HOA boards are supposed to help keep neighborhoods orderly, but usually they just end up attracting all kinds of power hungry people.

So when one ex-military homeowner raising a service dog crossed paths with a particularly loud HOA enforcer, her excessive complaints soon drove him over the edge.

Before long, it became clear he had been training all his life to take this HOA down once and for all.

Keep reading for the full story.

HOA Yells at me for training guide dog, and grilling. Then loses position on board.

I volunteer to train and raise service dogs.

My fiancée says clearly I have a look that says I am weak and a pushover.

I have constant encounters with Karens who are just not ready for my responses when they engage me.

The reality of his demeanor is much different.

I have been in the military for 17 years when this happened, and I was responsible for managing over 130 service members.

I am anything but a pushover.

I work with civilians, so I have cultivated a polite exterior because I was counseled for looking unapproachable and scary to civilian counterparts.

Now he introduces his dog.

The story: as I said, I raise service animals, so I fall under the ADA when it comes to regulations on where and what I can do with my puppy.

We’ll call him O.

O is an amazingly well-behaved black lab of six months.

He prides himself on how well he has trained O.

I have cultivated a level of trust and obedience where I can leave him in a sit with other dogs around. So long as I am in eyesight, he will stay.

I had raised a few pups by then, and I would never have done that with them, but O is amazing.

I can’t wait to get him back after his tour of duty helping Mrs. C be independent.

In comes in the HOA.

I met the HOA Karen one Saturday.

My fiancée, O, and I were heading on a road trip to visit my fiancée’s parents.

In our preparation, the last thing on the list is always getting the kids to use the bathroom before a long trip.

So we head out, O gets busy, and I grab a bag to clean it up.

Being good dog owner that he is, he does exactly what he’s supposed to do.

I put him in a sit-stay and hand the leash to my girl.

I start walking to the trash can.

It’s about 100 feet from where he went.

I have a clear line of sight to the dog, and he is sitting pretty and alert, watching me intently for a hand cue or voice command.

But someone nearby completely misconstrues his actions.

As I am walking, I hear a womanly screech.

I don’t quite make it out, but it sounds angry.

I ignore it and keep walking to the dumpster, deposit my waste bag, and turn around to head back to my two favorite people.

Turns out, he knows this person.

It is then I make eye contact with the HOA Karen—Karen from here on out.

She is your typical Karen, not an inch over five feet and about the same circumference.

The short chopped hair that says, “I’m the manager now.”

This Karen has quite a bit to say.

She looks me in the eyes, and I finally listen to her shrill scream of, “Your dog must be on a leash and in your hand. My county state law says so. I will call the cops.”

Now I don’t do ignorant, and respect given is respect earned.

I was willing to try to de-escalate.

Karen seems way more interested in yelling and making a scene than actually having a civil discussion.

My fiancée owns the condo and is super non-confrontational, so for her I try to bring it back down to civil levels of discussion.

In a polite but firm voice, I asked if she even looked over at the dog before she started yelling at me.

She just bellows like a banshee again.

I repeat the question.

This back and forth happens three or four times, me calm and her escalating in pitch and volume.

At this point she hasn’t given respect, so none is required to be given back.

Finally, he looses his patience.

I break out my “you done messed up” NCO-to-junior voice.

It is loud, firm, and clearly states I’m done with your nonsense, lady.

I clearly tell her that if she would have taken two seconds to look, she would see the dog is sitting on a leash in someone’s hands.

Finally, Karen realizes her error, but of course, refuses to fess up to it.

She stops bellowing at me, looks, and turns a bit red in the face.

Then she musters, “You could just say thank you.”

To which I curtly reply, “Shut the heck up and get out of my face.”

She waddled quickly off, tail tucked into her condo door.

But this isn’t the last he saw of this particular Karen.

My next meeting with her was when I was grilling.

The HOA states no charcoal grills and no smoking or BBQ.

