Mom of 2 gets turns entire neighborhood against HOA: '[She] had more than enough evidence'

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 27, 2025 11:00 AM EST

The strength of moms simply cannot be underestimated: they'll do whatever it takes to make the world a better place for their kids. 

It's a shame that HOAs still exist. There are countless horror stories about Homeowner's Associations. They exist as suburban boogeymen, charging three figures a month to do… something. Or maybe nothing. Who knows?

All you know as a homeowner in HOA territory is that you've got to pay up for every little infraction, like parking your car in the street, or not bringing in your trashcan on time. As you can imagine, this is a horrible way to live, and it really stresses people out as they wait for yet another fine. 

This person shared that their mom was incredibly productive while bringing down the HOA in their neighborhood growing up. Mom was mad that the HOA just dropped off some saplings without actually planting them. It's not the same as dropping off some bricks or mulch: those trees will wither away if they're not planted quick enough. In the end, it seems like this mom made a big difference in her community, as well as ensuring a better future for her two kids. 

After that, read about some video call disasters that happened when the mute button wasn't on, like one person who spent "5-8 minutes singing sea shanties... with about 350 people listening."

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  • 01
    'She showed up to the head of the HOA's house and basically demanded that the trees get planted properly'
    via Adrian Swancar on Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 02
    My neighborhood does not have a Homeowner's Association. At least, not anymore. When my parents first moved in, my older sibling maybe two years old and with me as a little glowworm, there was an HOA. They took money from the neighborhood in exchange for their services. At first, and for quite a while, my parents just kind of shrugged it off. The HOA shoveled the snow off the streets
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 03
    in winter and dealt with trash collection, so they were doing something worthwhile, right? Ha! No. The city controlled the snowplows and garbage trucks, not the HOA. But still, there was the illusion of effort. And besides, one summer they decided to contact a company to plant new trees all over the neighborhood! The fact that the company was owned by the son of the head of the HOA was totally coincidental.
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 04
    Why? Well. My grandma on my dad's side was visiting when they came around to plant the trees. My grandma, who is a certified master gardener. And so she stared through the windows of our house as the guys planting the trees just. dropped the saplings on the grass. still with their roots inside the bag they came in. No holes dug, no holes cut, just a bagged sapling lying on the grass like a pathetic and sad stick.
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 05
    The saplings laid there all night. No one came back to actually do their job and plant them. My (master gardener) grandma mentioned offhand that those saplings were going to di unless they got in the soil.
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 06
    And something clicked in my mom's head. She was paying the HOA money, actual money, every month, while both she and my dad worked, taking care of two very little kids, sending us to daycare and preschool and arranging babysitters and feeding us, and the Homeowner's Association was just going to pull this half assed bulls instead of do what she's paying them for? No. No way.
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 07
    So she showed up to the head of the HOA's house and basically demanded that the trees get planted properly like she's apparently paying for them to. The head of the HOA, so excited for someone actually caring about the neighborhood, made their second mistake. They asked if Mom wanted to join the HOA.
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 08
    She agreed. The trees were planted, but most didn't make it. My grandma was right. First things first, my mom showed up to the next HOA meeting. There were like, five people there. No wonder they asked Mom to join, they desperately needed the people. So Mom looked at this collection of white people (herself included) who weren't even paying money to the
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 09
    HOA like the rest of the neighborhood. All the "contractors" the HOA called in were close relatives of other HOA members and weren't paid by the HOA. After all, they're family.
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 10
    So my mom started digging. She spent pretty much a full summer taking down the HOA before she had to go back to teaching in the fall. With me carted along after her and my sibling old enough to be in school or daycare, she dug through the years of paperwork detailing the HOA's financial situation. And she found something... extremely enlightening.
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 11
    The HOA didn't actually do anything. Well, they didn't do anything to benefit the community. Everything they claimed to do was either covered by the individual homeowner or by the city itself. So they were collecting money from all the neighborhood residents under false pretenses, and actually they weren't even supposed to be in our neighborhood! Their association's zone was a whole different neighborhood!
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 12
    So what is a working mother of two small children to do while her husband is off at work and she's off for the summer? She goes door-to-door with pamphlets. Me and my sibling in a stroller as she weaves her way through the neighborhood blocks, pamphlets explaining the situation and how to stop paying for services you'll never get. Pamphlets that are, of course, written in both English and Spanish to account for the high amount of Latino and Hispanic people in our
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 13
    neighborhood. And naturally, she got a lawyer. And an accountant. It put a major dent in her pocket, but if it meant the entire neighborhood wasn't exploited for money each month, it was worth every penny.
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 14
    Another HOA member helped her sift through the documents and data and pass out pamphlets and encourage people to show up to the meetings, but had to back out because of work-related reasons.
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 15
    My mom rolled up to the courthouse flanked by the lawyer and accountant, her kids safe at home with her husband, and had more than enough evidence to get the Homeowner's Association the f out of her neighborhood, expose the fraudsters for the frauds they were, and make sure that no HOA would ever push their luck in our neighborhood.
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 16
    It's been almost 19 years, and no one's even tried making another Homeowner's Association in our neighborhood. TL;DR: when dealing with a worse-than-useless Homeowner's Association, get deep in the financials and lawyer the f
    via u/quietfangirl
  • 17
    Cheezburger Image 10459216384
    via Vitolda Klein on Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 18
    yum3no Doesn't take a master gardener to know the trees need to be put in the ground ②but good for your fam, HOAS S k....you spend all this money to finally get away from landlords telling you what to do and giving them money just to have your neighbors get paid to tell you what to do
    via u/yum3no
  • 19

    Moms are so unstoppable

    kelcieam11 This is funny because my mom did almost the same thing!! She was ped with the HOA, joined it, pretty much usurped the in charge and her and our other neighbor became president and vice went door to door with pamphlets detailing poor decisions and
    via u/kelcieam11
  • 20
    collecting signatures for a re-election. It started a kind of signature arms race, as the then-president retaliated with petitions of their own, but mom got her way in the end lol
    via u/kelcieam11
  • 21
    unicoitn if the HOA was not mentioned in the deed, it does not apply...a title search would have shown that with very little effort.
    via u/unicoitn
  • 22

    Just think about how much money this Mom saved!

    Flynny123 Where had the money been going though?!
    via u/Flynny123
  • 23
    iconicflux I once saw an HOA make the mistake of trying to fine a bird breeder that just happened to be a police officer on the side. She immediately requested the full financials from the HOA and they utterly flipped out. Turned out they were giving 0% interest loans to each other using HOA funds.
    via u/iconicflux
  • 24
    Never did find out how that went for them but knowing that officer she never let it go and they were 100% within the area she was capable of charging them for crimes. I'm going to have to follow up to see how that worked out.
    via u/iconicflux

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hoa trees plants kids house mother home owners association moms mom home
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