Homeowners Share Their Most Satisfying HOA Revenge Stories

Posted by u/dave8814:

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.

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 seven 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 whatever she felt she had to and walked away.

This really p*ssed 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... In the end, I had every right to walk my dog at anytime of day or night. As for her, though, they tested the siren, which exceeded noise levels for anytime before eight 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.

Posted by Anonymous:

My family lived under the dictatorial regime of a HOA for about a year and a half...

My dad, who is into ham radios, put up a small but hardly visible antenna on the back of the house. The top of it could be seen from the front, but only just the very top. Well, the HOA president told him that he had to take it down. He told them he would (although there was nothing in the bylaws forcing him to do so).

The next day, the antenna is 15 feet taller, as my dad had raised the extension in response. The HOA president put a fine in our mailbox immediately and gave my dad a stern talking-to at our front door.

The follow day, the antenna was raised up another 10 feet with an extension added in. At that point, it was clearly visible all over the neighborhood. Another fine showed up in our mailbox, and my dad had to go to another meeting. They threatened to begin eviction proceedings if he didn't take it down immediately. He acquiesced and agreed to take it down.

The next day the antenna was still there, with my dad on the roof first thing in the morning, waving at the HOA president as he predictably came around to inspect.

In a furious huff, he went to the council, called my dad in, and told him that they would begin eviction proceedings since he was not only violating HOA rules, but making a mockery of them. At that point, my dad pulled his ace card and had my uncle lawyer come in and explain that where we lived, HOAs could not regulate the use and transmission of ham radios and licensed operators due to their use for emergency communications and transmissions. My dad knew this all along, but just decided to mess with the HOA regardless. He kept his tower, and the HOA caved in on the fines and punishments and realized they couldn't do anything unless they wanted to take us to court and prove that what my dad had was unreasonable (which it clearly wasn't).

It's his favorite story to tell at parties. I still think ham radios are boring, though.

Posted by u/procrastinator3000v2:

A friend of mine lived in a pretty big neighborhood with a pretty strict HOA. He asked and was allowed to add a garage onto his house and did so, siding it with cedar planks. It looked great. His HOA disagreed and told him the by-laws state all exposed walls must be painted. He tried to appeal, but was shot down unanimously. So he checked the by-laws further and found that while it was stated that all exposed walls must be painted, there was absolutely no mention of any color restrictions.

By the time he was done, each plank was a different primary color, and there was nothing they could do about it. They were furious with him, and he laughed his butt off.

Posted by u/Bob__Loblaw__:

My HOA in Oklahoma required that you hire a professional company and spend at least $500 to put up lights at Christmas time. They threatened to fine me when I refused, so, since I'm Jewish, I got a company to put up a huge Star of David in my front yard. They removed the requirement from the HOA rules the next year.

Posted by u/Viking042900:

So a while back, I was given a UGA Bulldogs flag and a flagpole to mount it on my porch. Our homeowners association (HOA) restrictions say that sports team flags can only be flown on a day in which the team is playing. My intention was to only fly it on Saturdays when the football team was playing. So I put the flag up on a Saturday the Dawgs were playing, but forgot to take it down until Monday. On Friday, I get a letter from the HOA stating that I am in violation of the restriction and could be fined. Okay, fair enough, they are correct on this one. I then noticed that the date of observation was on Wednesday. I called and said that couldn't be true because I took it down on Monday. Instead of admitting her mistake, she lied and said that she had seen it up on Wednesday. Now I was mad.

I printed off a schedule of every sporting event the Bulldogs had in every sport, even club sports, and then proceeded to fly the flag every single day there was any kind of game, match, regatta, etc., which was almost every single day.

I then started getting letters stating I was in violation again. I would call on each one and explain that the water polo team had a match, or the rowing team had a regatta on those days. After about a month or two of this back and forth, they finally gave up.

Posted by u/Flynn_lives:

OH WEE!!!! My good friend had a story.

Her and the husband moved into this gated community. She loves having a birdbath in her backyard... and she gardens a lot, so the decoration makes sense. Turns out her HOA figured out that she had said birdbath in her backyard. Apparently birdbath = lawn ornament, which was forbidden. She told them she would remove it. A week later, she gets another message saying that it hasn't been removed (it hadn't), and obviously, she and the husband put it together that the HOA is snooping in her backyard.

For a week, she spends her time outside sunbathing in the nude, setting her trap. Sure enough, a HOA narc opens the gate to their backyard and sees her in the nude.

Instant call to the police for privacy violations. The HOA gave up and let her have a birdbath.

She is now on the board of the HOA, and they leave her alone.