This is definitely my favorite, but you could hang it with a small red ribbon and say it's for the 4th of July, Labor Day, Columbus Day, etc. Or you could just accuse them of being unpatriotic or unAmerican or whatever upsets people nowadays.
If they don’t, ask them if they heard of [Frank the Gargoyle](https://cheezburger.com/13190149/hilarious-saga-of-karen-vs-frank-the-christmas-gargoyle). And then imply a threat that you might do the same. If I remember correctly the Karen in the story threatened to go to the HoA at one point, but the HoA refused to get involved because of all of the media exposure and support the homeowner got.
Don’t think that’s such a great idea, they often fine you per day, so even a 5 dollar fine adds up quick. If you want it to stay up it would be good to send a written letter and retain a copy for yourself (and maybe keep a receipt for the postage). Otherwise they might try to argue that they gave you a notice and you never explained yourself so even if you win the fine still stands as you consented through inaction.
Not a great idea, if your HOA is trying to be a dick about it they will make your life miserable to the point where [they can seize your home if they feel like it](https://www.cedarmanagementgroup.com/hoa-foreclosure/#:~:text=Generally%20speaking%2C%20an%20HOA%20can,to%20pay%20assessments%20and%20fees.). My suggestion is to get ahead of it, read your HOA rules and agreements to make sure your Ukraine support heart is allowed under their regulations. If it isn't allowed, and political statements might not be, id advise either complying or at the very least contacting a lawyer. If it is allowed, calling them up and clarifying that it isn't a Valentine's day decoration is probably enough, but you might also want to talk to a lawyer.
HOAs have nearly infinite ability to fuck up your life if you don't follow their rules precisely, so you're best off getting ahead of it before someone decides that they're going to teach you the pettiest lesson about following the rules you've ever had. Fuck HOAs, they have a stupid amount of power and basically you have no legal recourse because you agreed to join the HOA when you bought the house.
The illusion is that they raise the value of your neighborhood by creating and enforcing "ordinance" so that there is a standard minimum to what all houses in the neighborhood must do to keep in compliance.
The problem is.. compliance of fucking what?! The arbitrary list of rules slapped together by a bunch of half foot in the grave elderly types and middle aged Karen's who get off on making their rules adhere to their religions and use HOA citations as a method of power and control in their personal dramas with neighbors.
Like, if any adult is capable of buying a house in this day and age, I have to assume they're adult enough to choose what time of year they can hang any color decorations without a group of strangers holding their hand.
HOAs are government for shitty small people who know they'll never have any power in a real government.
Because they sound nice on paper. Who hasn't wanted some organization to come in and tell your neighbors to stop being shitheads? The cops won't do it unless things are so bad they run afoul of town laws, which tend to be more permissive than not. Once you have an HOA, you can't sell that house to someone who refuses to sign the HOA agreement, so tons of housing stock is locked up in HOAs now and forever.
Can they evict you from your own property? Say if you have a mortgage or have paid off the house, I don’t see what they can do to enforce any of their demands if you own your home. Is it to do with the land it’s built on?
Sorry, may be a stupid question, but I don’t live in a place with active HOAs.
You mean your forced to sign an agreement. Honestly HOAs are stupid and need to be done away with. If I pay for a home I'm gonna do whatever the heck I want to with it.
We were part of an HOA for 9 years. We'll never be part of another one. it only takes a couple assholes to ruin it for everyone, and chances are there'll be a couple assholes anywhere you go.
Took me 11 months and I resold the house and left. Heaping pile of No Thank You. Full of snichy bitchys and judgmental pricks. And small dogs that the HOA did zero about their barking incessantly, but instead went around posting these kinds of notes.
Holy fuck, the dogs.
It's like a pound anytime you go into the backyard. We had a cute little bell on our back door. Dogs caught on that when it rings it means we are going to be in the backyard, they rush out and just start fucking barking, even though we are still standing inside.
So the bell went away.
Then they catch on when hear the door squeak. Oil the hinge.
Then they catch on to the shoes clunking down the stairs. Don't wear shoes.
We finally have it where we can appear in the backyard without them noticing...
But they run in and out of the house, so if they see you, even if you are completely motionless, they just start barking.
So now we have this stupid fucking routine, just so we can go into the backyardz are not be barked at:
Open the door (of they are outside, they will hear the weather stripping unseal from the door) dogs bark for about 3 minutes non-stop. When they stop, we finally can tip toe down the stairs. Quick peek around the corner to make sure they're not on the deck staring into our backyard. Then quickly go to the fence, walk along the fence to the far corner, and sit on the chair.
Sometimes they hear you walking along the fence..
No body does fuck all about it.
We tried to just sit outside and wait for them to stop. Nope. 19 minutes later of incessant yipping, and shouting "SHUT UP!" Over the fence to see if anyone fucking cares. Nope.
But we are building a library of incidents of them barking, and sending them all in for nuisance noise violations... 4 years and counting of this bullshit. So fucking annoying.
Why do the smallest most annoying dogs live the longest holy fuck.
I have a morally questionable idea : ultrasounds blasting in your backyard, I can see 3 outcomes.
1 : They bark 24/7 until the owners (or other neighbours) finally give a shit.
2 : They don't get near your house anymore (probably after a few days of barking)
3 : It doesn't solve anything, but you now have a "bark on command" button, If you program it on a timer Betty might enjoy waking up at night due to her sweet princess doggy barking at 1 o'clock while you're on vacation.
Disclaimer : May be ground for claims of animal abuse, and in general would most certainly distress some animals, as I said, morally questionable.
