I meant to add more to this, actually.

I live in the southern US in an extremely touristy area. You have no choice but to live in a neighborhood with an HOA (homeowner’s association, for anyone lucky enough not to know) because all non-HOA neighborhoods are filled with AirBNBs owned by corporations AND there’s a housing crisis. You don’t have a choice, you’re going to have an HOA.

I have to pay a monthly fee to my HOA, despite the fact that they don’t do anything. My neighborhood is not gated and all roads are maintained by the city. As far as I can tell, the HOA’s main excuses for existing are to maintain a small pool at our “clubhouse” (literally just the pool and some restrooms) and to yell at people who do anything they don’t deem ‘acceptable’.

As an interesting point of fact, we can’t even access the stupid pool since my roommates and I rent (again, housing crisis) and the pool gate key wasn’t provided by the homeowner. Our only option is to get permission from the homeowner and then pay for a new set of pool passes at $75 apiece.

Anyway, my HOA is able to control what and how many plants you have in your garden, how long your grass is, when you have to power-wash your driveway and the sidewalk in front of the house, what decor you can have on your porch, how long you’re allowed to have holiday decorations up, whether you plant a tree in your backyard, whether you have a birdhouse or feeder, how many cars are parked in your driveway, how quickly you have to repair burnt-out lights, etc, etc, etc. We even got in trouble for not watering our lawn enough during a drought, when the water companies were charging surge pricing.

It’s hell. We live in hell. And every time I complain about it, some dipshit insists that we need HOAs or someone will have a car on cinder blocks in their backyard or plant a vegetable garden. I couldn’t care less, because I’ve wanted chickens for years. Have you SEEN egg prices???

Maybe just let people live in their homes instead of passing time in a landlord-white cookie-cutter purgatory until it’s time to sell it to someone else for a crazy profit? Everyone talks about how they want to live in a neighborhood with character, but HOAs are literally built around cutting every individual expression out of a neighborhood.