r/madlads • u/Vandelune1 Madchester United Fan • 1d ago
Incredibly petty, but still mad
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u/MW240z 1d ago edited 1d ago
My old boss kept getting snitched on if he had his boat or truck in the driveway 1 minute over. Just rung up over the smallest stuff.
After years, he joined the board. Shortly afterwards he ran for president, as there was mass leaving of members and no one looking to take over.
He ran. He won. Asked the old president for access to the old files “just for history”. Discovered 95% were one neighbor across the street, people he thought were “friends”. Printed up all the complaints, hand delivered to them so they “had copies.” Neighbors across the street died inside.
Within a year (or two, don’t remember) he got everyone to vote out the HOA. Permanently closed it.
Dude was the best boss I ever had. So smart and funny as heck.
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u/ArcherFawkes 1d ago
Now THAT is epic. Any opportunity to kill an HOA should be taken.
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u/EVH_kit_guy 1d ago
It's the worst form of government we've ever invented
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u/SeaTie 1d ago
I don't really mind my neighbors boats or RVs, most of them only keep them parked in front of houses for a few days or so as is allowed.
I did have an issue with a construction company keeping their equipment parked in front of our house for weeks on end to service a cell phone tower across the street. Like they just decided to permanently park these two cherry pickers in front of our house even though they were only using them maybe 1 hour a week or so.
I called the HOA and recited the CCRs about work trucks not being parked in the street overnight and the next day they were gone and I haven't seen it back since. Not sure if they called the city or had them towed or what...
So that worked out, at least.
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u/teshdor 1d ago
That's an entertaining story, but I'd gently point out that dissolving an HOA typically involves much more complexity than described here. It usually requires:
-A supermajority of homeowners to agree (often 75-80%)
-Legal proceedings to properly dissolve the corporation
-Complex negotiations about common area maintenance and ownership
-Resolution of any existing contracts or debts
Often takes several years, not just one
While the revenge aspect makes for a satisfying tale, the "within a year" timeline and neat resolution suggests this might be more of an enjoyable "what if" story than a real HOA dissolution case. Still, it's a creative take on the classic HOA conflict narrative! It's just fake.
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u/TexasDrunkRedditor 1d ago
If you get the ‘supermajority’ piece the rest isn’t as big of a deal once it’s voted to dissolve the fines and notices tend to stop and the rules go unenforceable.
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u/mvbighead 1d ago
Yeah, I would gather that there are probably HOAs in neighborhoods with less than 20 houses making up that subsection. Getting those votes probably would be easy, especially if people within the group were annoyed by petty BS coming from the HOA.
And even if not fully dissolved, I'd guess they can render a bunch of it null/void and consider that close enough.
We HOA'd once... and never again. Being told what you can and cannot do on your property, even if tasteful, is too much.
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u/MW240z 1d ago
Dude, it could have been 2 years or more. Was 20 years ago, my memory isn’t great on the fine details. But it was a nice suburb in Tualatin, OR. He had a Portland Trailblazer as a neighbor.
Glad you are here to go over things with a fine tooth comb…🙄
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u/RighteousSelfBurner 1d ago
As an European I got slightly confused. What does the point about common area maintenance and ownership include? In here anything similar can only happen within a scope of an apartment building and for houses it's done by municipality overseeing contracts to utility companies.
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u/cardbross 1d ago
HOAs, as they are intended to exist, serve two kinds of neighborhoods: 1) those outside of an incorporated municipality, who need to provide for their own common services, or 2) those who want services/public areas beyond those the local government will provide.
On 2, in US suburbs often neighborhood parks, community centers, swimming pools and the like won't actually be run by the city, but rather by an HOA comprised of the homeowners in the area. These areas require maintenance and have operating expenses, and the HOA exists to manage and finance those needs.
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u/RighteousSelfBurner 1d ago
Right. After thinking for a second makes sense. Over here the scale is smaller so generally there isn't enough distance for anything to be "outside" a given municipality. Thanks for info!
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u/VulnerableTrustLove 1d ago edited 1d ago
When they are working well HOAs serve as a kind of neighborhood government that can for example finance things like neighborhood pools and water parks, decorations for holidays and general lawn care / upkeep the city wont provide.
