This couple bought a house in an HOA and over an extensive period of time, converted their lawn to native Maryland plants that were pollinator friendly.
The inevitable HOA response came.
Couple sued.
Maryland Legislature stepped in and changed the law to forbid HOA’s from stopping residents from planting native gardens or pollinator gardens in lieu of lawns.
Glad to see it. Anything that pisses off HOAs is fine in my book.
Plus, it is just a good law at face value. Typical grass lawns are useless to many animals and pollinators, except for lawn pest species. Native plants consume far less water, require far less, if any at all, pesticide and fertilizer, and are good for pollinators and other animals.
This actually passed in 2021, but just recently got noticed outside of the State of Maryland.
texas has had a law like that for a while.
my old house was in an hoa. i was one of the first people to get approval to replace my yard with a drought resistant one.
It pretty much depends what kind of people you have on the HOA board and what kind of people you have in the neighborhood.
My sister’s friend and her husband live in an upscale condominium in central Florida. Every year, the association sends out parking stickers for the upcoming year, which in their neighborhood starts on August 1st. In 2022, the sticker were mailed at the last minute, likely deliberately. People got them on the previous Saturday. Some people evidently thought to put them on their vehicles Monday morning.
Turns out, Monday morning, four different vehicles had been towed for lack of stickers. The tow truck had come several times during the night to get the vehicles. The vehicles had been towed between 3 am and 5 am. People noticed on their security footage one of the board members pointing out vehicles to the tow truck. They noticed her out earlier around 1 am to 2 am with a flashlight going from vehicle to vehicle.
Needless to say, all hell broke loose. The next board meeting almost came to violence. Petitions were circulated and a special election held and the entire board of the condominium was fired. The new board ruled that the towing was done in bad faith and reimbursed the vehicle owners for the cost, about $250.00 each, of recovering their vehicles from the tow yard.
The evil woman who caused all the trouble moved out several months later under constant threats and harassment.
But that is what is wrong in so many HOAs. One or more evil people who take pleasure in spreading as much misery as they can. And an HOA is the PERFECT tool for an evil and miserable person to spread misery to others. Sometimes by just enforcing the letter of the rules to a ridiculous extent. Sometimes by trying to deliberately engineer trouble such as this woman.
In this recent case, an HOA dispute escalated to murder.
Unfortunately, for those who must live in the suburbs, finding a home outside of a HOA can be difficult, since pretty much every subdivision being built has an HOA.