I was born in the north, but as a military brat moved to the south when I was two.

There is a difference between BBQing and grilling. BBQ is twelve-plus hours with coals of hardwood or wood smoking. Grilling is cooking meat on a grill instead of the stove.

So when HOA banned BBQing, he thought he was still in the clear for grilling.

The HOA put out a reminder: no BBQing on the premises and no coals.

So I was like, awesome—get a small propane grill.

It’s not BBQ, but it’s better than nothing.

But that’s when Karen decided to throw her weight around yet again.

So I was out grilling and I hear the banshee cry all too familiar now.

Again, she didn’t come up to me and talk.

She just started screaming.

This time, he didn’t even try to keep it civil.

So I looked her right in the eye and, with the same firm voice, said, “Shut the heck up and go away. If you say one more word I’ll be the one calling the cops for harassment by an HOA member.”

She sputtered something about no grilling or open flames.

I told her to back off and show me in writing by someone other than her.

She waddled off.

Eventually, the rest of the HOA did get involved.

Then I was approached by the HOA president with the HOA bylaws and sat to read them.

During this, my fiancée started a conversation with them about another issue we were having with them.

She was in the middle of having the state attorney’s office ask some questions about activities they were trying to force her into paying for.

It wasn’t going well for the HOA, and she took this opportunity to introduce herself.

His fiancé can be quite persuasive when she needs to be.

While she may be non-confrontational when it comes to small things, she will stand up for herself when it comes to it.

Her introducing herself changed everyone’s tone, and they became oh-so polite.

Karen, of course, couldn’t possibly be to blame for anything.

Karen tried to play the victim to her and say I was mean and could use some manners when engaging with people.

I love my soon-to-be wife.

She let her paint her tale about how she was a victim.

But his fiancé wasn’t going to let this nonsense slide.

When she finished, my fiancée looked her dead in the eyes and said, “You know I was the one holding the leash, and I was standing right here when he was grilling. So no, you got the same respect you gave.”

She paled and faded to the back.

The HOA president soon took Karen’s side and ordered him to get rid of the grill.

That’s when the president of the HOA stepped in and told me I can’t have the grill and that I could be fined.

He said I needed to follow the rules of the HOA or the next time he’d be the one calling the cops.

Well, Pres—Roger that.

But this homeowner was about to pour over that rulebook like no one’s business.

It is my job to enforce regulations in the military.

I spend hours reading instructions.

Nothing pleases me more than when I can shove the black and white in an jerk’s face at work to get my guys what they are owed or to force them to do the job right.

So you want me to follow the rules? Copy that, buddy.

So I began my research.

He soon found something that just might help.

I found a few interesting things.

No HOA bylaw can be enforced if it is not in the state database.

This particular HOA’s bylaws were last updated in 1994. It was 2016.

They state they follow my county’s fire code, which follows NFPA.

He then discovered something even more valuable.

Finally the gem—the exact latitude and longitude coordinates of the HOA’s property lines.

So I get a login for the state’s database and print the HOA’s bylaws.

I print the NFPA, which states in a multi-family home you can store propane tanks no bigger than 2.7 liters but they can total no more than 5.4 liters cumulatively.

He’s prepared to see this through until the bitter end.

I go to Lowe’s and get rope, a tape measure, and stakes.

I pull up Google Maps and mark the HOA boundary line on it.

Lo and behold, what do I find?

Bingo!

A drainage ditch that is city property not ten feet from where I was grilling.

So I take my coordinates and my stakes and carefully mark off the section of city property.

Now for the revenge.

He’s going to make sure the HOA pays for how they’ve treated him and his fiancé.

I call the city and county fire departments and request a permit to grill on said city property.

They said go for it—I didn’t need a permit and no one would care. I insisted.

They said it’s my 50 bucks.

So with both permits it was 100 bucks, but I got permission from the city to grill there for six months.

He continues with the execution of his revenge.