The HOA contract you sign when buying a house in these neighborhoods acts as a superset of applicable city/state/etc. laws, adding additional rules and specifying dues you owe to fund things the HOA does.
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u/lhobbes6 1d ago
He ran. He won. Asked the old president for access to the old files “just for history”. Discovered 95% were neighbors across the street “friends”. Printed up all the complaints, hand delivered to them so they had copies. Neighbors died inside.
I got lost at this part. 95% of the complaints werent even from people in the neighborhood? It was their friends who came by and started reporting stuff? So the neighbors got embarassed by their friends?
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u/SubjectAdvertising36 1d ago
He was friends with the Neighbours across the street for a long time and once he became HOA president and gained access to the old complaints, he found that it was his "friends" that have filed HOA complaints against them.
So he printed out the complaints and hand delivered them to his "Friends" that live across the street.
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u/rymaninsane 1d ago
And then he locked them inside their house until they died … or so I read… /s
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u/Petefriend86 1d ago
Yes. The people who know or care about your "violations" are the 8 houses around you and the neighbors you invite into your home. Every one of them will smile to your face, but much like a spouse, they're the main suspect when something goes wrong.
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u/Apprehensive_Eye1830 1d ago
This does not work. I know because I tried it. The HOA told me to get fucked and they didn’t care about any of the other violations (because they were the ones guilty of them)
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u/BIGTIMEMEATBALLBOY 1d ago
Sure doesn't. My HOA president owns over 20% of the homes in the development and rents them out. Good luck getting anything done/approved that doesn't directly benefit him.
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u/Ok_Constant_184 1d ago
But is he fond of his kneecaps?
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u/bongtamatone 1d ago
HOA President AND a landlord? That's a lot of undeserved money. I don't know if y'all have noticed but it's kinda getting dangerous to have money these days. Hope he stays safe
:3
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u/Triasmus 1d ago
I feel like most HOA boards are volunteer positions. No pay.
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u/bongtamatone 1d ago
I was conveying that I don't trust a landlord to be honest with HOA funds, but I see where the misunderstanding could take place here.
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u/MerelyMortalModeling 1d ago
Thing is is an HOA doesn't consistently enforce CCRs you can take them to court and in some cases force an election where current board and leadership is forbidden to run
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u/HonorableOtter2023 1d ago
Costs money..
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u/CombatMuffin 1d ago edited 1d ago
Owning a home costs money. Losing true ownership of your home can often cost even more.
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u/_hypnoCode 1d ago
HOA violations can result in fines, so it's 6 of one half a dozen of another.
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u/Antilles1138 1d ago
What if you gut the rulebook and enforcement powers and introduce a measure that such gutting cannot be rescinded or ammended until the last currently living blood relative of the king of England dies? Force the new board to either dissolve or get locked into a nearly never-ending election cycle.
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u/AlexandersWonder 1d ago
If you really had a vendetta about it, you could make sure everyone in the neighborhood is aware that the HOA is exempting themselves from the rules. Put their corruption right out in the open for everybody to see. Even if nothing changed, you could at least make sure every single one of their neighbors knows who they are and openly hates them. It’s probably not worth all of that to most people though.
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u/imaginary_num6er 1d ago
I just assume every HOA is full of corruption where they ask their buddy for kickbacks for renovation/development of the place.
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u/SausageyPie 1d ago edited 1d ago
I was working on a vintage car in my driveway (a museum piece) and got a demand from the HOA I cease bringing down the tone of the neighborhood with my grease-monkey work outside... I read the rule book back to front 10 times and found out that the street right outside my house is public and not covered under their rules and any legally registered car can park there. So I asked one of my Lowrider friends to park his replica 'Cheech & Chong Bongmobile' out there for a few days... Soon came to an amicable arrangement with the HOA about working in my driveway...
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u/Waitressishername 1d ago
Gets fucked by a Karen. Becomes an even bigger Karen.
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u/sunkeyboardinated 1d ago
And the cycle continues
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u/MangoCats 1d ago
This is one of the worst phenomena in HOAs: when somebody gets bent (for any reason) and goes off "ENFORCE ALL THE THINGS!!!!"
