HOA Resident Proposes Neighborhood Should Enforce a Dress Code to Drive up Property Values

Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor

Sep 10, 2023 11:00 AM EDT

I have a confession to make: I grew up in a neighborhood with a homeowners association. You might think that having a homeowners association is a failsafe way to ensure your neighbors keep a tidy lawn, but you'd be wrong! Despite the constant watchful eye of the HOA looking over us, our next-door neighbors still didn't mow their lawn sufficiently, at least according to my dad.

One of the wildest things the HOA did was right before we moved out of our neighborhood. Literally, the week before my family left Texas for good, the HOA told us that we had the wrong color mulch around the bushes and trees in our front yard and had to change it. Who in their right mind is spending their summer looking at the mulch in people's front yards and deeming it unacceptable? If you hate homeowners associations as much as I did after that interaction, then this story of an HOA resident proposing a neighborhood dress code will leave you in stitches.