Nate Armbruster
Who loves their HOA? I know I do. Being told my grass is too long when I cut it two days ago is always fun because it means I have the privilege of living in a neighborhood that expects me to mow my lawn 7/days week!
Anyway…
HOA revenge is a dish best served cold and these homeowners don’t hold back. After reading these stories I have to side with the homeowners. Too many times, HOA rule enforcers love going full Karen on residents for no real reason other than to be a jerk.
These homeowners found genius ways to get sweet revenge on their HOA without causing harm because technically, they’re not wrong.
1. Sweet HOA Revenge Thanks To The Cops
Usually, before work, I go on about a five-mile walk with my dog. I live in a condo, so I walk about a quarter-mile up the road and walk around in a neighborhood.
About eight months ago while I’m walking, a golf cart with actual lights and sirens pulls up in front of me. This huge old lady gets out and starts yelling before I can even get my headphones out of my ears. Turns out walking dogs isn’t allowed before seven am according to the HOA. I informed her that first of all, I don’t live there, and second of all, the streets were all public, so she couldn’t really do much. She responded by threatening to call the cops and have me arrested. I just told her to do whatever she felt she had to and walked away.
This really p*ssed her off. She started following me in her golf cart with the lights and siren going. This continued for about ten minutes until the cops arrived on the scene. I stopped and talked with them for a bit and explained my side of things… In the end, I had every right to walk my dog at any time of day or night. As for her, though, they tested the siren, which exceeded noise levels for any time before eight am. Then to top it off, she didn’t have it registered for use on public roads, and the tail lights didn’t work. As I looped back around, the golf cart was getting loaded onto a tow truck, and I just kinda laughed the whole way back to my condo.
– dave8814
2. Majority Owner Rules
My mom told me a great story of the vengeance one of her clients enacted after being harassed by a tyrannical HOA. The guy is a surgeon and very wealthy. He bought a piece of property, and the HOA started really messing with him badly, ripping his trees out, fining him large sums of money for infractions that were baseless, and when he would fight them and ask for proof, they would retaliate by screwing with him even more…
The revenge: Being a pretty prestigious surgeon, and having a sh*tload of money, he decided to buy every piece of property that became available in the neighborhood. This plot took over a year of buying property after property… and he would put them in names of different businesses he owned as to not raise suspicion. The HOA didn’t even see it coming.
Then one day, he showed up to an HOA meeting… and said something to the effect of, “Here’s a list of all the properties I now own in this neighborhood, and that makes me the majority owner. I’m disbanding this HOA.” They were stunned, but there was nothing they could do. He defeated them.
– MoarSec
3. Nude HOA Revenge
OH WEE!!!! My good friend had a story.
She and the husband moved into this gated community. She loves having a birdbath in her backyard… and she gardens a lot, so the decoration makes sense. Turns out her HOA figured out that she had said birdbath in her backyard. Apparently birdbath = lawn ornament, which was forbidden. She told them she would remove it. A week later, she gets another message saying that it hasn’t been removed (it hadn’t), and obviously, she and the husband put it together that the HOA is snooping in her backyard.
For a week, she spends her time outside sunbathing in the nude, setting her trap. Sure enough, an HOA narc opens the gate to their backyard and sees her in the nude.
Instant call to the police for privacy violations. The HOA gave up and let her have a birdbath.
She is now on the board of the HOA, and they leave her alone.
4. This Guy Is Playing Chess, Not Checkers
My family lived under the dictatorial regime of an HOA for about a year and a half…
My dad, who is into ham radios, put up a small but hardly visible antenna on the back of the house. The top of it could be seen from the front, but only just the very top. Well, the HOA president told him that he had to take it down. He told them he would (although there was nothing in the bylaws forcing him to do so).
The next day, the antenna is 15 feet taller, as my dad had raised the extension in response. The HOA president put a fine in our mailbox immediately and gave my dad a stern talking-to at our front door.
The following day, the antenna was raised up another 10 feet with an extension added in. At that point, it was clearly visible all over the neighborhood. Another fine showed up in our mailbox, and my dad had to go to another meeting. They threatened to begin eviction proceedings if he didn’t take it down immediately. He acquiesced and agreed to take it down.
The next day the antenna was still there, with my dad on the roof first thing in the morning, waving at the HOA president as he predictably came around to inspect.
In a furious huff, he went to the council, called my dad in, and told him that they would begin eviction proceedings since he was not only violating HOA rules but making a mockery of them. At that point, my dad pulled his ace card and had my uncle’s lawyer come in and explain that where we lived, HOAs could not regulate the use and transmission of ham radios and licensed operators due to their use for emergency communications and transmissions.
