'I got fined for having a Halloween pumpkin on my patio on November 1st': 20+ HOAs who had super strict rules and steep fines

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Mar 30, 2024 11:00 AM EDT

If you can help it, never move into a neighborhood that is home to an HOA. 

The name of an HOA, or Home Owner's Association, implies that it's a board that'll make sound decisions for the homeowners of an area. But in practice, that's so far from the truth. In reality, HOAs are run by a few people who make sweeping decisions for an entire area, and are often more focused on keeping control over people's homes and charging massive fines to line their own pockets. They're able to do things like charge you $400 for parking your own vehicle in your driveway instead of your garage. One person got fined for having a simple jack-o-lantern on their porch… the day after Halloween. It's an unlivable situation for many people who find themselves in HOA territory.

At least misery loves company! These people wrote in to answer a question from u/eaerp, who asked for people's tales of the "craziest HOA Rule or regulation you've heard about or live with." More than 3,000 people shared their stories---check them out below! 

Next up, this CEO of a startup acted thrilled to bring on a new hire, but then as soon as the employee signed their contract, the CEO started having second thoughts. 

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  • 01
    What's the craziest HOA (Home Owners' Association) Rule or regulation you've heard about or live with? futureformerteacher We are specifically limited to "one large animal". It fails to state what the animal can be. I'm thinking whale, or perhaps African elephant. H
    via Dillon Kydd on Unsplash
  • 02
    What's the craziest HOA (Home Owners' Association) Rule or regulation you've heard about or live with?
    via u/eaerp
  • 03
    futureformerteacher We are specifically limited to "one large animal". It fails to state what the animal can be. I'm thinking whale, or perhaps African elephant.
    via u/futureformerteacher
  • 04
    Fromager I was once made to resod my front lawn. In the middle of summer with average daily temperatures over 100 degrees. During one of the worst droughts on record. While the whole city was under watering restrictions.
    via u/Fromager
  • 05
    The new lawn (which I had spent several hundred dollars on) promptly died and they tried to make me replace it again, but apparently enough people had complained by that point that before I did they agreed not to make us replace our lawns until the water restrictions were lifted.
    via u/Fromager
  • 06
    Confession bear time: I had to get up early for work (3am), so as I drove through the neighborhood I looked for people watering their lawns in the middle of the night on violation of restrictions. Most people were just trying to avoid being hassled by the HOA, I know, so I left them alone. But when I saw members of the HOA board doing it, I reported them to the city.
    via u/Fromager
  • 07
    dave8814 I go into work early some days to get at least some of my work done before the idiots show up. Usually before work I go on about a five mile walk with my dog. I live in a condo so I walk about a quarter mile up the road and walk around in a neighborhood.
    via u/dave8814
  • 08
    About eight months ago while I'm walking a golf cart with actual lights and sirens pulls up in front of me. This huge old lady gets out and starts yelling before I can even get my headphones out of my ears. Turns out walking dogs. isn't allowed before 7 am according to the hoa. I informed her that first of all I don't live there and second of all the streets were all public so she couldn't really do much. She responded by threatening to call the cops and have me arrested. I just told her to do w
    via u/dave8814
  • 09
    This really I her off. She started following me in her golf cart with the lights and siren going. This continued for about ten minutes until the cops arrived on the scene. I stopped and talked with them for a bit and explained my side of things. Took maybe 20 minutes before they came back over to explain what was going to happen.
    via u/dave8814
  • 10
    In the end I had every right to walk my dog at anytime of day or night as long as I had a light when it was dark and had reflective clothing (I had both), as for her though they tested the siren which exceeded noise levels for anytime before 8 am. Then to top it off she didn't have it registered for use on public roads, and the tail lights didn't work. As I looped back around the golf cart was getting loaded onto a tow truck and I just kinda laughed the whole way back to my condo.
    via u/dave8814
  • 11
    BenFreedom Specific letter fonts on mailboxes. There will be no personalities here! BTW I manage to keep chickens here because they weren't careful about how they worded the pet clause.
    via u/BenFreedom
  • 12
    sosomama I got fined for having a holloween pumpkin on my patio on Nov 1st.
    via u/
  • 13
    Aardopossadillo Had an HOA which regularly complained about petty things. I did fix them, but was super annoyed. I made a sign (very cheaply, white with black text) which said "Yard of the month" or something like that because it would annoy them greatly and wasn't technically against the rules. Later, they actually made a really nice and expensive official sign "HOA OFFICIAL yard of the month." (lol, really? I was joking)
    via u/
  • 14
    Nice graphics and nice metal frame. Really official looking. I noticed it on a walk at night when most people were already inside. I grabbed the sign and moved it to someone else's yard which was obviously with lots of weeds etc. Ya, that sign never showed up again. lol.
    via u/
  • 15
    increasingrain I know someone where his HOA prevents you from taking the trash out the day before pick up. Like if taking your trash out on sunday night for trash day monday was worthy of a $50 or $100 fine. 12:01AM Monday is fine, but 11:59PM sunday wasn't
    via u/
  • 16
    alwaysapirate I live in a condo. My HOA guidelines explicitly state I cannot have a horse or other livestock. I couldn't even fit a horse in the door!
    via u/
  • 17
    DrearilyDreaming You know Over the Hedge? Where the lady goes around and measures grass? Yeah... I'd have to say that that, in real life is the craziest and pettiest things I've seen the HOA do. Aside from that I know someone who had the HOA tell them they needed one more bush in their yard and drove by and fined them every day until they had one planted.
    via u/
  • 18
    From the flip side, I know a homeowner who got herself elected on the board just so she could paint her house a different shade of beige.
    via u/
  • 19
