Non-regulatory HOA's exist where they don't have a set of rules like that. The one my parents are a part of are more of a neighborhood organization. They have a neighborhood directory (where participation is optional), organize community events every so often (including the neighborhood-wide garage sale), and maintain some neighborhood property (primarily signs next to main roads).

I agree though that regulatory HOA's suck in general.

Honestly, I like mine. Let's see...

- No palm trees: great, they're tacky as all hell, fall over too easily and people never maintain them so they fill up with rats

- No tall screening trees: great, same basic reasons

- No painting your house: great, there's always some idiot who wants a horribly clashing house

- File for changes: not a big deal, if your stuff is in order it usually takes a couple days.

- Can't leave trash cans out all week: great, less of a buffet for raccoons at night.

- Community pools: great, I go out there at 10:00 pm with a couple friends and a few beers and drift around the pool chatting quietly

The only beef I've ever had was they wouldn't let me widen my driveway by a couple feet because it'd go over HOA-maintained plants. Not a huge deal, but I just drove over the plants and then claimed it was my neighbor doing it to get me in trouble. They gave up pretty quick. My dues are pretty reasonable too.

Sorry you guys have had crappy ones, but they're not all bad.

I only regret HN guidelines prohibit me from properly expressing what a terrible spineless hack you are. I sincerely hope you grow out of it, the world needs less people like you. Have a nice day.

> Not a huge deal, but I just drove over the plants and then claimed it was my neighbor doing it to get me in trouble.

Sounds pretty horrible.. Let me say, I am glad I am not your neighbour.

So you did have a beef with your HOA but chose to ignore the rules that you expect everyone else to follow? If I was your neighbor I'd be planting palm trees.

You make a good point. I actually never saw it that way and you're right. Not sure why. I'll replant those bushes and make an effort to stay off them in the future.

Thanks, and sorry to my neighbors for being an ass.

Wow ... an actual stand-up guy! (or gal).

I tend to be anti-authoritarian myself and constantly have to remind myself that societies folkways, mores (and laws, regulations, etc) have a purpose other than to inconvenience me. Fortunately I've learned to drive more slowly and am not constrained by an HOA.

On some theoretical level the HOA contracts / rules are voluntarily entered into. So even the most hard-core libertarians (or exactly those!) should be into them.

Of course, in practice you often enter a HOA as the lesser of multiple evils.

HAM radio towers that look like the tackiest of palm trees.

Ah, so you're the one responsible for all the intrusive rules on what I can do with my house.

Why do you want to control what other people do to their houses? Is maintaining some sense of opulence so important to you that you would be willing to remove peoples' freedoms?

Edit: to those downvoting me, could you please explain? I don't understand.

Basically people move out to the suburbs so they can have more control of the area around them.

...so they agree to give up their property rights to an undemocratically elected group?

But they're with a group of like-minded people whose rules reinforce many of their other NIMBY tendencies (i.e. no homeless shelters, adult bookstores, garish homes.) They agree with most of the rules, but because they want more control they tend to complain loudly about the ones they don't like.

HOA boards are democratically elected.

They make their own rules and voting laws. There is no requirement of equal representation like the US Constitution provides.

Does every member of a family get a vote? How about every adult? Or is it just one vote per household?

The US constitution is but one of many sort-of democratic frameworks. And not overly democratic in its consequences (see gerrymandering, and the effects of the electoral college, or just all the problems with first-past-the-post even in theory).

So while HOAs have their obvious deficiencies, your attack is one of the weakest complaints imaginable.

I was really neutral on the idea of HOA before this post, now I hate them, and people that like them.

That sounds awful to me.