My dad knew this all along but just decided to mess with the HOA regardless. He kept his tower, and the HOA caved in on the fines and punishments and realized they couldn’t do anything unless they wanted to take us to court and prove that what my dad had was unreasonable (which it clearly wasn’t).
It’s his favorite story to tell at parties. I still think ham radios are boring, though.
5. Let’s Go Bulldogs
So a while back, I was given a UGA Bulldogs flag and a flagpole to mount it on my porch. Our homeowners’ association (HOA) restrictions say that sports team flags can only be flown on a day in which the team is playing. My intention was to only fly it on Saturdays when the football team was playing.
So I put the flag up on a Saturday the Dawgs were playing, but forgot to take it down until Monday. On Friday, I get a letter from the HOA stating that I am in violation of the restriction and could be fined.
Okay, fair enough, they are correct on this one. I then noticed that the date of observation was on Wednesday. I called and said that couldn’t be true because I took it down on Monday. Instead of admitting her mistake, she lied and said that she had seen it up on Wednesday. Now I was mad.
I printed off a schedule of every sporting event the Bulldogs had in every sport, even club sports, and then proceeded to fly the flag every single day there was any kind of game, match, regatta, etc., which was almost every single day.
I then started getting letters stating I was in violation again. I would call on each one and explain that the water polo team had a match, or the rowing team had a regatta on those days. After about a month or two of this back and forth, they finally gave up.
6. Sweet HOA Revenge
A friend of mine lived in a pretty big neighborhood with a pretty strict HOA. He asked and was allowed to add a garage onto his house and did so, siding it with cedar planks. It looked great. His HOA disagreed and told him the by-laws state all exposed walls must be painted.
He tried to appeal but was shot down unanimously. So he checked the by-laws further and found that while it was stated that all exposed walls must be painted, there was absolutely no mention of any color restrictions.
By the time he was done, each plank was a different primary color, and there was nothing they could do about it. They were furious with him, and he laughed his butt off.
7. Holiday Revenge
My HOA in Oklahoma required that you hire a professional company and spend at least $500 to put up lights at Christmas time. They threatened to fine me when I refused, so, since I’m Jewish, I got a company to put up a huge Star of David in my front yard. They removed the requirement from the HOA rules the next year.
8. Flamingo Flaunting HOA Revenge
So the HOA in my parents’ neighborhood sent my mother a letter to take down her two pink plastic flamingos because “they clashed with the architectural aesthetic” of the neighborhood (upper-middle-class sort of place). My mother formally complied but made game flouting the rules after that.
There were no restrictions in the bylaws against any sort of temporary seasonal decorations. So the flamingos come out for every holiday imaginable, redressed for the season. Flamingo witches and mummies for Halloween, pulling Santa’s sleigh for Christmas, football players for the all-important Clemson/Carolina rivalry game. It has gotten to the point where her flamingo dioramas are a neighborhood institution with people looking forward to them.
On a related note, costumes meant for small dogs fit plastic pink flamingos pretty well.
9. If You Can’t Beat Em, Bankrupt Em
My son kept getting sh*t because he had a ’50s pickup he was working on in his garage that he would move outside during the day and put away at night. The HOA president had the truck towed from his driveway. He got it back, as it was an illegal tow. A few weeks later, the truck was towed again, and the HOA had it crushed (she must have paid extra, they don’t crush a truck in 45 minutes).
He called me and asked to borrow some cash… got ahold of 20 wrecks and had them put on the street all down his cul de sac. He took my torch and tanks and cut every tie-down and hook point he could find just to make it cost more for the tow man. The cost of the tows almost bankrupts the HOA. He moved a few weeks later.
– c3h8pro
10. Flag Revenge
Coworker lived in a very expensive and very high monthly HOA neighborhood. They were born in the Netherlands and had a Dutch flag sticker on their front window, maybe three inches tall. They got a $75 fine in the mail.
Her dad read the rules over extremely well, went out and photographed over 75 US flags, went to the head office, and said he wouldn’t be writing a $75 check until the person writes up all 75 of the following addresses, as there’s no exception for an American flag. They dismissed his fine.
11. Shedding Some Light Via HOA Revenge
My parents built a playhouse for my younger siblings, and our local HOA claimed it was a storage shed and that it was on our neighbor’s property. My dad knew it wasn’t because he had worked with the neighbor to make sure it wasn’t on his property… The HOA’s response was this: “It looks like a shed, so it needs to go away.” So he went home and hatched a plan.
He convinced all the people on our block to build playhouses, or “sheds.” Most people did. The HOA went batsh*t crazy.
