If you live in an HOA, there are often a lot of annoying rules you’re required to follow. A lot of HOA members tend to complain about these rules, but would you ever tattle to the HOA about a neighbor who was breaking the rules?

The homeowner in this story does that exact thing and is having second thoughts about what she did. Keep reading to find out why she decided to take such drastic measures.

AITA for calling the HOA on the neighbors for installing a 25 foot tall bouncy castle/water slide in their back yard?

I never thought I would be in this position but I am the one who sought out the 75 year old members of the HOA board for assistance. Having said that, I feel like I was very patient and accommodating but just got pushed too far.

But still anytime you “call the HOA” you might be a jerk.

My neighbors started out in February/March with a bouncy castle in their yard. I could not see it but I could certianly hear it when the kids would start bouncing at 4:30/5 am.

It honestly seemed that the kids would wake up really early and the parents would send them outside so they could sleep.

The real problem was the noise.

But it was incredibly loud.

I had a polite conversation with the parents and they assured me the bouncy castle was temporary.

I put up with it for probably 3 weeks, nearly every day until I explained that I work nights and I was being woken up right as I was getting to sleep.

It got better, but then suddenly it got much worse.

To their credit they stopped jumping early in the morning and everything was fine until 3 weeks ago when a huge bouncy castle suddenly appeared in their back yard. It was at least 25 feet tall..it completely blocked my view of the mountains.

I could see the kids were able to look right into my bedroom window from the top.

Unfortunately this coincided with a shift change for me and now the kids were up until 11-12, even 1am on some nights and now I had to wake up at 4:30.

I didn’t even realize it was also a waterslide until i realized that probably hundreds of gallons of water had run under our shared fence and actually pushed all my dog’s mess up against my back door.

When the parents wouldn’t listen, she took drastic measures.

I went over and talked to them and the dad essentially said “we were polite enough to change our schedule for you the first time and this is our backyard.”

I decided something had to be done because potentially my house could be damaged, let alone the sleep issue.

So I called the HOA and however the machine works, my neighbor had been called in front of a board meeting, fined about $1000 dollars for covenant violations as well as been ordered to pay for damages to our joint fence.

Now, her friends and family have turned against her.

I thought everything was good except for some dirty looks from the neighbor but literally EVERY one of my family and friends are saying I’m a jerk for going to the HOA.

While opinions vary, the general gist is I’m now the crabby neighbor ruining kids fun. That I should have got some noise cancelling headphones and ignored it and they would have popped the slide at some point anyways and it would have taken care of itself.

The idea I guess is that I tattled and got my way by unleashing a bunch of busy bodies with too much time and too much undeserved power.

AITA?

It is quite drastic to go to the HOA, but I’d be upset too if water was running under my fence and kids were loud outside until midnight or later.

Let’s see if Reddit thinks she could’ve handled it differently.

Sometimes it’s okay to tattle.

The neighbors went too far.

This is the whole point of the HOA.

Everyone seems to think she did the right thing.

Surprisingly, there are actually perks to living in an HOA.

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