My brother and I live in the same town. His neighborhood has an HOA with rules that are enforced. There is no HOA in my neighborhood. There were a few things my brother received warnings (or reminders) about the first year or two that he lived there. My initial thoughts were there was no way I could live in a neighborhood with an HOA. Ten years later, his neighborhood still has well maintained lawns, no vehicles on the streets, no junk in the yards, etc. My neighborhood, on the other hand, has gone downhill. My neighbors behind me and to one side of me have junk all over their backyards. The one on the side has so many overgrown trees and bushes bordering our property that it has affected our space. A neighbor across the street is a family of four, but they have about eight vehicles. Three of which are in their backyard. He also participates in mud racing, so many Saturday’s we have the pleasure of listening to him work on his mud truck and it is LOUD. Three neighbors have dogs that are confined to the backyards with little to no human interaction, so they do the boredom barking for hours on end. The neighbors behind me don’t clean up after their dogs, so the stench can be bad. They also have four apple trees they do nothing with, so every fall, the apples drop, then sit and rot. The stench from that gets overwhelming. Honestly, I could keep going, but I hope you get my point. If we had an active HOA, none of those things would be tolerated. I would happily make a few adjustments to our day to day living if I had an HOA that would prevent the aforementioned issues from happening. Like others have said, if you strongly oppose living under the rules of an HOA, don’t choose a house in that neighborhood.
