July 30, 2024 at 5:22 am

Overzealous HOA Wouldn’t Leave His Family Alone, So He Got Revenge And Cost Them $10k And An IRS Investigation

by Matthew Gilligan

Source: Reddit/Petty Revenge

Here we go again

It’s yet another story about HOA members who just can’t mind their own business and took things WAY too far.

But this guy had enough and he decided to take things into his own hands.

Read on and get all the details below!

HOA Revenge.

“My family and I used to live in a fairly upper-middle class neighborhood that had an HOA.

The HOA seemed pretty mellow and dedicated to their original purpose and intent: maintaining property values.

Things started to change…

As these things usually happen, a few new people got voted in, things started getting a bit more OCD and militant.

Here are a few examples:

We had to throw away our basketball hoop because the backboard was opaque and the new requirement was glass backboards only.

We got a ticket because my dad forgot Monday was memorial day and put the trash out.

Of course, trash collection had been pushed back to Tuesday, so we got a fine for having the trash can out overnight.

We went on vacation for a week and the grass got a bit longer than usual, but nothing unreasonable.

Got threatening letters and a fine.

We weren’t allowed to have cars parked on the street, for any reason.

Come on!

My biggest pet peeve was that anyone under 18 had to be accompanied to the pool by their parent.

My 17 year old self wasn’t too fond of having to get my mom to come bake in the sun any time I wanted to go for a swim.

Nor was she.

I was on an Navy JROTC field trip to a Naval base, that I will leave unnamed for Anonymity reasons, and stumbled upon what I still regard to be one of my greatest ideas.

I was in the Navy Exchange (basically Wal-Mart for Navy personnel) looking at some of their surplus stuff when I came across an ejection seat dye marker.

These are those very powerful dye markers that are attached to ejection seats so that in the event of a water landing after ejection, the pilot can be found easily, floating in the middle of a huge patch of green-dyed water.

Let’s see how they like this.

So I bought it for $8 (a bargain at any price) and took it home.

One night, after the HOA instituted (unenforceable) 10PM curfew for adolescents under 18, I took a little stroll over to the pool and tossed that bad-larry on in.

Much to my delight (and nervous horror) it worked exactly as designed. The whole pool was neon green in a matter of a minute or two. Of course, I got the hell out of Dodge.

The next day, as I drove past on my way home from school, I noticed that the pool was empty, but still looked very very green.

In the ensuing weeks, I came to find out that the pool had to be drained (660,000 gallons of water) and a professional power-washing company had to be brought in to clean the pool basin concrete, which had absorbed the die.

That wasn’t cheap!

Then the pool had to be refilled and re-treated with all of the relevant chemicals. All told, I think it cost ~$10,000 to the HOA.

Two years later, the HOA President was busted by the IRS and arrested for embezzling $70k worth of HOA funds.

He went to the big house for a couple of years.

And before anyone tears into me for wasting water, this was in the south, not California.

We have more water than we want down here.”

Here’s what people said on Reddit.

This person spoke up.

Source: Reddit/Petty Revenge

Another reader chimed in.

Source: Reddit/Petty Revenge

This individual shared their thoughts.

Source: Reddit/Petty Revenge

Another person didn’t quite get it…

Source: Reddit/Petty Revenge

And this person didn’t like this story.

Source: Reddit/Petty Revenge

HOAs…there’s no escape from their madness!

Or Reddit’s judgment, apparently.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.