    LemonFake Had a friend who moved into the suburbs and upon moving in received the thickest rule book I've ever seen from the HOA. The majority of it were allowed/banned lists; here are the flowers you are ALLOWED to grow and what colors of them you are allowed to grow and here are how many of them you are allowed to grow and what kind of pots you're allowed to plant them in and where in the yard you can plant them and how tall you are allowed to have them and so on, so forth, etc.
    via u/
  • 20
    They had these lists for not only plants but things like statues you'd put in the yard (gnomes are allowed but they may not be more than three feet tall and may not depict any inappropriate material), the color you could have the house painted (it may be yellow but only THESE SPECIFIC SHADES OF YELLOW), what kind of wreath you could put on the door (wreaths may not be bigger than _), when you could have BBQs or parties in your yard and what kind were allowed, how tall your grass could be, the ki
    via u/
  • 21
    mulch you were allowed to use in your garden, and just so much. You know how you sometimes step into a person's house and it's the kind where you feel like you can't sit down because you're afraid you'll ruin something? I felt like this as soon as I rolled into this neighborhood. Friend is still living there, I don't know how she does it.
    via u/
  • 22
    conanoid I was threatened a fine for not having my landscaping done before the end of 2007. I moved in the house Feb 2014... I had to go to the committee meeting and present my case, then 5 or 6 of my neighbors needed to discuss my fate. It took them until the next day to agree that I should not be fined. I'm moving as soon as I can. LPT: never live in an HOA. If your spouse thinks it won't be so bad, get another spouse.
    via u/
  • 23
    mizzk519 My nieces aren't allowed to colour on their drive way with chalk.
    via u/
  • 24
    whatchayasayin My father was fined for having a flat tire on his own truck in his own driveway. He did not even know that it was flat yet.
    via u/
  • 25
    [deleted] We put a flag pole in our front yard when I was like 9 and the HOA got all into a big I off. It turned waving contest. First and only time I was on the news, in the newspaper and on the radio... all within about 2 weeks. Ultimately we were able to keep it, threw a big block party that sparked another controversy with the HOA.
    via u/
  • 26
    Also about a year after I left home they decided everyone had to have the same mailbox, they were nice mailboxes but I believe they cost over $200 and everyone had to pay an additional fee that year to cover the cost.
    via u/
  • 27
    practeerts The weirdest one I knew of was that you had to have your lawn mowed to a specified height and no shorter. I think it was like 2 3/8" or something really arbitrary. I didn't move there because the neighbors were all a little too friendly for me. I was just looking at the property and the three immediate neighbors came over and wanted to talk. I could kind of tell it would be a thing if I did live there and...I am not a people person.
    via u/
  • 28
    Chi-gam... Only one basketball goal allowed in the neighborhood. "Basketballs are too loud." -Old people
    via u/
  • 29
    threenil In my city, a HOA fought to prevent a child with cerebral palsy from having a therapeutic playhouse built in his parents' backyard. US Dept. of Justice wound up suing the HOA for discrimination and not complying with the ADA. Family wound up moving because of all the The HOA wanted proof that the playhouse was prescribed by a doctor or therapist, which is the most asinine thing I've ever heard.
    via u/
  • 30
    slackinfux The craziest one I've heard recently is not being able to park in your own driveway. You HAVE to park your vehicle in the garage. that!
    via u/
  • 31
    [deleted] One summer i worked for a residential landscaping company. The major job we had that summer was this massive mansion owened by a family who owned an oil company. They bought a massive amount of land to build their house on, and wanted to buy the ajoining lot to build a guest house. HOA told them no, and i guess during the meeting the father (who owned the company, and was a no nonsense type of guy, but was generally nice to us) may have
    via u/
  • 32
    called the president of the HOA a couple mean things and told him that he felt the decision was wrong. Anyway, everyday for a month while we worked on this site, we had someone from the HOA coming to inspect the work and trying to fine the homeowner/make us redo whatever we did. Make sure the fence was the right height, boards were spaced properly, paint matched everyone else's (that resulted in another arguement because apparently we got the
    via u/
  • 33
    wrong paint but we didnt than suddenly we did again). They were looking at the amount of grass they had in the front yard, literally anything they could think of, they made sure to try to ding the home owner on it. The homeowner actually did get fined a couple times because we "left tools out in the open" (even though we did everything we could do hide them).
    via u/
  • 34
    I get really bothered by this one, in my city, you can't park on the same side of the street as the fire hydrants are on. No, I don't mean you can't park near one. I mean all of our fire hydrants are on the (let's say) the left side and you cannot park anywhere on the left side. It's frustrating because all my life, friends have come over and parked in front of my house and I have to run out and tell them that they can't park there because down the street there is also a fire hydrant on this sid
    via u/
  • 35
    klaatu1101 Our HOA rule is that your mailbox can't just be black, it has to be the right shade of black.
    via u/
  • 36
    [deleted] Not really HOA since it was an large office park, in the lease the management company compelled all the tenant to use 1 construction company for any and all construction work, from installing 1 outlet to building entire offices.
    via u/
  • 37
    The construction company was owned by the same company that owned the management company and the building. What the charges was obscene, the scheduling was non-existent, and the quality barely passable for code.
    via u/
  • 38
    [deleted] I know someone who lives in a place where they aren't allowed to own a truck because trucks are considered work vehicles and they aren't allowed. I'm sketchy on some of the details because I know there has to be service vehicles in the neighborhood at some point. But I do know. personal and company trucks aren't allowed. Not even locked up in the garage. They are looking to move because she has to keep her truck at her moms house.
    via u/

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