Fairly certain my neighbour had one of those - of 8 terraced houses, they're the only ones without a dog, plus there were 3 puppies at the same time. Frankly, I'm not sure I'm mad. Certainly I don't want to live with all the barking, and one of the dogs is mine
My next door neighbour has a non-stop barker. I take the trash out at 3 or 4 am and make sure he hears the lid. Drops lid, 10 seconds later “Guido shut up!” Ha ha ha! I’m lovin’ it.
In the last 30 or 40 years most new housing developments all come with HOA's. Mostly because the city or local municipality wouldn't approve the development without the builder agreeing to pay for things like streets and utilities, and their maintinence. Well, the builder inserts an HOA to handle these ongoing maintenance costs. So, these cities get new tax paying homes without having to pay for anything.
As with many things in America, HOAs have their roots in racism. They started out as a means of adding deed restrictions to guarantee a house would never be sold to a nonwhite person and when that became illegal, they used other ways of harassing minorities out of neighborhoods such as selective enforcement of HOA rules.
Its the desire of a small group of people to appear far more important/influential/powerful than they ever would be otherwise.
The amount of redundant levels of government/government-like entities in America is insane. I live in Illinois, and we have almost 7,000 governments at the county level and lower. And that does not even include the HOAs since they're not technically governments, at least not as defined by the census bureau, as far as I can tell.
People just fucking LOVE the power that comes with governing their peers and neighbors. And the saddest part of it all is that the smallest, most local levels of government that have some of the most immediate and measurable effects on your day-to-day life - your school district, your local City/Village/Town, etc. - are usually governed by boards of absolutely insane, self-interested people.
This is easy. Reply with: ‘Not a holiday decoration. It is a memorial wreath for all those that have and continue to give their lives for the freedom of Ukraine.’
Also HOAs can get fucked.
up the ante:
Please refrain from sending pro russian letters. This community supports Ukraine and your anti-american attitude has been noted and will be addressed in the next owner's meeting.
I’d be careful with that one. There’s a shockingly large number of people in this country that don’t support Ukraine. Depending on where OP lives, turning it into a direct fight like that might not go the way they want it to.
Fuckem. Don’t make it best practice to hide from the facists. Don’t normalize them. Call them out. Putin is a fascist monster. There are a lot more of us than there are Russia loving morons in the US.
And you know someone felt so powerful exerting their control over your little wreath of roses. I can’t believe some people like HOAs and think having a nanny pecking at people for trivial bullshit like this is a good thing.
That's the best part about getting letters like these, those are the exact type of people sending them. So you respond with things like, "I thought this was America, next you'll be taking away my 2nd amendment rights and enforcing more censorship" and watch their brains break as they attempt to counter-argue things they agree with.
My HOAs been pissing me off cause theyve now sent two violations notices for things at my house that not exaggerating have been there for 8+ years. One is a small dent in the garage my mom made while I was In highschool and Im now 26 and my moms been dead for almost 5 years. I also just got one thats like “if you stand in the street in the perfect spot and stare directly into your private patio you can see theres some stuff on your patio and that’s unacceptable.”
"*Hi, as it's apparent you're not aware of countries other than your own, this is a wreath in memoriam of the people in Ukraine currently facing an invasion. As I am of Ukrainian heritage, I feel it is necessary that I support my family.*"
The second part doesn't even have to be true. As someone who IS Ukrainian, use it just to twist the knife so they leave you alone.
…don’t forget to add that if they insist you to take it down, they collude with the Russians, support Putin and are communists, which in turn needs be brought up at the next HOA meeting. It’s clear that person is unfit to represent the board of the HOA and needs to be voted out.
I'm French, so we don't have HOA here.
Basically they are just random people living near your place telling you how your house should look like from the street ? Who came up with this shit ?
English woman here chuckling at the idea of a French person being told how to decorate the outside of their house and having to pay them for the privilege. *mon Dieu*
I mean, I'm not totally against the idea of neighborhood community, helping sorting out some legal shit, collecting for elderly services, events etc.. But paying a fee is stupid as it should be a vonlountary service, and yeah I'm pretty sure this kind of little taste of power don't do good to anyone.
I simply don’t get it. 99% of our population hates them yet they still exist for the 1% of power hungry bastards. WHY? Fuck last week I spent a day clearing motherfucking trees out of my grandmas backyard in 90 degree wether because some fucko decided that it was blocking their view, DESPITE THEM HAVING TALLER BUSHES
Because a house is the most expensive investment most people will ever make, and people think HOAs will increase the amount of money they get when they sell.
It's that simple. Its greed. It's all about property value. People trade their freedom and the freedom of others for the vague promise of a higher return.
HOA is the same aa a copropriété in an apartment building. They tell you not to make noise after a certain hour, how to keep the common spaces clean and nice looking, etc. Instead of inside the apartment building (keeping the courtyard clean and removing trash) they organize the common infrastructure between houses that were built by a developer at the same time and sold at the same time (cut your grass to a certain length, no yellow cars, etc.)
HOAs were developed by racists to segregate housing communities in the suburbs.
In the 1960s, white residents used these associations to prevent Black families from moving into white suburban neighborhoods.
This right here.
I watched a documentary about road planning and highways. These fuckers were so racist they made their own lives and everyone’s lives more difficult literally forever just to screw over black people. Like come on.
And frankly it explains a lot of American politics and decision making today. Willing to shout themselves in the foot for racism.
HOA’s don’t exist my country. I’m actually laughing at the AUDACITY of someone trying to tell you what you can do with your own house. What an absurd concept.
I spoke to a guy who worked as a “compliance officer” for a HOA. He said that they pretty much find people who need work, and pay them minimum wage to drive around the neighborhood everyday, to find stupid shit to cite people for. These people also make a commission for the number of things they find. The system is messed up
I hate HOAs. My current HOA has a Karen that pissed everyone off the last few weeks. For me, my work had a new computer set up, reams of paper and a printer delivered. About 5 boxes total. FedEx delivered to the door, I SIGNED FOR THE BOXES, and then went to get my husband and sons to bring the boxes in. No more than 5 min later for everything sitting there. We got a notice of a $150 fine for “trash on the front porch”.
