Amanda the Great by Amanda El-Dweek for June 27, 2023

John Oliver did an in-depth report on how awful homeowner associations are. Shudder.

When we bought a house a couple years ago, no HOA was our #1 thing. Although one neighbor thinks he runs an HOA and complains and gossips to everyone about everyone else. He hates that the people on the other side of us put in a pool and a fence. “What an eyesore for you to live next to! And why the fence? I like to be able to see into everyone’s backyards and see what they’re doing!”

I feel anything done to sabotage a HOA is a righteous act.

The Fence of Babel?

The HOA may have objections with the cartoons you paint on the fence.

Every H.O.A. is a P.I.T.A.!

Yeah, we tried that and our HOA & their covenantal architecture committee made us take it down. Confound them!

I see absolutely no redeeming qualities for having an HOA. Variety and individualism are wonderful, IMHO.

No way I could live with an HOA. I have no qualms about telling people to go blank themselves.

Amen, Amanda!

Bah ha ha ha ha!

HOAs are petty tyrannies perfectly suited to be run by those busybodies who want to tell everyone what to do but don’t reach the low bar to get into politics.

HOA can go away!

Harassing Owners Association (HOA)

Just as Matt wrote it! But wait, who is my neighbor?

HOAs basically convert homes into apartments/condos with the imposition of their “rules”. When looking to buy a home always avoid any development that has an HOA if you can. If you really want that house, make sure that your decorating plans/ideas for the interior and backyard can be implemented. Some friends looking to buy in an HOA dictated development where every house has a flagpole bracket and everybody flies flags for seasons and holidays did not buy because they could not fly a Pride flag to honour their daughter. They found a better place. The HOA emailed them for several months inquiring why they backed out and would not/could not understand why a simple matter like not allowing Pride flag would cause such behaviour

It’s easier to ‘love thy neighbor’ if they aren’t up in your business.

Everybody is against HOA rules until someone puts an orange, 40-foot-tall, metal dinosaur in their front yard next door to you and your property value goes Jurassic.

“Good fences make good neighbors.”

There’s the true story of an HOA in the Denver area that fined a resident $35,000 for not putting their trash can away. It was an “offense” that extended for some months, but the fine was the very first communication the HOA had with the resident.

Ever since I first heard of HOAs, I’ve wondered why anyone who wants to live like that doesn’t just move to a country where the government will tell them how to live down to the minutest detail. Same difference, they just wouldn’t be polluting the whole concept of personal liberty in America.

When you can’t even have a clothesline, that’s going too far. Apparently, sun-kissed bedsheets are a nuisance.

I also know someone who has to pay a maintenance fee for a lake that she’s not even allowed to use, unless she pays a for a membership on top of the REQUIRED maintenance fee. Scam on top of scam!

I forgot… the same someone I know had to have her house re-painted because the HOA claimed that her beige earth-tone home had too much “red” in the paint and wasn’t beige enough.

I’d never want to live in a purple house, but I’d rather live in a place where no one can tell me that I can’t live in a purple house with an orange door and green shutters.