Imagine living in a neighborhood that has an HOA, but since you bought your house before there was an HOA, you are not part of the HOA. Would you comply with the HOA rules anyway, or would you do whatever you wanted to do on your property?

In today’s story, one homeowner is in this exact situation where she lives in an HOA neighborhood but is not part of the HOA. The problem is that the HOA lady won’t leave her alone, and the HOA’s biggest complaint has to do with her Christmas lights.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for putting up my Christmas lights early even though the HOA that I’m not a part of says it violates the rules and upsets the people in the HOA

I’ve had a previous experience with this group as I live in a neighborhood that has an HOA but I was there before the rest of the houses were built and before they formed this group. I’m not a member in anyway and that has been verified by a real estate attorney.

So anyway apparently they have a rule over how many lights you can put up and what the earliest date you can put them up.

The woman who I deal with the most when I upset them came by on 11/30 and told me my lights were against the policy and that I was not allowed to have as many lights up as I do.

Let’s see how she responds…

I told her that we been over this before that I am in no way beholden to their policies and don’t care.

I told her out of respect to the people in the neighborhood I did like that I wasn’t going to go full Clark Griswold on my house but that my nieces and nephews loved lights so I would be putting up a fair amount.

I also told her that I didn’t care about their rules that the lights could only be on during certain hours and that once done putting them up on the 30th I would likely turn them on and leave them on till Christmas.

The HOA lady didn’t back down.

She told me that me breaking the rules upset other members and that I should respect their rules even if I don’t follow them because I technically live in the neighborhood.

She offered me a flyer which apparently had their rules for lights.

I tossed it in the trash and told her to just get off my property.

I probably could’ve entertained some of what she asked but I’ve just had enough of them.

She’s not part of the HOA, so who cares what the HOA thinks?

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person suggests going Griswold!

Another person would leave them up as long as possible.

This person would report this woman to the HOA management company.

Another person had a good laugh after reading this post.

It wouldn’t hurt to be courteous of the neighbors.

Time to buy more lights!

A light show set to music would be even better!

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