What is the DUMBEST / WORST HOA rule you have ever heard of?

[Muffin]

My mom can't put her trash out until after 6pm the night before trash day in her HOA.

We don't live in an area with an HOA, but our local government does not allow us to put our trash out before 5pm. This statute is on the books, but it's never enforced. I would bet that many cities and counties have that law and just don't enforce it.

Also, they are not allowed to have Oleanders in their yards.

I've heard that oleanders are poisonous, maybe that's the reason for this one.

 

[Maleficent13]

We can't either but I don't see why this rule would bother anyone. Please enlighten me.

Well, if you work second shift, your options are to either put it out at 2-3pm, or put it out at 12:30-1am, thus waking up your neighbors by dragging your city mandated noisy as heck trashcan down your concrete driveway.

 

[jrmasm]

Well, if you work second shift, your options are to either put it out at 2-3pm, or put it out at 12:30-1am, thus waking up your neighbors by dragging your city mandated noisy as heck trashcan down your concrete driveway.

Doesn't everyone have those nifty wheeled trashcans? They're not that noisy.

I see your point but cannot imagine being that disturbed by someone bringing out their trash at 1:00am. The trashcans wouldn't disturb my sleep anymore than them opening their garage door when they got home from work.

 

[sk8ingmom]

Well, if you work second shift, your options are to either put it out at 2-3pm, or put it out at 12:30-1am, thus waking up your neighbors by dragging your city mandated noisy as heck trashcan down your concrete driveway.

In my town in Alaska, you can't put your garbage out before 5 a.m. on trash day. Bears are a big problem & the city tickets you with a heafty fine.

 

[Zandy595]

ETA: another rule is no satellite dish (for television). This is a clever rule though, because it makes sure that no muslims will buy into it, without you having racist rules. They all need their satellite dish to receive arabic channels.
The big problem with them though is that they are very loud (espacially at night) and cram way too many people in a way too small house/ appartment.

Wow, I can't believe you posted that.

Somewhere down in Florida there were HOA rules that limited the number of guest you could have stay overnight and for how long. Apparently there were a lot of evil people in the subdivision giving refuge to hurricane victims. Everyone knows how charity, kindness, and good will drives down property values.

I don't agree with it, but that's one of our rules. I think it's something like - no overnight guests can stay for longer than 30 days.

I will take my lovely Muslim neighbors over pretty much anyone- especially bigots- any day of the week, thank you very much. I wonder if you know just how prejudiced this sounds?

I agree.

 

[themarquis]

I always laugh at people who do something crazy as a retaliation against their covenants, like paint their house pink with baby blue polka dots. But deep down, I'm kinda happy I don't live next door to them.

Now please don't think I'm being rude (and I apologize if I come off that way), but if you do paint your house some unique color, what makes you think your neighbors would want to look at it? A "unique" house color can disrupt the theme of a neighborhood, and likely cause home values to drop. Is your expression really worth the value of homes in your area to drop even more than they already are?

Plus you have to think of the costs involved in painting a home. And then what happens if you decide to move? How likely is it that you will find a buyer with the same tastes that you have? Will you then incur the costs of re-painting your house a more neutral color for marketing purposes?

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of "over the line" type of rules that a lot of HOAs have in their covenants. But something as big as house color (I think) is important. I would be devastated if my next door neighbor decided to paint her house white with lime green mickey heads all over it laughing: ). That's why it's so important that everyone read the covenants thoroughly before they buy into an HOA neighborhood.

Hmmm ... I do take your point, but I guess I just don't understand why a nice but a little bit unusual (and no, I'm not talking about a neon-bright color or polka dots or stripes or anything like that) is so awful to look at. And what makes everyone think that their hideous but "normal" colors (like putty green or beige or baby poop colored or whatever) are colors that other people want to look at? (to take your statement and turn it around a bit).

I'm not sure I do! Sometimes I drive through those awful subdivisions where all the houses are an identical shade of putty and start feeling a bit ill!

Anyway, in our town, we have an area where all the residents have chosen the kind of colors I was talking about (bright and fun but not glaring) and the house prices are plenty high and the neighborhood is popular and quite beautiful, albeit a bit unusual.

Do tasteful but unusual colors on otherwise well-kept, nice looking homes REALLY drive down home prices around them? OR is that something that people just say to discourage any outside-the-box thinking Just curious.