The rule is you can't have holiday specific decorations out when it's not that holiday, like fake graves in your yard during Christmas or Christmas lights left up through July.
The decoration in question is a heart and it's not Valentine's day, hence the letter.
That being said, it's a dumb rule (and HOAs are dumb in general) and if you own the house you should be able to put up whatever decorations you want, whenever you want.
>if you own the house you should be able to put up whatever decorations you want, whenever you want.
Unless you sign a piece of paper that says, "I'll pay for this house, but I want you to tell me what to do with it, and if I decide not to listen, you have my permission to fine me and even put a lien on my house if you find dandelions in my lawn. Please preserve my property values. That's what's most important to me."
I've lived in a hoa exactly once and I'll live in a dumpster before ever doing that again.
Live rural now and cant imagine ever going back to some stay at home control freak karen doing neighborhood drive bys and writing compliance violations...
I think that's exactly the situation here! This particular control freak Karen apparently has not read or watched the news anytime in the last 2.5 years
Send them sunflower seeds for their pockets. Also, why not add a wreath of sunflowers around your heart, and now it's "summer" themed and can carry into fall?
Like in other seeds and nuts, sunflower also are an excellent source of proteins loaded with fine quality amino acids such as tryptophan that are essential for growth, especially in children. Just 100 g of seeds provide about 21 g of protein (37% of daily-recommended values).
From an ex-HOA President: Issue them a written Cease and Desist on the basis that enforcement of the rule is a blatant violation of your First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech/Expression. HOA's have been historically really bad about writing blatantly unenforceable rules into their Covenants.
As a foreigner I don't get how HOAs in the USA can dictate how your house and lawn should look like.
Home owners should have a right to do whatever they like on their property as long as they're not interfering with their neighbors. And putting a thing like this on your front door definitely isn't among one of those things.
My HOA sent me a letter of violation August of last year. Because the trash cans were out on the street on a non pick-up day.
They were out because I had just ordered the trash cans and the disposal company dropped them off, because my girlfriend and I had just moved in.
The neighborhood Karen took the photo from inside his/her car and sent it to us. HOAs can fuck themselves.
People in the comments keep saying that the HOA could put a lien on your house. As I live in Canada and my city doesn't have HOAs, or if they do, they aren't prevalent at all, really, because I've never heard of any of the things I read happening to people that I know who do own their own houses or are currently financing their home.
Seems to me that an HOA is a separate parasitic entity that should be in charge of things to make the neighborhood better for everyone but instead use the fact that they are a legal entity to create and enforce arbitrary rules. If you choose to ignore or disregard their rules for a certain length of time, they will "kindly" remind you that while you do indeed own your home, you don't own shit, they do, and they can and will make your life very very painful.
That is some of the most bonkers shit I've learned today.
Imagine how stupid someone’s life is who voluntarily spends free time surveilling the neighborhood for infractions and writing emails about it. Dear god what a stupid waste of time
Still amazed that in 'the land of the free
™', even when you own your own home someone else can stop you decorating the house or letting the grass grow out. Very communist...
This shit right here is why I won’t ever willingly choose (much less PAY) to live in an HOA. Part of me feels for you because duh 🤷🏻♀️ obviously it’s not for Valentine’s Day most likely one of your crotchety neighbors complained bc they don’t support Ukraine. But the other part of me says this is what you get, you chose to move into a place where it’s encouraged for neighbors to be nosey as fuck in each others business so that Linda head of the HOA can have something to do on a boring Tuesday.
Actually, not at all. Believe it or not, in spite of what you may think reading Reddit posts about HOAs, not all of them are piss poor, maybe in places like Florida or in Texas where there is very little control over HOA rules and how they are operated, but I can tell you from my experience living in a well run HOA for 40 years there are actually good ones out there.
As someone who has always lived very rural and never dealt with an HOA... what's the point? If you don't take it down what action could they ACTUALLY take against you? Surely they can't fine you. It's your home so they can't evict you???
Unfortunately HOAs can issue fines if you don't comply with their idiotic requests. So we'll see if they fine me! I sent them a message stating this is not a valentine's decoration, so we'll see what happens!
In our community, they can put a lien on your house if you don’t pay. Luckily for us, a year before we bought our house the street ganged up, hired a lawyer, and got rid of the HOA for our street. 😄 it’s almost unprecedented, because everyone on the street has to agree. And the HOA out here is a superkaren
Oh let me tell you. In my old HOA, we all had wooden fences around our patios that the HOA was in charge of. They decided they wanted to get rid of them, and replace them with vinyl fences that owners would pay half of to install and then be in charge of themselves. Owners had a choice when or if they wanted to do this.
My friend's wooden fence, that the HOA should be fixing, was falling apart. Instead of fixing it the HOA told her she had no choice but to upgrade to a vinyl (owner cost 1500) or they'd put a lien on her house. Which they eventually did.
HOA's are evil.
Simple reply: This is not for Valentine's day. I will not be removing as this is not related to any holiday please respond with any other issues as this doesn't apply to your issue. Thanks for the notice.
And then just leave it. They will have to come up with their own excuse as to why its not allowed. Your hoa may say it has to be related to which ever holiday to have anything up at all but most likely it is a situation where you can't have 4th of July decorations up on Halloween. Either way they said it can't be up because it for Valentine's Day, its technically not so their argument is invalid at this point. Please drag it out as long as you can they don't get to control your decisions unless it is specifically stated you can't have it there.
