Home improvements are meant to be personal choices, not community battlegrounds.

When one homeowner’s new paint job led an obsessive neighbor to threaten lawsuits and push for an HOA, the homeowner quietly played the long game.

And eventually he bought the surrounding homes and painted them the exact same color!

Keep reading for the full story!

Neighbor didn’t like the color of my house

This was about 10 or 11 years ago in a medium-sized city in Indiana. I moved into a house and had it painted with a new color scheme.

It looked nice—slightly different from the surrounding homes—but it wasn’t pink and yellow or anything ridiculous.

But one neighbor had a problem with this, although the rest of the neighborhood seemed fine with it.

Some whackadoodle across the street came over and told me it looked horrible and demanded that I change it.

I wondered if maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly, so I asked four other neighbors what they thought. None of them had an issue and all said it was a nice improvement.

I told him no one else had a problem with it.

That’s when this guy really started making threats.

He responded, “I’ve got deep pockets. If you don’t change it, I’m getting a lawyer!”

I told him to go ahead and wished him a nice day.

After a few lawyers told him he had no case, he tried to get an HOA formed.

He was quite serious about it, although he couldn’t get any of his plans off the ground.

He held meetings, paid someone to draw up proposed rules, and put effort into it—but no one else agreed. His investment was a total waste, and he still wouldn’t stop complaining.

At the time, I already owned several rental properties and was always on the lookout for more.

That’s when this homeowner managed to outsmart him big time.

When the houses next door to him went up for sale, I ended up buying both of them—without ever telling him I owned either one.

I bought the first in early fall and the second in winter. When summer rolled around, I had both houses painted the exact same color scheme as mine.

He was so angry. 🤣

Even better, I bought them in 2009–2010 and sold them last year for a very nice profit.

Thanks, irrationally angry man!

Sounds like everything worked out in the end for this homeowner!

What did Reddit think?

People have handled far worse paint jobs far better than this guy.

Not all neighbors seem to hate color.

This guy really doesn’t seem to understand how HOAs work.

Who decided that yellow was such an improper color for a house?

Sometimes bright colors end up growing on you.

There’s no use getting this worked up over a bucket of paint.

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

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