HOA rules often try to keep neighborhoods orderly, but sometimes they accidentally invite creative mutiny instead.

When one HOA board limited holiday decorations to a short time frame but forgot to specify which holidays were allowed, a clever homeowner decided there was no holiday too small to go all out on decorations for.

Keep reading for the full story!

HOA passed a stupid decorating rule.

Our board was tired of seeing people leave decorations up too long after holidays ended.

So they passed a rule last July stating that decorations could only go up 15 days prior to a holiday and had to be taken down 15 days after it.

At first, the rule didn’t sound so bad.

Some people might think that rule is okay.

But I like to decorate for Halloween on October 1st so the decorations stay up all of October.

I don’t think that is unreasonable.

I also liked putting up Christmas decorations on the weekend after Thanksgiving.

But decorating for the holidays was also a way the neighborhood came together.

Everyone is out for the holiday.

We make a big deal of it.

We’d take Halloween down the weekend after Halloween, and Christmas came down the weekend after New Year’s.

It isn’t up all year.

When they passed this rule, I was livid.

Then the homeowners realized the HOA wasn’t as detailed as they should have been.

I decided that they never mentioned which holidays we could decorate for.

So the first thing I did was go out and buy red, white, and blue lights.

I decorated for the 4th of July, and you better believe I left those annoying lights up until July 19th.

The HOA had failed to account for this.

The problem is there really aren’t major holidays from July until October.

BUT the HOA did not say it had to be a major holiday.

After July 19th, I decorated for International Beer Day, which was on August 4th.

How do you decorate for that?

The homeowner found a way.

Well, it was the same red, white, and blue lights from the 4th of July.

I just removed the sign that said “Happy Independence Day” and replaced it with a sign I made myself that read “Happy International Beer Day.”

They continued this strategy all the way into September.

On August 19th, I changed the sign to “Happy National Aviation Day.”

I kept the same lights up, though.

Next was Labor Day.

Yep. Just changed the sign again.

Then came yet another holiday.

On September 19th, I started celebrating Rosh Hashanah.

Because again, they never indicated which holidays we could decorate for.

I removed the “Happy Rosh Hashanah” sign on October 1st and changed it to “Happy Sukkot.”

But I went all out for that.

This homeowner was having a blast.

I created a booth out of my Halloween casket decorations and put little figures (taken from my Halloween decorations) into them.

I kept this up over the holidays.

I started with Veterans Day after Halloween and then moved on to Thanksgiving and Hanukkah.

The HOA tried to backtrack to put this madness to an end, but it wasn’t as easy as they thought it would be.

The board met on March 8th, and they tried to pass a rule saying which holidays we could decorate for.

BUT they couldn’t get the vote when they tried to include only New Year’s, Valentine’s, 4th of July, Halloween, and Christmas.

The HOA soon started offending people left and right.

They didn’t include any Jewish holidays, and our Jewish neighbors didn’t like that.

They also didn’t include any holidays like Ramadan, and a lot of people voiced their displeasure about that.

So until the board meets again, this homeowner is enjoying their victory.

So they are going to meet again on April 10th.

I think they are just going to change the rule to make decorations come down within a reasonable time after holidays and not put restrictions on when we can start.

Homeowner: 1, HOA: 0.

Reddit is sure to get a kick out of this one.

HOAs are designed to keep up property values, but they often end up doing the exact opposite.

This commenter shares their kudos.

In this neighborhood, decorating for the holidays was required.

Many people’s first reaction to hearing about an HOA is expressing gratitude they don’t have one.

If you celebrate enough holidays, the lights never have to come down at all.

Take that, HOA board!

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