HOA troubles resident with 'only one decoration' rule. His clever retaliation had neighbors coming up to thank him
Although rules are mostly made to maintain a sense of order in a community, some of them might be a little unnecessary. One man was faced with such a rule when the Home Owner's Association in his area asked residents to keep only "one" decoration outside their houses. He wasn't too bothered by it at first, as he didn't want to put any decorations on his porch. But then he got a letter for putting out "two" lawn chairs. So the man, u/parodytx, came up with a clever response that made the HOA reach out with an apology, per his Reddit post.
"All of our homes had a porch and rules regarding front of house 'decorations' — the R&R (rules and regulations) said you could only have one decoration. Fine. I had no desire for any decorations at all in my front lawn," the man recalled. But his family decided to put out two nice chairs on their porch, so they could spend time outside during pleasant, sunny evenings. "We received a notice regarding our 'violation' of having 'two decorations' in front of our house and the R&R only allowed one and we had 24 hours to comply." The man removed both the chairs from the porch and spent hours to find the most "obnoxious" porch decoration on the internet. There were no rules regarding what the "one decoration" could be, so the resident used that in his favor.
"I ended up with an at least 7-foot tall blow up sphere, with an obnoxious mermaid-like thing floating inside it, flapping like one of those wind-man devices at a car dealer." He also put up a sign that read, "Surveillance Camera in Operation. Smile!" to ensure that nobody tried to destroy his brand new decoration. The HOA was not happy with that and the man received six letters in two days about his "inappropriate" decoration. "I responded with a certified return receipt letter with the appropriate section of the R&R highlighted and invited them to return mail with the exact language that my decoration was in violation of and failure to do so with continuing violation notices would result in legal action on my part against all the members."
The exchange went on for about a month and the man enlisted the help of his lawyer friend. "He sent them a threatening notice on their letterhead stating that depositions and full financial disclosures from every member would be demanded for discovery purposes in my damages lawsuit unless I received an acknowledgement of their errors and a formal apology." The man received an apology from the association and the rule about the porch decorations was removed. But all decorations needed to be less than four feet in height from then on. "Many of the homeowners came to thank me for my resistance and results."
People applauded the man for standing up for himself in the comments section of the post. u/boywithflippers wrote, "That's so dumb. Chairs are for sitting. Decorations are for looking. There's very little overlap. These are just facts. Lol." u/useyerbigvoice commented, "Bravo! Love the scorched earth solution! Lived with an HOA for 45 years, served on the board twice trying to bring about change, finally escaped! Never, ever again." u/Zoreb1 remarked, "Chairs aren't decorations unless its one of those small ones with a plant or wreath or possessed doll on it. They deserve you sticking it to them."