The next day at 0700 I went to set up.

I carefully measured so I was at least three feet into the city property.

I set up my cooler with enough meat and beer to grill till doomsday.

Then I waited for the fireworks.

Then, as if right on queue, Karen came barrelling in.

It didn’t take long for Karen to come screaming at me.

I mean, I was ten feet from the community pool and three feet from the sidewalk gazebo that led to the pool.

I just hit record on my phone and politely told her she had no need to yell and I was breaking no laws.

Karen hadn’t caught on to what he was doing yet.

She kept screaming about no grilling and how she was tired of me and was going to get me arrested and kicked out if it was the last thing she did.

She hadn’t liked me since she first saw me and had just been waiting to get me kicked out.

Now that she knew which condo was mine, it was just a matter of time until she found something.

On and on she went.

I guess me being polite and showing zero fear was ticking her off.

The Karen got even more drastic.

She tried to come take my stuff.

Big no-no.

As she reached for my cooler, I broke out my NCO voice and told her if she so much as brushed a finger against my property I would remove the offending body part with force if necessary.

This sent her scurrying off again.

Soon the police get involved.

About twenty minutes later I see two cop cars pull up and Mr. HOA president himself.

He is all chummy with the cops.

As they approach I hear him say, “Yep, same guy. I already told him once before he can’t grill on HOA grounds.”

He comes to a stop about ten feet from me.

One cop stays with him. The other keeps walking up to me.

But this isn’t going to end the way the HOA thinks it will.

I have a big grin on my face.

I can hardly wait for the conversation to happen.

The cop is slightly put off by my joyous face and slight giggle when I ask what seems to be the problem, officer.

The cop regurgitates all the same crap from the HOA.

I get informed that I am in violation of the bylaws and have been warned once already.

I am going to receive a ticket for disturbing the peace for threatening the HOA when they were trying to enforce the rules.

A ticket for an illegal open flame.

A ticket for illegal storage of flammable substances.

On and on.

The last warning was that if I didn’t pack up I would be arrested and removed.

That’s when the homeowner decided to show everyone who was really in charge.

Now that he was done, I first handed him my permit from the city to grill.

He took it, walked back to the president, and they discussed it for a moment.

Then he returned and said I can’t get a permit from the city to grill on private property.

But this homeowner wasn’t done.

I then showed him the coordinates for the HOA and the Google Maps gridded drawing and my current GPS location.

Mind you, I am smiling and handing sheet after sheet to him because the grid was not all on one sheet and had addendums.

It took about four minutes to explain it to him.

The cop is clearly off-put by this.

As I was about to hand him more, he held up a hand to stop me.

He then asked how long I had planned this with a smirk.

I told him, “Oh, about a week.”

He gave me a look of disbelief but moved on.

The homeowner had gathered enough evidence to pretty much clear his name entirely.

He then asked me if I threatened Karen.

I just played back the recording to him.

At the end he said nothing seemed out of place and that I was free to go.

But this homeowner had a complaint or two of his own to file.

I stopped him and asked if I could file a complaint for HOA harassment through him.

He said no, that the city clerk’s office is the correct place. But he would document harassment by the two of them and file the report for me.

If the HOA was found guilty, it would come with some pretty big consequences.

In my state, it’s illegal to be harassed by the HOA.

It comes with a few months in jail, fines as high as 5k, immediate removal from the board, and the possibility of recovery of damages.

I settled for them both being removed from the board instead of filing a complaint.

I waved to Karen every day I grilled or showed her my leash if I had O.

This Karen was a force to be reckoned with, but it was no match for his determination.

What did Reddit make of all this?

HOAs really shouldn’t be a thing.

If you don’t stand up to a Karen, they’ll just walk all over you.

This user really resonated with this story.

This commenter shares well wishes for this homeowner.

The HOA tried to play rule enforcer, but they didn’t expect such a thorough rule reader.

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