'I became the HOA president': Resident gets even with neighbors who block his parking spot by joining HOA; becomes president, fines them

Author image for Eleonora Bader
Eleonora Bader
May 6, 2023 1:00 PM EDT

Karens infiltrate slowly into virtuous neighborhoods with a heavy sense of entitlement, ignoring HOA bylaws, under the assumption that they are divinely above it all. In this case, OP had a couple of parking spots that were legally his, that were occasionally empty. Whether they were occupied or not, OP's new neighbors took advantage of the Australian law which was lacking in the car parking department, and decidedly parked their own cars in those spots. They also began inviting family, friends, and other people to park there as well. They ended up continuously blocking OP's car, or taking his spot. At first, OP communicated, but realized quickly that wasn't going to cut it.

So he began hatching his plan for revenge… deciding to take it to the next level, and play the long game. His efforts certainly paid off. In Australia, they have what we would (more or less) call an HOA, but they call it the 'strata committee'. OP joined this committee, and within 6 months was elected president. He made sure that his neighbors paid heavy fines, and generally made parking an extremely miserable sport.

Scroll down to read the full, detailed account of events. For more stories like this one, here is a barista student who was crossed one too many times by a Karen customer who wanted her coffee 'hot' after letting it sit for 10 minutes out in the cold. The barista made sure Karen would never dare complain again.

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  • 01
    Font - Posted by u/anto9900 6 hours ago Block me in one more time.... I used to live in a multi level apartment complex in a large city that is well known for having very expensive carparking. I had two dedicated car parking spaces (back to back) allocated to my apartment.
    via u/anto9900
  • 02
    Font - I used to sublease the car park space to a friend that would park his car on work days. Often on a friday night he would taxi home after friday night drinks and leave his car. He would then come in on the saturday or sunday and pick it up. Often he would park me in, but this wasnt an issue as we had access to each others cars.
    via u/anto9900
  • 03
    Font - A new neighbour moved into the complex and unfortunately for me that neighbour turned out to be real d k. They would often see my spaces free and park me in or tell thier visitors to park me in. I would often had to call them or go see them and ask for them to move thier cars. It became such an issue that I had them on speed dial.
    via u/anto9900
  • 04
    Font - We tried several things to stop them parking in our spots, such as putting in bollards or parking in the front spot and moving the cars when we needed to park. But they would end up parking us in and parking illegally.
    via u/anto9900
  • 05
    Font - My friend got so frustrated and said he would stop subleasing from me which wasnt a big deal as it was only an arrangement of convenience for both of us.
    via u/anto9900
  • 06
    Font - In Australia is very difficult to enforce parking on private property. Its basically illegal to tow, clamp or detain a car. So building management couldnt really help besides putting warning stickers and writing letters.
    via u/anto9900
  • 07
    Font - I talked to alot of the residents in the complex and they where having the same problems. Cue revenge, I joined the strata committe which consists of all the owners and after 6 months got elected as the president which wasnt hard as only a hand full of residents would actively particpate.
    via u/anto9900
  • 08
    Font - I got the common areas which included visitor parking to be managed by the council, we had to pay a fee but it was worth it.
    via u/anto9900
  • 09
    Font - When council started to patrol the common areas, the offending cars got fined pretty heavily till they were removed. I saw atleast 5 tickets (each approx $250) on 3 of the cars. In addition one of the cars wasnt even registered and was ticketed for abadonment and was eventually removed.
    via u/anto9900
  • 10
    Font - This didnt resolve the private car parking issues. So I had by laws drafted that if residents let visitors into the private carpark instead of using the visitor parking, thier access would be "reassessed". This meant that thier access FOBs (Keys) would be disabled untill the residents confirmed they understood the by
    via u/anto9900
  • 11
    Font - laws. This meant that the offending residents, which were renters were constantly calling thier landlord and complaining as we disabled the FOBs. Ofcourse it took 24 hours and an adminitrative fee to reactivate the FOBS....
    via u/anto9900
  • 12
    Font - Eventually, I got the carpark upgraded and the carpark key FOB system removed and replaced with number plate identification instead. I've since moved out, but as I still own the property and am still on the strata committe I'm still informed. I am happy to report that there are no more parking issues :P
    via u/anto9900
  • 13
    Font - +2.6 hr. ago A motivated individual and problems! Cfwydirk What problems? Bravo! 4 158 Reply Share
    via u/Cfwydirk
  • 14
    Font - purplegramjan +1.5 hr. ago Well you are certainly persistent and I give you a lot of credit for that! I will never understand why some people don't think the rules apply to them. They are really MUCH less than special 481 Reply Share
    via u/purplegramjan
  • 15
    Font - 0-7 anto9900 OP 3 hr. ago persistent Is key to victory... From them moving in and the number plate recognition being installed it was 18 months...
    via u/anto9900
  • 16
    Font - powereddescent 3 hr. ago Love your story. It's always the one or two entitled individuals who make life difficult for everyone else. Most people are reasonable.
    via u/powereddescent
  • 17
    Font - 0-1 anto9900 OP.3 hr. ago Exactly, its a real shame when others make our lives difficult. I gave them more than 6 months to stop doing it. Other neighbours also complained at the same time. It was causing a lot of stress for
    via u/anto9900
  • 18
    Font - everyone. This wasnt like they had a spare car and needed to park it, this was like friends and family would come and park for hours because it was convenient free parking in the city 11 ↓ Reply Share
    via u/anto9900
  • 19
    Font - dave7965 +2.4 hr. ago Did you disable everybody's FOB or just theirs? 12 Reply Share
    via u/dave7965
  • 20
    Font - 0-1 anto9900 OP. 4 hr. ago Theirs and three other residents that used to do the same thing. Every resident gets 2 Fobs for access. You can pay for additional fobs if you have more than 2 occupants etc.
    via u/anto9900
  • 21
    Font - We know everyone codes and can disable them individually. Security footage would constantly pick up people just standing outside swiping friends or family in... ↑ 30 ↓ Reply Share
    via u/anto9900

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Tags

FAILS revenge-reddit-stories karens hoa strata-committee malicious compliance parking spot neighborhood revenge australia entitled-neighbors petty revenge neighborhood-resident HOA-president
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