Imagine living in a house that is right next to an HOA neighborhood, but you are not part of the HOA. What would you do if the HOA tried to get you to cut down one of your trees? Would you comply, or would you remind them that you are not part of the HOA?

In this story, one family is in this exact situation, and they do not remove their tree. It’s ironic because they actually offered to pay HOA dues so their kids could use the community amenities, but they were told no. So, if they can’t benefit from the perks of being part of the HOA, they were definitely not going to do anything the HOA asked them to do.

Years go by, and one day the tree the HOA doesn’t like becomes a victim in the story. It’s sad, but the homeowner uses it as an opportunity to get revenge, ugly revenge.

If they didn’t like the tree before, just wait!

Let’s read all about it.

My tree was cut by an HOA I didn’t belong to, so I lit that sucker up.

This happened about ten years ago

My house is the first house in the neighborhood behind mine. I am on the corner.

The street on the side of my home is the HOA neighborhood, but my front yard is on a different street that isn’t part of the HOA.

When I moved I asked them if I could pay their HOA fees to let my kids use the pool and playground directly across the street. Nope.

They can’t tell her what to do if she’s not in the HOA.

I planted a mulberry tree on the corner of my property and started getting visits from their HOA saying that my branches were too low to the ground and it violated their HOA.

I told them if I was in the HOA you’d see my kids swimming in the pool. Since they didn’t, they would have to deal with my tree.

My kids love that tree, and still come in Spring to gather berries, even though they are in now their 20’s

How awful!

Then one day I come home and someone had lopped off a big branch from the tree, one that went out to the street.

I tried to find out who did it, but they kept mum about it and there wasn’t anyone I could go after.

SO, I rebuilt the branch using PVC, and wrapped it in bright Christmas lights (It was May), and then wrapped the rest of the tree for good measure.

It was intentionally ugly revenge.

I did it ugly too, it was propped up with old branches I found in the woods and some rope, and just looked awful.

I kept those lights on all the way until just before Christmas, when I took them down.

They sent me some letters, but they just went into the trash.

The HOA couldn’t do anything about it.

The HOA members who came to my house to ask me to bring them down since it was the gateway to their neighborhood and that I was ‘probably’ affecting property values were told to back off.

They never did mess with the lights, though. I guess they were worried about what I would pull next.

I went and looked at my FB and found a pic I took. it doesn’t have all the lights, but it shows most of the awful glory.

You can see the wound on the tree about a foot above the fake branch.

It’s too bad OP didn’t have a security camera that wouldn’t caught who cut off the branch. I wonder if it was the HOA.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about neighbors who can’t get along because of a totally legal gate.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Here’s how another person got revenge on the HOA.

This person would’ve asked more questions.

Tree laws are no joke.

Another person liked the revenge.

It’s so sad when someone cuts down a tree that they don’t have the right to cut down. I really do wish the homeowner had a security camera to be able to see who cut the tree.

The HOA in this story was particularly annoying because they seemed to want the homeowner to do what they said without actually being a part of the HOA. I’m kind of surprised they turned down the offer to let the family pay HOA dues so the kids could use the pool.

The mulberry tree was an innocent victim.