Imagine deciding to build a house in a fairly rural neighborhood where there are farms nearby. Would you consult the HOA bylaws before making any changes to your property, or would you simply assume you knew what you could and could not do based on the contract you signed when you bought the property?

In this story, one couple is in this situation, but they didn’t actually receive a copy of the HOA bylaws until after they received a notice from the HOA that they had violated a bylaw!

It was a very frustrating situation that involved a busybody neighbor and chickens. Let’s read all about it.

Neighbor used HOA against me. Two can play that game.

Roughly 6 years ago, my wife and I decided to move (pre-covid times when everything was cheap still). Long story short there, we couldn’t find any pre-existing houses that we really liked but did find the neighborhood where we currently live and built a house with the developer.

As people do, we drove by every so often to look at the progress they were making on the house.

One night we stopped and went out to look at the hole in the ground, as they had just gotten ready to pour the concrete for the basement walls.

They met one of the neighbors.

Here comes SS, acting like a concerned neighbor because “materials have been getting stolen.”

We explained that we’d be the new neighbors and had a brief conversation where he commented that he and another neighbor are the “unofficial neighborhood watch.” Missed that red flag at that moment, but we left feeling warm and fuzzy because the neighbors looked after each other.

Unbeknownst to us, SS is really just an overactive nosy nellie and really just looking for ways to screw with people.

SS has a lot of unlikeable qualities.

A bit of foreshadowing now, some things that he has done to other neighbors are letting his dog make desposits wherever she wants without cleaning it up, looking through neighbors’ trash cans, asking about a neighbors’ doorbell camera (how far it can pick stuff up, etc. I know I’m being a bit nit picky here, but it tracks for him).

We also found out later that he’s a drunk and he’ll proudly proclaim/brag about how he beat his DUI that he got after a heated argument with his wife.

He’s also a scavenger/scrapper, so who’s really stealing those materials, Steve…

He decided he wanted chickens.

One day I decided that I want to start being a bit more self sufficient and picked up some chickens to raise for eggs.

Now I’m really not that guy that wants to be annoying to my neighbors, but even then, the area that we live in is surrounded by farms and is “farm themed.”

I did my due diligence and checked town ordinances and the HOA guidelines that we were given and found no rules or ordinances against having chickens/poultry on your property.

He checked the HOA contract.

Backtracking slightly, when we signed our contract AND went to settlement, we only received a one-page flyer that went over some basic items restricted by the HOA. No grilling in the front yard, no permanent basketball hoops in the street, no boats/rv’s on a permanent basis, etc.

There was no mention of anything about the types of animals you can or cannot have.

So, working on the idea that I am in the clear, I buy some chicks and begin raising them.

He had an idea.

I decided that, since I had a kennel at my old house (we rented from my in-laws for a couple years until we were ready to move) I’d go pick that up and set it up around my coop for the chickens to have some free roaming space.

The kennel had four fence pieces that I could move on my own, but they were heavy, so I backed my truck up to my fence where the kennel was going to go in the back yard and start heaving them over.

SS sees me doing this and offers to lend a hand with getting them over the fence, so sure, why not?

He asks why I need a dog kennel if I have a fence, to which I inform him it’s not for my dogs and for the chickens.

SS wasn’t sure chickens were allowed.

I should have known that he was going to cause issues from here, because the next thing he asks is “your HOA allows chickens?” It was phrased that way because he had lived there when the first developer of that neighborhood owned it, but they went bankrupt, and my developer took over. It’s the same HOA, but we didn’t know that at the time.

Anyway, I told him that I didn’t see anything in the paperwork provided to me regarding chickens and that was that.

Until the next day… SS comes over with a loaf of bread from his mother’s bakery that he occasionally helps at and is making small talk when he brings up the chickens again. This time he’s only talking to my wife about it, but he again brings up that his HOA doesn’t allow it and he was bummed about that.

That’s where the story should have ended.

Apparently, the HOA doesn’t allow chickens.

Maybe about a week later or so, I got a letter from the HOA. “It has come to our attention that you have chickens on your property. Per bylaw “X” that is not allowed and you have 30 days to remove them from your property.”

I was perplexed, how on earth did they find out about them, and why was I not provided with a copy of the HOA bylaws when I signed the contract for my house?

The day after receiving the letter, my wife and I are on our way home from some errands when another neighbor that we’re friendly with flags us down and tells us, “I don’t know if you know, but SS went to up to your fence as was taking pictures of your backyard.”

For context, there was an empty lot between SS’s house and ours, but that finally clicked for us. SS freaking reported us to the HOA!

Time to look at the bylaws.

Me being me, I’m not going to take this sitting down, I’m going to fight this. Some BS HOA (which is the developer’s “maintenance corporation”) isn’t going to tell me what I can or can’t do on my property! (spoiler alert, they did indeed tell me what I couldn’t do).

Through a bunch of back and forth with the HOA, I get a copy of the bylaws and I start picking through them with a fine-tooth comb.

I found out that someone had sent in 7 pages worth of pictures of all the infractions of the HOA rules, including the picture of my coop.

I should also mention that I was in hot water with the HOA when I had our fence installed because it wasn’t a split rail fence with chicken wire, so it didn’t match the aesthetic the “developer wanted for the neighborhood.”

What a rebel!

They never said another thing about it though, and I ended up being the catalyst for everyone else doing whatever they wanted with fences.

Also, since I’m being petty, literally any fence that is white vinyl is technically against the HOA bylaws, as it states that they can only be split rail, a maximum of 5 feet, and made of wood.

But here’s finally where the petty revenge comes in.

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Two can play that game.

You see, SS has an area of his backyard that is blocked off by some wood privacy fencing that is NOT split rail and much taller than the 5-foot maximum.

Oh, and there’s some unsightly plant growth that is outside the HOA guidelines regarding the plants you can have on your property? Well, I think it’s high time the HOA hears about these gross infractions of their bylaws, seeing as how we’re all trying to do the right thing and follow the rules.

So, I snapped a couple pictures of the privacy fence, the eyesore plants, and the static line he has for his dog in the front yard.

I felt a little bad for the dog initially, but he’d leave her out for hours and she’d run into the street at cars driving by, since the static line was long enough for her to get her whole body past the curb. I can’t tell you how many almost heart attacks I had because I thought I was about to run over a dog.

Here’s how the story ended.

Well, I can tell you that probably about a week or so later, SS got his nastygram from the HOA informing him that he needed to move the static line and remove the privacy fence because I watched with absolute glee as he removed his privacy fence.

PS. If you’re wondering, we did initially move the chickens to our friend’s farm that was right across the street from our neighborhood, but I have since moved the chickens back to my house since I lost a couple to a fox that was living in the woods behind his property.

This story is another reason why I don’t like HOAs.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a family living outside the HOA who refuse to remove their tree or lights despite their neighbors hating them.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

HOAs really are awful.

Another person shares why the HOA is mad at them.

This person put up a fence.

Another person knows to avoid HOAs.

An HOA is a dealbreaker for me too. When looking for a house, we didn’t even consider anything in an HOA. It’s not even about the money you pay for dues. It’s about the annoying rules. If I want to paint my house or put up a fence, I don’t want to have to check with the HOA first.

While some HOAs can seem nice at first if they include lots of features for the community, like extra security in a gated community or a neighborhood pool and clubhouse, it’s not worth it. The rules are going to be annoying. The people who enjoy rules are going to be extra annoying and report you to the HOA. It’s not worth it.

The biggest problem here was that the homeowners didn’t get a copy of the HOA bylaws when they bought the house. How would you know you’re breaking the rules if you don’t know the rules? HOAs are awful.