12. Satellite Hearse
A neighbor within the HOA had a giant, ugly satellite dish in his backyard. The HOA rules stated that you couldn’t have one of these on your property since it was ugly, and took away from the value of the house. So what does he do? He buys the ugliest hearse he can find, attached the satellite to it, and parks it on the street.
HOA board calls the cops on cars every 24 hours (law is your vehicle has to move every 24 hours or you get a ticket/towed). So to spite them, every day he moves his hearse, with the satellite, to avoid a ticket or getting towed. And they couldn’t do anything about it.
13. Yard Of The Month
Had an HOA who regularly complained about petty things. I did fix them but was super annoyed. I made a sign (very cheaply, white with black text) which said “yard of the month” or something like that because it would annoy them greatly and wasn’t technically against the rules.
Later, they actually made a really nice and expensive official sign “HOA OFFICIAL yard of the month.” (lol, really? I was joking) Nice graphics and a nice metal frame. Really official looking. I noticed it on a walk at night when most people were already inside. I grabbed the sign and moved it to someone else’s yard which was obviously cr*p with lots of weeds, etc. That sign never showed up again.
14. 50 Pink Flamingos
Our neighborhood HOA tried to make us remove the ivy from our house. After combing through the by-laws, there was nothing stating we couldn’t have ivy.
I put my foot down hard and told them if they made me remove my beloved ivy, then I would put 50 pink flamingos in my yard because there was no rule about it.
They left us alone after that.
15. HOA Color Board
I was a kid, and we moved into a subdivision with an HOA. My father was painting the front door a gorgeous burgundy over this ugly puke green, and our neighbor, who we called PoodleHead for her dog and her haircut, comes rushing over to tell him he can’t do that, and all colors must be approved by the HOA color board.
So my father apologized profusely. PoodleHead returned to her domicile. My father began putting everything away. He’d been about halfway through the job, and now our front door was a wonder of half burgundy and half vomit.
PoodleHead trundled back over and told my father he couldn’t leave the door like that, and he said she said he couldn’t paint it, either. So it could stay like this, or she could tell him to keep painting.
The front door color was approved on the spot and was still that color when I drove by the house 10 years later and after two ownership changes. It did really suit the house.
16. Garage Door Flag
A guy across town put up a flagpole. The HOA told him the only flagpole allowed was a small flag hanging at an angle on your porch. He took the pole down. He did some research on his contract and painted his garage door in an American flag pattern.
17. Neon Cover Up
My family had a really nice but old Mercedes Benz parked in our lot. It didn’t run at the time, and we couldn’t afford to fix it up quite yet, so we never renewed the tags on it. Again, it was a really pretty silver car simply parked in our driveway.
A neighbor called the police/HOA and basically anyone else who she could complain to about our car. The town then approached us and said we must cover the car, so we begrudgingly did. But not before painting a bunch of d*cks on the cover in bright neon colors. It was just about the most hideous thing that you could look at.
18. Christmas In Paradise
My friend lives in a homeowner’s association and they have a very strict rule on lawn ornaments and decorations. They have banned pink flamingos on their own (this is important later), and for Christmas, they require the house to have a theme. My friend was looking for a way to screw with them, and I found it for him in the Bahamas.
The theme he chose was Christmas in Paradise. He sold it to the association by saying it would be bright colors to offset the dreary winter we were having. They enthusiastically approved it.
He found some plastic palm trees, borrowed nine of a friend’s pink flamingos, and built a sled for Santa. The flamingos had reindeer antlers, and the one in front had a red nose stuck on. It looked something like this. He also had lights on the house, fake palms, and a sign that said Christmas in Paradise.
The HOA couldn’t do anything because I had found a painting in the Bahamas that inspired the whole setup and bought it for the friend with the flamingo collection, and it fit in with his theme.
19. “FU” HOA
My mom was always arguing with HOA, and once spelled out “FU” on the lawn in bricks and left it there until they gave her what she wanted.
20. Lead Foot
While I was helping my buddy move stuff out of his house to a new house, my mom called me saying there was a family emergency with my father and I needed to come home right away… I drive home as fast as possible without getting pulled over.
My neighborhood has a 25-mph speed limit. We live in a pretty diverse neighborhood, so quite a few people don’t pay attention to it. Well, as I’m pulling 30-mph going up my street, I spot one of the HOA enforcers standing on her lawn and sprint into the middle of the street at the last minute. I slam on the brakes, and she runs up to me screaming about how dangerous it is to drive that fast and how I need to slow down because there are children (children are usually inside or monitored by parents when they’re outside) and what I could have done.
I simply gaped at her and said, “Normally, I’d expect a stupid child to run into the street without looking first. Guess I was right.”
– EBeast99