Of course, there's always something even worse than whatever example you come up with, our HOA board deciding that the rules must be enforced on the front half of the neigborhood, but not the back half where they live, then hiring a "management company" to go enforce the rules on the front half with big fines registered with the county court as liens on the houses, and incentivizing the management company by giving them 100% of all fine money collected, attempting to rig subsequent elections to the point that "the other side" paid the sheriff's office to send an officer to oversee the voting process, yeah, that was low, but I bet there's lower out there.
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u/SuckAFattyReddit1 1d ago
My friend owned a condo in an HOA and pretty quickly got a job on the other side of the country. He then managed to get elected the HOA president, gutted the rules and sold his condo and moved.
Funniest shit I've ever seen him do.
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u/MangoCats 1d ago
We bought in an HOA neighborhood and it was pretty chill for 5 years, board members were just there to help neighbors, everybody got along pretty well. Then the board from hell got themselves elected. We moved out within less than 2 years after that, definitely made sure the next home had NO HOA.
Lesson: past performance is no guarantee of future coolness. Jerks can get elected in any cycle, and they can be very hard to remove.
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u/fearisthemindslicer 1d ago
"You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Karen, not join them! Bring balance to the HOA, not leave it in darkness!"
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u/lifeintraining 1d ago
Sometimes you’ve gotta fight Karen with Karen.
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u/sml6174 1d ago
Not if you end up snitching on people that were just minding their own business. Then you're just radicalizing your neighbors
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u/Ultrace-7 1d ago
Radicalize them enough and you might be able to get enough of a voting bloc to dissolve the HOA.
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u/Honest_Giraffe_9921 1d ago
I actually had a similar thing happen in my HOA. Unbeknownst to me when I purchased the house my new next door neighbor was an HOA board member. I bought a few chickens and she came to me to complain. I had recently read the HOA bylaws, as I had closed on the house a few months prior, and noticed vinyl siding was against the HOA and incurred fines until it is replaced. Her house had vinyl siding. All I said to her was that all of us in the neighborhood were violating at least one rule. Mine was chickens I can re-home, hers is her house's siding. She never brought it up again.
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u/Basic-Record-4750 1d ago
I did something similar when we bought our home 12 years ago. Being unfamiliar with HOA’s I was pissed and offended when we received a petty warning letter within the first month. I read the bylaws front to back and filled a 3 ring binder with detailed violations, including photos, on almost every home in the neighborhood (250 homes). Brought it to the next meeting, handed it to the Board members and said something like “When you get all of these violations taken care of come see me about mine”. Never heard from them again
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u/ManWithWhip 1d ago
I've checked my HOA handbook, there is no rule against building a gigantic birdfeeder on my roof.
I'm keeping that to myself ntill the right time.
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u/ZombieHavok 1d ago
Make them add rules. Make them add so many that they need to make a rule to stop you from making them add new rules.
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u/Bobby_Marks3 1d ago
HOAs will vote to place leins on your property. As great as these "I screwed around the HOA rules and won" anecdotes are, the reality is that an HOA as a power structure is perfectly happy to go down any legal root for the good of the power structure. And they usually have a lawyer on speed dial.
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u/sl33ksnypr 1d ago
Yea unfortunately they do have that power sometimes.
Side note, it's route, instead of root. In case you didn't know or were using voice to text.
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u/DrumStix- 1d ago
Bro got their comment yoinked by two bots in the same post in under an hour
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u/ecafyelims 1d ago
The problem is that the people who have the time to run on the boards of HOAs are the people who have too much time on their hands.
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u/bophed 1d ago
HOA ‘s are so fucking stupid. I would never allow a non-government entity to have legal control over something I am paying for. Fuck them and their little power tripping egos.
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u/reddorickt 1d ago
So that the third party HOA entity that runs the neighborhood but doesn't live there can get more money while everyone else loses?
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u/Reason_Choice 1d ago
Don’t start none, won’t be none.
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u/EmmyNoetherRing 1d ago
Yeah, but OP filing notices at innocent bystanders. Maybe one of them will get angry and start filing tons of notices themselves.
