If you read the acronym HOA as a single word, you get something similar to "horror." And if you consider the numerous stories in recent years involving various HOA control freaks who baselessly imagine themselves to be the masters of human destinies, then things become even more tragic. But sometimes, individuals still prevail...
For example, this happened in the story of the user u/n00bstar, whose HOA president believed she had the right to decide what was best for the whole neighborhood, even against the consensus of community members. However, petty revenge almost always works effectively.
More info: Reddit
Homeowners' Associations have much power in our society, and sometimes they clearly overuse this power, causing various problems for us "mere mortals"
Image credits: stefamerpik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The author of the post has their house in a neighborhood with an HOA, and its ex-president was quite an entitled person
Image credits: mazharrajpoot / Freepik (not the actual photo)
This lady tried to ensure a free pass for a fire truck through the street, and thus wanted to cut the street parking space in half
Image credits: korrawinj / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The members of the HOA voted against this idea, but the president lied to the fire department and urged them to install the curb anyway
Image credits: n00bstar
Then, the president faced another guy's petty revenge, as he left his boat parked in front of her house
The Original poster (OP) explains that their house is a member of the HOA, and the neighborhood is a narrow street with a cul-de-sac at the end. The HOA president (the author suggests calling her Helen, so why not) owns one of the houses located in the cul-de-sac. And so it turns out, she's been toying with the idea of banning parallel parking on the street for a long time.
The motive behind this decision? According to Helen, the cars parked on both sides of the street could block the fire trucks from reaching the cul-de-sac in an emergency. The OP says this is all nonsense because the street is wide enough for that. But if we're dealing with an entitled and stubborn person obsessed with some idée-fixe, when has that ever stopped them?
Helen tried to push this measure through a vote of the HOA members, but failed. However, the opposition clearly underestimated this lady's tenacity. She went to the fire department a few days later, voiced her concerns, and claimed that the HOA members had voted to restrict parking. So, a couple of days later, the homeowners were met with an unpleasant surprise.
Be that as it may, the HOA president also underestimated the potential for people's malicious compliance. One of the homeowners, who usually parked his boat near his own house, now waited until Helen left and parked it there. Until summer. Moreover, in the next election, Helen was voted out, and the next president had the curb painted back to normal, but the boat guy kept parking it in front of the ex-president's windows…
Image credits: David Guerrero / Pexels (not the actual photo)
It's no secret that HOA boards in modern society are sometimes granted extraordinary powers, and many of their board members and presidents sometimes clearly overuse these powers. Moreover, sometimes HOA leadership finds numerous formal excuses to prevent homeowners from recalling the board. As was the case, for example, described on the Independent American Communities website.
In the situation we described, however, there was outright deception by city officials - if the majority of homeowners truly voted against cutting the parking space, then the president clearly broke the law with her lies. In this case, as this dedicated post on The Bainbridge Law Firm website notes, these really are grounds for recalling the current management.
Until that happens, malicious compliance is perhaps the most effective way to counter HOA higher-ups, who are on a power trip. This is what happened, for example, in several cases also described by Bored Panda. Remarkably, in all the stories, the opinions of people in the comments were invariably against the HOA...
Here, too, commenters massively thanked the original poster for a smart and witty story of petty revenge. Furthermore, people couldn't help but note that HOAs are the scourge of many communities, albeit in many ways a necessary evil. So now, dear readers, please feel free to leave your comments below, and maybe share your own stories of confronting entitled HOA higher-ups as well.
Most commenters praised the author for telling such a witty revenge story, and noted that HOAs are kind of a necessary evil nowadays