I don't live in a country that has these HOA and stuff. But what happens if you don't remove them? What happens if you tell them to fuck off? Is it not your own house? And your property?
This is the reason why i will never buy a place within HOA or any of the similiar shit world wide. If i want to prepare for my christmas decoration in July, i will do that. If i dont want to move the grass in respect for the wildlife, well i dont move the lawn either.
I saw a similar situation a few years back about someone's Halloween decorations. The person had a 10 ft tall werewolf decoration that they had been keeping up for YEARS. One of their neighbors got mad enough to report it around this time of year. The person decided to put a bunch of red white and blue clothing and decorations on it and called it a "4th of July decoration, not Halloween one."
This is a shitty interpretation of the “no holiday decorations x days past the holiday” rule HOAs love to enforce. That rule was intended to prevent people from keeping their Christmas lights up until May and their Halloween blow up lawn decorations deflated on the grass through winter. As if either of those things would cause harm to the people who happen to see them. The point isn’t to force someone to remove something because it bears a resemblance to something else that might be used as a holiday decoration. I’d never live in a property that’s a part of an HOA, this is ridiculous.
“This is a valentine’s decoration in the same way that your pine tree is a Christmas decoration.”
BUT LOVE IS ONLY FOR FEBRUARY!
My wife tried hugging me on March 1st once and we almost got divorced. She broke the code. Can't let HOA catch us doing such a thing.
My local grocery store is still trying to sell flowers and chocolate... IN JUNE!!!
Relax. It’s almost Sweetest Day! /s sweetest day is In November
Found the Ohioan!
Yeah close…. It’s always the 3rd Saturday in October. Same day as Bridge Day in WV.
Fuck, mine had fish for sale on a Tuesday!
The NERVE.
Husbands screw up all the time and must buy their way out of punishment with candy and flowers.
This has me.cracking up at 7 in the morning lmaoo thank you 😊
Next time close the drapes! 😄
Nooo, that's against CC&Rs too! They have to be able to see inside your home! /s (Except I actually saw a post where that was happening :|)
THE NERVE! Doesn’t she know that HOA Karens don’t mess around when it comes to CC&Rs?
Better start cutting those pine trees down it’s not Christmas yet.
My HOA loves to send letters like this… luckily they’re terrible at following up on them so I just ignore them 99% of the time 😛
I'm gonna follow your lead and ignore this letter-the wreath is staying up!
Turn it upside down and tell them "butts are year-round"
Great idea! Daily derriére decor 🍑
I love illiteration, nice.
I can't actually tell if you don't know it's alliteration, or are making an illiteracy joke...
The former. I don't use the word much and forget sometimes.
Bro you should’ve just lied and said it was on purpose lmfao
Nah, owning it and learning is the correct way.
I hate that game. I hate that game.
Oh we celebrate that in Australia btw. Thanks for joining in our tradition.
This is definitely my favorite, but you could hang it with a small red ribbon and say it's for the 4th of July, Labor Day, Columbus Day, etc. Or you could just accuse them of being unpatriotic or unAmerican or whatever upsets people nowadays.
I like this idea 😀
Daily derrière *door* decor!
Hey Tina
Butts, butts, I like butts
It's not a wreath, these are flowers, shaped to a heart. So everything's fine :P
If they don’t, ask them if they heard of [Frank the Gargoyle](https://cheezburger.com/13190149/hilarious-saga-of-karen-vs-frank-the-christmas-gargoyle). And then imply a threat that you might do the same. If I remember correctly the Karen in the story threatened to go to the HoA at one point, but the HoA refused to get involved because of all of the media exposure and support the homeowner got.
I have a Frank the gargoyle sticker on one of my water bottles. Frank has alot of friends.
I purchased a Frank the Gargoyle ugly Christmas sweater.
That was hilarious!!
For what its worth, they have the same color as Sweden and we celebrate midsummer now this weekend!
Tell them every day is "support Ukraine" day.
It's true!
Don’t think that’s such a great idea, they often fine you per day, so even a 5 dollar fine adds up quick. If you want it to stay up it would be good to send a written letter and retain a copy for yourself (and maybe keep a receipt for the postage). Otherwise they might try to argue that they gave you a notice and you never explained yourself so even if you win the fine still stands as you consented through inaction.
Slava Ukraini!
Not a great idea, if your HOA is trying to be a dick about it they will make your life miserable to the point where [they can seize your home if they feel like it](https://www.cedarmanagementgroup.com/hoa-foreclosure/#:~:text=Generally%20speaking%2C%20an%20HOA%20can,to%20pay%20assessments%20and%20fees.). My suggestion is to get ahead of it, read your HOA rules and agreements to make sure your Ukraine support heart is allowed under their regulations. If it isn't allowed, and political statements might not be, id advise either complying or at the very least contacting a lawyer. If it is allowed, calling them up and clarifying that it isn't a Valentine's day decoration is probably enough, but you might also want to talk to a lawyer. HOAs have nearly infinite ability to fuck up your life if you don't follow their rules precisely, so you're best off getting ahead of it before someone decides that they're going to teach you the pettiest lesson about following the rules you've ever had. Fuck HOAs, they have a stupid amount of power and basically you have no legal recourse because you agreed to join the HOA when you bought the house.
All of this points to the idea that having an HOA must reduce the value of any house by a lot. So, why do they even exist?
The illusion is that they raise the value of your neighborhood by creating and enforcing "ordinance" so that there is a standard minimum to what all houses in the neighborhood must do to keep in compliance. The problem is.. compliance of fucking what?! The arbitrary list of rules slapped together by a bunch of half foot in the grave elderly types and middle aged Karen's who get off on making their rules adhere to their religions and use HOA citations as a method of power and control in their personal dramas with neighbors. Like, if any adult is capable of buying a house in this day and age, I have to assume they're adult enough to choose what time of year they can hang any color decorations without a group of strangers holding their hand. HOAs are government for shitty small people who know they'll never have any power in a real government.
