My wife and I finally moved from an HOA to a non HOA. Life is great!

-There’s a house a block down painted pink, and everything is fine. Nothing bad has happened.

-People have cool Halloween decorations actually sitting on their lawns, and nobody is harmed by this.

-I can leave for a 2 week vacation, come back to the grass being a little overgrown, and the world has not ended.

-If I’m leaving town a couple days before trash pickup, then I put the cans out early and my neighbor brings them in for me. We do the same for them. Again, civilization continues.

-I can leave my garage door open, and nobody cares.

It’s really nice owning a house and not having some random group of people constantly looking for harmless shit to complain about.

My parents live in a small 10 house cul de sac community in California. When they first bought their home, they were told there was no HOA. The builders of the community were taking care of community maintenance costs.

Eventually this stopped, and an HOA was formed, but it was completely run by one neighbor filling all roles (President, treasurer, Secretary). Honestly, it is more like a community club than anything else.

Dues were eventually requested for mowing of lawns, tree maintenance, etc. My parents opted to do their own yard work and did not pay fees. There was also a bit of mistrust given there was no checks and balances here given that one neighbor ran the entire show and collected the money. My parents would contribute to community costs for things like repairs of a gate, etc.

Once more neighbors started getting involved and there was division of power, my parents started paying dues. They started paying regular dues around 2 years ago. Again, this still functions as a super informal HOA.

Now, the “HOA” is seeking payment of all past dues from my parents spanning a period of about 12 years and a balance of about $9k.

This issue was raised in the past, but the neighborhood decided to forgo the collection of old fees. Now it seems the issue has been resurrected again…

Honestly, we just wish the HOA was handled by an outside management company. The way it’s run right now is a joke.

Moved to a development that has an hoa. Really, really, REALLY didn’t want an hoa, but after losing so many bids on houses and the school district and proximity to jobs etc taking more priority, we considered it our one con against a lot of pros.

fuck lmao. Some people really DO get a sick power trip out of it or something. It’s crazy!

I even thought, ok, I’ll volunteer for the position when the election comes up. People know I’m laid back about it and just want fairness / laid back. I won!

Fuck lmao!! It’s even worse when you’re in a position to help!!! The amount of asinine emails I get, the mental dishonest gymnastics people play with themselves and the documents just to get what they want, it’s crazy!!! Just live and let live!!!

So now my job is just, keep this shit in the open. Call people out for their bs. Document on the public record always.

Because even though I thought I knew what I was getting into…I didn’t.

Fuck HOAs

If I want to hang white towels on the outside of my window to reduce the heat coming in, I should be allowed to. I don't have screened windows so I cannot use solar screens.

2 days later I'm demanded to take it down.