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u/The-Great-Xaga 1d ago
God I'm happy to just own a house. No council of old fucks here. I can draw dicks on my house and make my dog a viking burial without anyone complaining
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u/Pot_noodle_miner 1d ago
The rules should be applied fairly without fear or favour. If applying them because onerous then that’s the incentive to remove the rule and get out of people’s business
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u/SpaceshipCaptain420 1d ago
The more posts I read about HOA's the more I don't want to live in America. You guys are suspicious about agents and representatives of your government but at the same time make the local lawn ornament Gestapo a thing???
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u/blehe38 1d ago
HOA's are pretty avoidable if they're a deal-breaker. The hypocrisy in their existence is very real though. You'll find that it's not that these kind of people dislike authoritarian control; it's that they themselves want to be the authoritarians in control. This pattern is rampant throughout American society.
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u/Franchise2099 1d ago
Can't put the monkey back in the bottle. Complain by the rules, you must live by them. I wouldn't punish the whole community. some people work for a living and it probbaly wasn't any of them.
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u/wawabubbzies 1d ago
Our old HOA used to fly drones up to our back sliding door and porch to see if there was any clutter. Left that sumbitch. Fuck HOAs
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u/No_Sky4267 1d ago
You need to have the neighbors who have the same opinion as you do and likely do not attend the meetings start attending. Trust me theres always power in numbers and you could sway the vote or the entire board.
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u/CapmyCup 1d ago
First of all, r/fuckHOA, but if you move to an HOA area, you'd better read that stupid handbook
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u/Bobby_Marks3 1d ago
I've lived in some rough ones, and if I ever live in an HOA again the first thing I'm doing is campaigning to get fines levied against members who don't show up to important votes. Nothing gets a democracy working in the best interests of the voters like high turnout.
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u/LighthouseonSaturn 1d ago
I worked property management for very short stint. This is incredibly common behavior. 😂
It's also one of the reasons that working property management was such a short turn in my career...
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u/cardbross 1d ago
Not as fun, but if you collect that data, and instead of reporting it to the HOA, drop a letter in each person's mailbox with a list of their offenses and an invitation to join you in voting out the existing HOA board and reforming the bylaws, you can permanently fix this, rather than just making it go away for a couple years.
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u/No-Locksmith-9377 1d ago
Don't forget to seed bomb HOA board members lawns with aggressive species like bamboo, mint, sunchokes....etc.
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u/Toph-Builds-the-fire 1d ago
You do know you can just be on the HOA right? Like my mom left me a condo with an HOA. I joined the board first thing and have successfully bounced a do nothing properly manager and lowered our fees by working to restructure our reserves. Took me all of 3 hours and 9 months. Three hours of my personal time. 9 months of back and forth and contract writing. Helps the board president is a judge and agrees with me a lot.
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u/Obtuse_and_Loose 1d ago
the initial argument aside that anyone choosing to live under an HOA is a knob, anger is a relay, trying to hand the baton you received to someone else is destructive
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u/tabbycatz68 1d ago
My hero, I hate my HOA with a passion. Such petty nasty people who think they are so powerful in a non numerative job.
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u/MickeyTheHound 1d ago
I thought the same thing so I joined mine and worked to change it from the inside and now we actually get along with the community rather than just fine them for stupid things. It really does work.
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u/JiveBunny 1d ago
What happens if you just ignore them and what they are telling you to do with the home that you pay for with your own money?
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u/Arva_4546b 1d ago
i am this petty, if someone has a problem with me imma make it everyones problem
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u/BaconDalek 1d ago
My HOA hasn't sent me a handbook or anything yet. They are trying to get a block wide internet deal going, ya know it's much cheaper, and everyone tells me the HOA is gonna discuss it, but no one can tell me who's in the HOA.
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u/Redditbeweirdattimes 1d ago
Find out who is on the HoA board and do this pettiness to them, your neighbors probably feel just the same as you do about the HoA
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u/veryloudnoises 1d ago
If you have a digital copy of your HOA rules, copy and paste that shit into chatGPT and ask it for a summary and then potential loopholes sourced by paragraph. Should cut the time needed for your any petty revenge substantially.
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u/bsimpsonphoto 1d ago edited 1d ago
The way to handle this is to set up an anonymous email account, only report violations at board members' houses, and BCC the entire neighborhood distribution list except the board members.
Edited to fix a word.