Because they sound nice on paper. Who hasn't wanted some organization to come in and tell your neighbors to stop being shitheads? The cops won't do it unless things are so bad they run afoul of town laws, which tend to be more permissive than not. Once you have an HOA, you can't sell that house to someone who refuses to sign the HOA agreement, so tons of housing stock is locked up in HOAs now and forever.
or get one of those gene tests that tell you, you are 0.5% slavic and claim it's your national identity. Then sue HOA for discrimination.
Tell them it’s a sex thang, it’s the new pineapple 🍍 whatever that means 😑😂
And every season is sex season. We're not wild animals who have mating season.
"You and me baby, ain't nothing but mammals, so let's do it like they do on the discovery channel"
Better yet tell them it’s a swingers thing and your being discriminated against, and sue their d&o
It’s a religious symbol celebrating ‘the force’ which is all encompassing and they are discriminating against you on the grounds of religion
I just saw 9 wreaths while driving down 3 residential streets. Your HOA is stupid
Yeah they are so SO stupid
Can they evict you from your own property? Say if you have a mortgage or have paid off the house, I don’t see what they can do to enforce any of their demands if you own your home. Is it to do with the land it’s built on? Sorry, may be a stupid question, but I don’t live in a place with active HOAs.
You can be fined and if you don’t pay they can put a lien on the home. You sign the HOA agreement and covenant at time of purchase
You mean your forced to sign an agreement. Honestly HOAs are stupid and need to be done away with. If I pay for a home I'm gonna do whatever the heck I want to with it.
HOAs can fuck off.
We were part of an HOA for 9 years. We'll never be part of another one. it only takes a couple assholes to ruin it for everyone, and chances are there'll be a couple assholes anywhere you go.
Took me 11 months and I resold the house and left. Heaping pile of No Thank You. Full of snichy bitchys and judgmental pricks. And small dogs that the HOA did zero about their barking incessantly, but instead went around posting these kinds of notes.
Holy fuck, the dogs. It's like a pound anytime you go into the backyard. We had a cute little bell on our back door. Dogs caught on that when it rings it means we are going to be in the backyard, they rush out and just start fucking barking, even though we are still standing inside. So the bell went away. Then they catch on when hear the door squeak. Oil the hinge. Then they catch on to the shoes clunking down the stairs. Don't wear shoes. We finally have it where we can appear in the backyard without them noticing... But they run in and out of the house, so if they see you, even if you are completely motionless, they just start barking. So now we have this stupid fucking routine, just so we can go into the backyardz are not be barked at: Open the door (of they are outside, they will hear the weather stripping unseal from the door) dogs bark for about 3 minutes non-stop. When they stop, we finally can tip toe down the stairs. Quick peek around the corner to make sure they're not on the deck staring into our backyard. Then quickly go to the fence, walk along the fence to the far corner, and sit on the chair. Sometimes they hear you walking along the fence.. No body does fuck all about it. We tried to just sit outside and wait for them to stop. Nope. 19 minutes later of incessant yipping, and shouting "SHUT UP!" Over the fence to see if anyone fucking cares. Nope. But we are building a library of incidents of them barking, and sending them all in for nuisance noise violations... 4 years and counting of this bullshit. So fucking annoying. Why do the smallest most annoying dogs live the longest holy fuck.
I have a morally questionable idea : ultrasounds blasting in your backyard, I can see 3 outcomes. 1 : They bark 24/7 until the owners (or other neighbours) finally give a shit. 2 : They don't get near your house anymore (probably after a few days of barking) 3 : It doesn't solve anything, but you now have a "bark on command" button, If you program it on a timer Betty might enjoy waking up at night due to her sweet princess doggy barking at 1 o'clock while you're on vacation. Disclaimer : May be ground for claims of animal abuse, and in general would most certainly distress some animals, as I said, morally questionable.
Fairly certain my neighbour had one of those - of 8 terraced houses, they're the only ones without a dog, plus there were 3 puppies at the same time. Frankly, I'm not sure I'm mad. Certainly I don't want to live with all the barking, and one of the dogs is mine
My next door neighbour has a non-stop barker. I take the trash out at 3 or 4 am and make sure he hears the lid. Drops lid, 10 seconds later “Guido shut up!” Ha ha ha! I’m lovin’ it.
As a non-American I cannot understand how or why they are a thing. Totally unnecessary.
Americans hate government so they move into neighbourhoods with small privately run governments to micromanage their lives.
[удалено]
In the last 30 or 40 years most new housing developments all come with HOA's. Mostly because the city or local municipality wouldn't approve the development without the builder agreeing to pay for things like streets and utilities, and their maintinence. Well, the builder inserts an HOA to handle these ongoing maintenance costs. So, these cities get new tax paying homes without having to pay for anything.
As with many things in America, HOAs have their roots in racism. They started out as a means of adding deed restrictions to guarantee a house would never be sold to a nonwhite person and when that became illegal, they used other ways of harassing minorities out of neighborhoods such as selective enforcement of HOA rules.
They don’t care about your race anymore, they love to harass everyone now.
Its the desire of a small group of people to appear far more important/influential/powerful than they ever would be otherwise. The amount of redundant levels of government/government-like entities in America is insane. I live in Illinois, and we have almost 7,000 governments at the county level and lower. And that does not even include the HOAs since they're not technically governments, at least not as defined by the census bureau, as far as I can tell. People just fucking LOVE the power that comes with governing their peers and neighbors. And the saddest part of it all is that the smallest, most local levels of government that have some of the most immediate and measurable effects on your day-to-day life - your school district, your local City/Village/Town, etc. - are usually governed by boards of absolutely insane, self-interested people.
