So he convinced the neighbor on the other side of my house to complain as well.

Out of the blue, I received a message from the HOA property manager stating that the neighbors had complained and that I would need to submit a form to get it approved.

The homeowner tried to play the game of back and forth the best they could.

I filled out the form and sent it in.

The Architectural Review Committee denied it a month later.

I appealed the decision and met with the board in August.

They later sent me a letter stating that it was in violation.

But when they started asking for more details, they realized just how shady the whole situation was.

I asked which rules I had violated.

They never sent me a letter, so I asked again a week ago.

The property manager was adamant that she had sent the letter, but I asked for proof.

She forwarded an email where she had put my name in the “To:” field after the fact.

This seemed out of the ordinary for multiple reasons.

I had a strong suspicion it was fabricated due to the following reasons:

• An HOA meeting was mentioned that never took place.
• The responses to my questions varied in color, indicating they had been edited at different times.
• She responded immediately to my request for proof by indicating she would forward the email, but then took an hour (presumably editing a draft she had never sent).
• She cited a rule early in the email but then cited an additional rule later that superseded the first. The first cited rule could have simply been omitted.
• The message was not marked as a “forwarded message” at the top, and the sent time didn’t include seconds.

None of these things were a smoking gun, but they were suspicious.

So the homeowner starts asking around.

I asked the other people in the “To:” field if they had received a copy of the email with my name in the address field.

The only honest member of the board replied that he hadn’t.

The rest remained silent because they didn’t want to admit that they and the property manager had dropped the ball.

Then they tried another approach.

The year-end meeting was scheduled for yesterday, and four board positions were up for election.

I got three of my friends on the street to run with me.

I went door to door every day for a week and spoke with the majority of homeowners about their discontent with the street.

I got a third of the community to sign proxy forms stating that I would vote on their behalf.

So armed with the signatures, they start to find some real traction.

I went to the meeting last night and put these fools on BLAST.

I calmly listed all the ways the current board was failing the community and laid out my plan to right their wrongs.

The vote was a landslide in favor of myself and my friends getting elected.

Then came some real change for both the association and the neighborhood.

One awful board member remains, but he is in the minority.

We fired the property manager who was uncommunicative and flat-out dishonest.

The trampoline endures!

The only bummer is that now I have to manage a street that includes some legitimately crazy people.

BUT — this whole episode has convinced my wife that we will never live in an HOA again, which I count as a huge victory in addition to the trampoline remaining where it is today.

What started as a petty HOA complaint turned into a full-scale power shift!

What did Reddit think?

There’s no doubt this property manager was out of line.

This commenter can’t believe American HOAs have such militant rules.

With this newfound power, this user hopes these homeowners will find a way to make lasting change in the association.

There’s some people who should simply never be in power.

It’s nice to watch a corrupt HOA fail.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.