His Annoying Neighbor Reported Every Minor HOA Slip-Up—Until He Noticed the Rules She Was Violating Herself
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When you live in an HOA, you better know the rules. If you don’t and if you break one of the rules, an HOA member will be all to happy to inform you of the problem and/or fine you for violating the rules.
In this story, one man has the displeasure of living across the street from a woman who’s on the HOA board. She is all too happy to let him know any time she sees him breaking a rule.
Eventually, he’s ready to move, but first, he has the perfect opportunity to get even with the annoying HOA lady.
Let’s read all about it.
HOA lady has to follow rules eventually
I bought my first house in 1999, and I wanted DirecTV. I put up a satellite dish, which happened to be behind a privacy fence.
I also knew the FCC ruling that HOA’s couldn’t prevent you from putting up a dish due to some malfeasance with home builders who would make shady deals with cable companies to force homeowners to go with a specific company (I think that’s right).
I figured I wouldn’t have any issues since it was behind a fence anyway.
But a neighbor complained almost immediately.
I got a knock at my door the next day, and it was my neighbor from across the cul-de-sac, telling me she’s on the board of the HOA. “Your dish is in violation, and must be removed.”
This was my first encounter with her.
I politely explained the law as I knew it, and told her to have a nice day.
We didn’t speak again, and she ended up moving out soon.
No, she didn’t actually move. That would’ve been too good to be true.
Well, it turns out she didn’t move out and was just renting to some other lady I never spoke to, and the HOA lady moved back in a year later.
There was an easement behind my house which was properly mowed when I moved in. I would hit golf balls down there with my wedge, and my neighbor was into archery and used it as his range.
By the second summer I lived there, it was overgrown and an eyesore. I couldn’t even see the creek just behind my house anymore.
He did a lot of work to make the easement less of an eyesore.
One weekend, I borrowed my dad’s utility trailer, and I spent 3 days clearing out our little section behind the houses, hauling all of the debris away (probably 2 trips a day).
My arms were covered in cuts from briars, and apparently I was also dealing with sumac, poison ivy, or some other stuff because by Monday, I was having an allergic reaction so badly that I went to the doc to get a steroid shot.
Laid up in the house all day, and I get a knock at the door. It’s the neighbor woman again. Apparently there’s a rule that you cannot store a trailer in the driveway for more than 3 days, and this was day 4. I needed to remove it by the end of the day or face a $500 fine.
She handed me a paper listing the rule, and I considered just paying the fine, but instead I angrily drove an hour each way to return my dad’s trailer after spending half the day already waiting in a hospital lobby.
OP was a little confused by the rules.
I got home after dark.
What struck me as odd was there was a list of things you couldn’t store in your driveway: personal watercraft, boats, trailers, etc.
The odd part was that motorcycle was listed on there.
I don’t ride one myself, but I thought it was a totally reasonable thing to keep in a driveway.
Eventually, OP realized the annoying neighbor lady was violating the HOA rules.
After I finished all of this work, this woman would routinely walk through my yard without asking, but since she was taking her grandkid to play in the creek, I never said anything even though it bothered me she never asked.
A year or so later, I wanted to sell the house and move into something bigger. I had talked to a realtor already, and I was getting things tidied up to have the house shown.
As I was cleaning out a drawer, I noticed that paper the HOA lady had given me, and I remembered the part about motorcycles being listed.
You see, the HOA lady had started dating an older gentleman, and he had moved in with her. Turns out he rode a Harley which was always parked in her driveway.
This is funny!
She was home, so I walked over there and politely informed her about the violation.
The next day, the motorcycle was parked on her back porch, the one she bragged about to everyone who would listen so she could tell them how much it cost.
I laughed to myself, but then I remembered the part about it needing to be behind a fence.
Another knock at the door, and within a few days, a fence company was building a 6 foot privacy fence which completely hid her fancy new deck.
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OP was finally ready to sell.
My realtor had been on my case for at least a week about needing to put up a “for sale” sign, so as soon as the fence was finished, I told her it was OK.
I sold the house quickly and moved out at the end of the month.
Oh and by the way, the fence was completely hideous and looked out of place because of the way her lot was shaped.
That’s awesome! There’s nothing like turning the tables on an annoying neighbor.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This is a good question.
Another person rants about HOAs.
This person loved the story.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a neighbor who documented times of noise spikes and turned their neighbor into a model tenant.
Someone who used to be on the HOA board weighs in.
Following the rules goes both ways. She was all too happy to call out her neighbor on the very minor rule he violated. If she hadn’t done that, he probably wouldn’t have said anything about the motorcycle.
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