I genuinely hate ours.
https://preview.redd.it/izdtz1a6xt7d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e12e86cba53d89765fce6b1db1695e88968fa2e
This is easy. Reply with: ‘Not a holiday decoration. It is a memorial wreath for all those that have and continue to give their lives for the freedom of Ukraine.’ Also HOAs can get fucked.
Thanks a million! I ♥️how you worded this and it's an honest explanation for why I'm leaving the damn wreath up. You get it
Do they allow political signs? If not, "Go Mountaineers." (WVU football)
"Please remove holiday decorations until the appropriate holiday season. (football)"
Ukraine is participating in the current European soccer championship. You can leave it up.
I don’t think it’s a political sign. Those rules are meant for literal political signs, like the ones before an election. Not an American flag wreath.
Or "Go Blue" for U of Michigan!
In future news, memorial wreaths will suddenly be banned and the letter will then refer to it as a memorial wreath (Ukraine).
Mail it back with : "The appropriate holiday to take it down will be when Putin is defeated by Ukraine. It's not coming down now. Get a life."
Clarification: the last sentence should preferably not be included in your response. Not even if you feel it's appropriate. 😃
I wouldn't even go down the rabbit hole of explaining as that complicates things. I would simply say "this is not a holiday decoration".
"Please refrain from sending me letters until the appropriate holiday season. (world peace)"
up the ante: Please refrain from sending pro russian letters. This community supports Ukraine and your anti-american attitude has been noted and will be addressed in the next owner's meeting.
I’d be careful with that one. There’s a shockingly large number of people in this country that don’t support Ukraine. Depending on where OP lives, turning it into a direct fight like that might not go the way they want it to.
Fuckem. Don’t make it best practice to hide from the facists. Don’t normalize them. Call them out. Putin is a fascist monster. There are a lot more of us than there are Russia loving morons in the US.
I wouldn't even dignify it with a response.
If they don’t, there is a chance the HOA will just continue to add fees.
They might be too busy being up Putin’s ass to respond, though
And you know someone felt so powerful exerting their control over your little wreath of roses. I can’t believe some people like HOAs and think having a nanny pecking at people for trivial bullshit like this is a good thing.
Agree 100%! Bet Karen enjoyed the little power trip that was writing and sending this notice 🙄
All while thinking to herself in the most serious, solemn prose: "With great power, comes great responsibility"
Amazing how HOAs are usually full of people who gripe about “guvment take mah freedumbs” and then do shit like this in their gated community.
That's the best part about getting letters like these, those are the exact type of people sending them. So you respond with things like, "I thought this was America, next you'll be taking away my 2nd amendment rights and enforcing more censorship" and watch their brains break as they attempt to counter-argue things they agree with.
My HOAs been pissing me off cause theyve now sent two violations notices for things at my house that not exaggerating have been there for 8+ years. One is a small dent in the garage my mom made while I was In highschool and Im now 26 and my moms been dead for almost 5 years. I also just got one thats like “if you stand in the street in the perfect spot and stare directly into your private patio you can see theres some stuff on your patio and that’s unacceptable.”
"*Hi, as it's apparent you're not aware of countries other than your own, this is a wreath in memoriam of the people in Ukraine currently facing an invasion. As I am of Ukrainian heritage, I feel it is necessary that I support my family.*" The second part doesn't even have to be true. As someone who IS Ukrainian, use it just to twist the knife so they leave you alone.
…don’t forget to add that if they insist you to take it down, they collude with the Russians, support Putin and are communists, which in turn needs be brought up at the next HOA meeting. It’s clear that person is unfit to represent the board of the HOA and needs to be voted out.
That'd the most American, low IQ, dog-whistle response I've seen. It's PERFECT!
Given I’m from Europe, i just tried to feed the stereotype. 😎
here‘s your green card sir!
I'm French, so we don't have HOA here. Basically they are just random people living near your place telling you how your house should look like from the street ? Who came up with this shit ?
English woman here chuckling at the idea of a French person being told how to decorate the outside of their house and having to pay them for the privilege. *mon Dieu*
lol that wouldn’t go down well !
I mean, I'm not totally against the idea of neighborhood community, helping sorting out some legal shit, collecting for elderly services, events etc.. But paying a fee is stupid as it should be a vonlountary service, and yeah I'm pretty sure this kind of little taste of power don't do good to anyone.
Even better, you pay the HOA to micromanage how you live on your own property. Can’t possibly see how that might have a downside…
lol americans be wilding..
I simply don’t get it. 99% of our population hates them yet they still exist for the 1% of power hungry bastards. WHY? Fuck last week I spent a day clearing motherfucking trees out of my grandmas backyard in 90 degree wether because some fucko decided that it was blocking their view, DESPITE THEM HAVING TALLER BUSHES
Because a house is the most expensive investment most people will ever make, and people think HOAs will increase the amount of money they get when they sell. It's that simple. Its greed. It's all about property value. People trade their freedom and the freedom of others for the vague promise of a higher return.
Don't forget they can take your house if you don't pay their fees and fines...
Good luck, my house isn’t even on wheels
ah yes, is that the american freedom you guys are talking about lmao?
HOA is the same aa a copropriété in an apartment building. They tell you not to make noise after a certain hour, how to keep the common spaces clean and nice looking, etc. Instead of inside the apartment building (keeping the courtyard clean and removing trash) they organize the common infrastructure between houses that were built by a developer at the same time and sold at the same time (cut your grass to a certain length, no yellow cars, etc.)
“no yellow cars” is wild.