As far as the issue of costly painting and the possibility of repainting or having trouble selling an interestingly-colored house, I figure that's nobody's business but ours!

 

[vegasnative]

I've heard that oleanders are poisonous, maybe that's the reason for this one.

Only if you eat them, and then you would have to consume a lot of it over an extended amount of time. The reason they don't allow the Oleander is because of the root system. They have killer roots (ha, no pun intended), and where my parents live the HOA feels it could over time start to make the block walls fall apart. They do not have wood fences there, it is all cinder block. It's ashame about the Oleanders because it is one of the few plants that do well in the desert area where they live. When we lived there we were in an HOA and were allowed to have them.

 

[vegasnative]

We can't either but I don't see why this rule would bother anyone. Please enlighten me.

I just suppose it might interfer if you are going out of town or plan to be away from the house during trash day/time.

 

[vegasnative]

Doesn't everyone have those nifty wheeled trashcans? They're not that noisy.

Nope! I had never seen them until I moved here to Washington. In Vegas we used to just put trash bags out. There the man still rides on the back and jumps off the truck and swings the bag in. Here, we all have the same trash can with wheels, and a mechanical arm swoops over and picks up the trash. I seriously had never seen that before. Of course I had seen the bug huge dumpsters being picked up, but not for residential.

 

[KigerKat]

I just know that in my particular neighborhood, if someone painted their house purple - it just wouldn't match. Our neighborhood has an old-time America/front porch theme with houses in the same color scheme. Yes, we do have a few tan and beige houses, but we also have light yellow, light green and light blue - but they are neutral shades of those colors (if that makes sense?). A bright pink or purple house would disrupt the feel of the neighborhood, and yes, might actually cause home prices near that house to drop slightly.

Our subdivision is geared toward a specific type of buyer, and not the kind that like bright colored houses. Our house is currently up for sale, and if we were next to a brightly colored house, we would have to drastically drop our selling price so someone wouldn't mind living next to an interestingly-colored house. And as buyers, if we fell in love with a house that was that color, I would want the sellers to re-paint it before we bought it. I would see that as the seller's responsibility if they wanted me to buy it.

In your area, if there is a neighborhood that encourages this type of home - then more power to you! I just think that one house standing out that much in a neighborhood just doesn't look right.

And we may be talking about different types of "unique" home colors here - not sure.

 

[themarquis]

I just know that in my particular neighborhood, if someone painted their house purple - it just wouldn't match. Our neighborhood has an old-time America/front porch theme with houses in the same color scheme. Yes, we do have a few tan and beige houses, but we also have light yellow, light green and light blue - but they are neutral shades of those colors (if that makes sense?). A bright pink or purple house would disrupt the feel of the neighborhood, and yes, might actually cause home prices near that house to drop slightly.

Our subdivision is geared toward a specific type of buyer, and not the kind that like bright colored houses. Our house is currently up for sale, and if we were next to a brightly colored house, we would have to drastically drop our selling price so someone wouldn't mind living next to an interestingly-colored house. And as buyers, if we fell in love with a house that was that color, I would want the sellers to re-paint it before we bought it. I would see that as the seller's responsibility if they wanted me to buy it.

In your area, if there is a neighborhood that encourages this type of home - then more power to you! I just think that one house standing out that much in a neighborhood just doesn't look right.

And we may be talking about different types of "unique" home colors here - not sure.

eh, you might be right that we are speaking of different colors and different neighborhoods. I guess we already knew a lot of neighborhoods wouldn't be for us (purple houses aside). I guess I've never wanted to live in a neighborhood where there is a completely unified look or theme -- just seems too regimented or something, no room for people who want to do their own thing and not have to worry about what other people think all the time! (me, I say screw 'em )

I know some people don't mind that sort of thing, but I do wonder if some of the people in the more straight-laced HOAs are all paranoid and anxious all the time, worrying about what the neighbors might think and whether somebody from "The Association" is out there with a ruler measuring the height of their grass

 

[Mandychelle79]

I don't live in a HOA and most likely never will (I just don't like people telling me what I can and can't do with a house I own) but there are rules that the city has that are enforced by code enforcement. One of those is no RVs or boats in front of the front peak of the house (meaning they have to be kept either on the side of the house or in the back - not in the driveway) I personally don't like people keeping their boat/RV in the driveway - why would they want to hide their house like that.

But then again the city doesn't do all that well with enforcing the rules - most of the time people get violations is when someone calls to compain or there is other construction in the neighborhood and therefore code enforcement is around more often.

