Shoutout to the HOA that thinks kids playing with chalk is vandalism

Why are HOAs so fixated on house color? Let people live!

When you snooze, you lose, HOA.

Oh, the joys of homeownership.

This mastermind really committed to his payback. After moving into an HOA community and almost immediately getting violations (albeit unfairly) for not having a “green enough” lawn and for keeping his trash cans too close to his driveway, he decided to embark on some next-level petty revenge that ultimately managed to be the best thing for the community at large. Essentially, the Redditor decided to join the local homeowner's association and, one by one, plotted to replace the “bad apple” board…

“Slumlord” landlords really don't do much good for anyone. Sure, they “provide housing” in the barest sense, but really, their landlord is just an extra convenience for them in addition to the land banking they're partaking in, the fact that there happens to be a barely inhabitable We found ourselves living in one of these places just out of university, desperate to find any available housing with our lease expiring and new jobs set to start. It was a pretty dingy building in an otherwise nice…

The house-buying process is stressful and difficult to navigate at any point—especially when it's your first, and you have no idea what you're doing or what to expect. The process will see results that can have drastic and possibly cataclysmic effects on your finances as well as on the rest of your life and its quality. It's exhausting. The process and paperwork involved are almost like a second job, with months upon months of weekends taken up by an endless stream of open homes. With possible…

When the HOA goes low, you go lower.

You're not supposed to take things that aren't yours—this is something that is ingrained in us from a very young age (or at least it's supposed to have been.) We were all taught that taking Little Jonny's red ball out at recess without his permission wasn't ok. Although we might still hold a grudge against Jonny for being a tattle tale (we were going to give it back), it doesn't change the fact that some valuable lessons were learned. These lessons and new-found boundaries should have stayed wi…

When you're facing up against power and authority, it's easy to feel helpless and like you don't have any options, feeling like the only thing you can do is try to mitigate the fallout they're causing by trying to keep peace with them. The thing is, they're counting on you thinking and feeling that way; a lot of times, petty authority and controlling behavior rely completely and wholly upon silence. It's difficult to do, but if you ask around enough, you're likely to find there are others with…

“These people are top tier con artists.”

Nothing is worse than living somewhere with arbitrary rules about your own property.

“Be an utterly unethical thorn in [the HOA's] side which can never be removed or retaliated against. I'm not locked in with them; they're locked in with me.”

Imagine having such an atrocious experience with your HOA that you end up feeling the need to quit your job and move far, far away. Here , we have a night shift worker whose property manager needed to come into his place two to three times a week because there was an electric panel he frequently needed access to for work. Unfortunately, the HOA claimed that this was for legitimate emergency purposes despite the fact that there never seemed to be a real emergency and the 24-hour notice period wa…

Sometimes the only way to beat an HOA is to become a board member

This person is really living the dream: they have a lakefront cottage and their own seaplane! That sounds like a cozy life: they inherited their place from a family member, and they're not even required to join their local homeowner's association . Just because you aren't part of this HOA, doesn't mean they won't still try to bug you! The HOA members are certain that they could make this dude move the seaplane. It seems to be a fairly common issue for HOAs to try everything to get more money fr…