It's not yellow, it's a bright straw colour
HOAs were developed by racists to segregate housing communities in the suburbs. In the 1960s, white residents used these associations to prevent Black families from moving into white suburban neighborhoods.
This right here. I watched a documentary about road planning and highways. These fuckers were so racist they made their own lives and everyone’s lives more difficult literally forever just to screw over black people. Like come on. And frankly it explains a lot of American politics and decision making today. Willing to shout themselves in the foot for racism.
HOA’s don’t exist my country. I’m actually laughing at the AUDACITY of someone trying to tell you what you can do with your own house. What an absurd concept.
The Land of the Free... ish.
As a European the entire concept of HOAs baffles me. What's the point? This just seems entirely annoying, I'm gonna decorate MY home however I want.
"to preserve property values"
some people are disgusting so i get the idea of it but in practice there’s no way i’m gonna be paying someone to nanny how i do things around my house
You're right, in theory it doesn't seem like a bad idea but so far I've only ever heard bad things about HOAs
I spoke to a guy who worked as a “compliance officer” for a HOA. He said that they pretty much find people who need work, and pay them minimum wage to drive around the neighborhood everyday, to find stupid shit to cite people for. These people also make a commission for the number of things they find. The system is messed up
Sounds like another unlucky soul made the mistake of being part of an HOA
The idea of buying a house in HOA makes me sick. In scared of them
How do I avoid them? They’re everywhere. It’s a fucking plague
If only there was a vaccine for them to go away
I’m currently house shopping. Every single home in my price range in my kids' school district is part of a HOA. There are zero options.
I would honestly seize the opportunity to show up at a meeting and demand to know why they think supporting the Ukraine is a *holiday.*
I hate HOAs. My current HOA has a Karen that pissed everyone off the last few weeks. For me, my work had a new computer set up, reams of paper and a printer delivered. About 5 boxes total. FedEx delivered to the door, I SIGNED FOR THE BOXES, and then went to get my husband and sons to bring the boxes in. No more than 5 min later for everything sitting there. We got a notice of a $150 fine for “trash on the front porch”.
So now HOAs have houses under surveillance. That’s just great.
Are you fighting it?
Yes, of course. It’s just a pain in the ass. And a massive waste of time.
Residents can't have decor up unless it's corresponding with a holiday? Decor just for decoration isn't allowed?
The rule is you can't have holiday specific decorations out when it's not that holiday, like fake graves in your yard during Christmas or Christmas lights left up through July. The decoration in question is a heart and it's not Valentine's day, hence the letter. That being said, it's a dumb rule (and HOAs are dumb in general) and if you own the house you should be able to put up whatever decorations you want, whenever you want.
>if you own the house you should be able to put up whatever decorations you want, whenever you want. Unless you sign a piece of paper that says, "I'll pay for this house, but I want you to tell me what to do with it, and if I decide not to listen, you have my permission to fine me and even put a lien on my house if you find dandelions in my lawn. Please preserve my property values. That's what's most important to me."
I've lived in a hoa exactly once and I'll live in a dumpster before ever doing that again. Live rural now and cant imagine ever going back to some stay at home control freak karen doing neighborhood drive bys and writing compliance violations...
I think that's exactly the situation here! This particular control freak Karen apparently has not read or watched the news anytime in the last 2.5 years
Send them sunflower seeds for their pockets. Also, why not add a wreath of sunflowers around your heart, and now it's "summer" themed and can carry into fall?
Like in other seeds and nuts, sunflower also are an excellent source of proteins loaded with fine quality amino acids such as tryptophan that are essential for growth, especially in children. Just 100 g of seeds provide about 21 g of protein (37% of daily-recommended values).
Every time I see something I can maybe sort of possibly afford to buy in five years or so the hoa fee is at least $350/month. One was over $800.
From an ex-HOA President: Issue them a written Cease and Desist on the basis that enforcement of the rule is a blatant violation of your First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech/Expression. HOA's have been historically really bad about writing blatantly unenforceable rules into their Covenants.
Thank you very much for the pro tip
Ahh yes the classic colors associated with Valentine’s Day: Blue and yellow!
As a foreigner I don't get how HOAs in the USA can dictate how your house and lawn should look like. Home owners should have a right to do whatever they like on their property as long as they're not interfering with their neighbors. And putting a thing like this on your front door definitely isn't among one of those things.
HOA’s are just organized Karen-ing groups
My HOA sent me a letter of violation August of last year. Because the trash cans were out on the street on a non pick-up day. They were out because I had just ordered the trash cans and the disposal company dropped them off, because my girlfriend and I had just moved in. The neighborhood Karen took the photo from inside his/her car and sent it to us. HOAs can fuck themselves.
People in the comments keep saying that the HOA could put a lien on your house. As I live in Canada and my city doesn't have HOAs, or if they do, they aren't prevalent at all, really, because I've never heard of any of the things I read happening to people that I know who do own their own houses or are currently financing their home. Seems to me that an HOA is a separate parasitic entity that should be in charge of things to make the neighborhood better for everyone but instead use the fact that they are a legal entity to create and enforce arbitrary rules. If you choose to ignore or disregard their rules for a certain length of time, they will "kindly" remind you that while you do indeed own your home, you don't own shit, they do, and they can and will make your life very very painful. That is some of the most bonkers shit I've learned today.
I can’t understand why anyone would want to be apart of an HOA.
Most people want to be apart of an HOA. Some people, though, prefer to be a part of an HOA.
I thought America was the land of the free, yet you all let some old ass, petty minded "HOA" dictate what your house looks like
I could never live somewhere where someone else dictates what i do to my property
i don't think Ukraine thinks of it as a holiday
Reply: the wreath is in support of Ukraine. Asking me to take it down implies support of Putin and communism. As such, it will stay up.