My parents have two drive ways. One in the front of the house where dad sometimes parks the boat when hes planning on going out again the next day or the bottom one where the boat is normally kept.

 

[DVC-Don]

No HOA but deed restrictions that were put in before the town would allow the subdivision to be built.

1. No recreation vehicles/trailers/boats in on the property or parked in the street for more than 24 hours.

2. No unregistered motor vehicles.

3. No antennas on the homes or in the yards.

4. No window ac units in windows visible from the street.

5. Every house must have an outdoor post light on an automatic eye. (This was so the town did not have to put up street lights).

I think there may be a few more, but none of these have been enforced in the 16+ years we've lived here.

 

[Papa Deuce]

No HOA but deed restrictions that were put in before the town would allow the subdivision to be built.

1. No recreation vehicles/trailers/boats in on the property or parked in the street for more than 24 hours.

2. No unregistered motor vehicles.

3. No antennas on the homes or in the yards.

4. No window ac units in windows visible from the street.

5. Every house must have an outdoor post light on an automatic eye. (This was so the town did not have to put up street lights).

I think there may be a few more, but none of these have been enforced in the 16+ years we've lived here.

This would bother me.... I have a still functioning CB radio setup. I would also like to get Ham Radio at some point.

 

[Rock'n Robin]

We have standard rules, I guess. We are supposed to get approval for changes to the front of the house. Also, no vinyl siding on the front. Someone tried to get that changed last year and it was voted down. We put fiber cement siding up a few months ago and the color doesn't match (we are going to paint it, but we couldn't in winter). We are also getting new windows starting tomorrow and didn't ask first, but I've seen other people do that too.
If one or two people break a rule, and nothing is done, the rule is null and void. We are not supposed to have permanent basketball hoops in the front of the house. 2 or 3 people in the subdivision do though, so we could if we wanted (we don't; we have a portable one). One advantage we have, though, is that our backyard faces a privacy fence that backs up to the road, so no back neighbors to "spy" and report things--like when we built our deck.
One weird rule is you are supposed to have 5 trees between your house line and the street. When we moved in the previous owners (who built it and lived here 5 years) had ONE tree. We have added 3, but with the utility placement there isn't room for any more. I don't think it really bugs anybody.
I just wish we could have a shed--then maybe we COULD park both cars in the driveway!
And by the way...we have an arabic station on our cable system. You don't need a satellite dish.
Robin M.

 

[micki7337]

Our worst rule was that you couldn't bounce a basketball in the street. You had to 'carry' the ball until you reached the basketball courts that were 3 blocks from our home.

Also, the ice cream man was not permitted to sell within the development.

There were tons more - along with the $200+ monthly fee - that are reasons we no longer live there.

 

[MomNeedsVacay]

I love having an HOA. I've lived in neighborhoods without one and the neighbors did strange stuff.

We have one rule that a lot of people dont like but I Love it. If you have a dog in your yard, you have to be with it. No one is allowed to just leave their dog out in the yard. Since DH works from home this is great because at our other house the neighbors dogs were always outside and barked a LOT.

Other rules include having to get permission to put up a fence, a swingset, or major landscaping. You have to get your immediate next door neighbors to sign it and then it goes to the HOA. I can see how some wouldn't like that rule but I like it because it keeps the neighbors from doing strange stuff.

THat is the most irritating rule EVER.

 

[Papa Deuce]

Our worst rule was that you couldn't bounce a basketball in the street. You had to 'carry' the ball until you reached the basketball courts that were 3 blocks from our home.

Also, the ice cream man was not permitted to sell within the development.

There were tons more - along with the $200+ monthly fee - that are reasons we no longer live there.

Are the streets privately owned? If not, I don't see how they can stop the ice cream guy. C'mon, who doesn't love the ice cream guy? Buncha scrooges.

 

[GabbyMom]

Working returns at Home Depot I heard a lot of crazy things. The silliest was the building where you could ony have a certin sink faucet, and you had to buy it from the HOA.

then there was the lady who returned almost $300 in plants because the HOA changed the colors for this year

 

[pbharris4]

Our HOA wants all Central Heating Air Units visible from the street to be fenced. Our subdivison is 10 yrs old (we built here 7 yrs ago) and they are just now enforcing this. How dumb. I mean every house has one. Why didn't they just make the builders put it in?