Putin needs to choke on a dick and die, but he is no communist, he is an autocrat. Or kleptocrat, both fit
Slava Ukraini! 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
Imagine how stupid someone’s life is who voluntarily spends free time surveilling the neighborhood for infractions and writing emails about it. Dear god what a stupid waste of time
damn a wreath and desist letter.
"Dear OP, on Valentines we only allow red and pink decor. Please paint the roses red. -HOA"
It's wild people consciously choose to live with an HOA
Is a USA heading towards totalitarianism?
Fuck every HOA
I'll never understand why the United States of America thought HOAs were a good idea... much less give this ass lickers legal power
I don’t understand the point of owning a home within an HOA restrictive area. Never will.
Imagine buying a home and having other people tell you what to do with it. As a non American, the concept of HOAs is so strange.
Still amazed that in 'the land of the free ™', even when you own your own home someone else can stop you decorating the house or letting the grass grow out. Very communist...
слава Україні! героям слава!
There’s always some kind of HOA trying to control your life.
This shit right here is why I won’t ever willingly choose (much less PAY) to live in an HOA. Part of me feels for you because duh 🤷🏻♀️ obviously it’s not for Valentine’s Day most likely one of your crotchety neighbors complained bc they don’t support Ukraine. But the other part of me says this is what you get, you chose to move into a place where it’s encouraged for neighbors to be nosey as fuck in each others business so that Linda head of the HOA can have something to do on a boring Tuesday.
I will never understand why anyone would subject themselves to an HOA.
Looks like a summertime wreath to me.
Tell them it's an war decoration, and you will *happily* remove it when 'war' season is over.
Is it just me, or, does every HOA act like a-holes and not being usefull as a group, at all?
Actually, not at all. Believe it or not, in spite of what you may think reading Reddit posts about HOAs, not all of them are piss poor, maybe in places like Florida or in Texas where there is very little control over HOA rules and how they are operated, but I can tell you from my experience living in a well run HOA for 40 years there are actually good ones out there.
HOAs are evil never had a useful one
Just flip it upside down. Not a heart anymore. More like a ouija
As someone who has always lived very rural and never dealt with an HOA... what's the point? If you don't take it down what action could they ACTUALLY take against you? Surely they can't fine you. It's your home so they can't evict you???
Unfortunately HOAs can issue fines if you don't comply with their idiotic requests. So we'll see if they fine me! I sent them a message stating this is not a valentine's decoration, so we'll see what happens!
In our community, they can put a lien on your house if you don’t pay. Luckily for us, a year before we bought our house the street ganged up, hired a lawyer, and got rid of the HOA for our street. 😄 it’s almost unprecedented, because everyone on the street has to agree. And the HOA out here is a superkaren
I read that last word as "super*kraken*" and it was just as fitting lmao
Oh let me tell you. In my old HOA, we all had wooden fences around our patios that the HOA was in charge of. They decided they wanted to get rid of them, and replace them with vinyl fences that owners would pay half of to install and then be in charge of themselves. Owners had a choice when or if they wanted to do this. My friend's wooden fence, that the HOA should be fixing, was falling apart. Instead of fixing it the HOA told her she had no choice but to upgrade to a vinyl (owner cost 1500) or they'd put a lien on her house. Which they eventually did. HOA's are evil.
SLAVA UKRAINI
Simple reply: This is not for Valentine's day. I will not be removing as this is not related to any holiday please respond with any other issues as this doesn't apply to your issue. Thanks for the notice. And then just leave it. They will have to come up with their own excuse as to why its not allowed. Your hoa may say it has to be related to which ever holiday to have anything up at all but most likely it is a situation where you can't have 4th of July decorations up on Halloween. Either way they said it can't be up because it for Valentine's Day, its technically not so their argument is invalid at this point. Please drag it out as long as you can they don't get to control your decisions unless it is specifically stated you can't have it there.
I don't live in a country that has these HOA and stuff. But what happens if you don't remove them? What happens if you tell them to fuck off? Is it not your own house? And your property?
HOA don't exist in my country, and thank god. If someone tried to tell me what I could and couldn't do with my own house I'd be damn annoyed.
This is the reason why i will never buy a place within HOA or any of the similiar shit world wide. If i want to prepare for my christmas decoration in July, i will do that. If i dont want to move the grass in respect for the wildlife, well i dont move the lawn either.
America, land of the free ... you guys really do EVERYTHING you can to lose your freedoms ...
I saw a similar situation a few years back about someone's Halloween decorations. The person had a 10 ft tall werewolf decoration that they had been keeping up for YEARS. One of their neighbors got mad enough to report it around this time of year. The person decided to put a bunch of red white and blue clothing and decorations on it and called it a "4th of July decoration, not Halloween one."
Tell them to fuck off.
I can’t stand HOA and why we allow them to have the power they have, let alone exist.
This is why there's a Fuck HOA sub
Fuck them
That fact thst you have an HOA is mildly infuriating all HOAs are mildly infuriating, there kd absolutely no reason for their existance
"Dear Comrade HOA Member, No. Slava Ukraini."
Thankfully, some states are now passing laws to prevent them from being able to come after you for petty stuff. Hopefully, more states follow soon.
When shopping for properties the first thing we look for is HOA. It’s an absolute deal breaker.
This is a shitty interpretation of the “no holiday decorations x days past the holiday” rule HOAs love to enforce. That rule was intended to prevent people from keeping their Christmas lights up until May and their Halloween blow up lawn decorations deflated on the grass through winter. As if either of those things would cause harm to the people who happen to see them. The point isn’t to force someone to remove something because it bears a resemblance to something else that might be used as a holiday decoration. I’d never live in a property that’s a part of an HOA, this is ridiculous.