HOA Horror Stories

This is episode number 183 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad that you could join us for another live episode of The Homeowner Show here in The Homeowner Show Studios. How you doing, Kev?

I'm busy.

Busy?

Life's weird.

Are you homeless yet?

No, I'm not homeless yet, but I've— I'm well on my way.

So you're still— you're still partially qualified to co-host the show?

Yeah. Yeah. So, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna move into someone else's home, and I'm gonna tell you all the horrible things about that.

Okay.

Until I can buy my own new home.

You're gonna, you're gonna learn exactly how bad other people own their homes.

That's right. Man, we went to a house today, because we're in, we're in looking mode right now. Right? Yeah. So we went and looked at a, a property today. It was not, not too far from where we currently live. It was on 5 acres. And, but, like, it, it was, it was redone at some point. Uh-huh. And that is a weird term to different people.

And I was like, this is, No, no, no, this was not redone.

This is not redone well at all. And so, uh, slapped. Yeah, they like, they had this like really nice barn on it too.

Okay.

Um, and I was like, hey, I'm gonna go look at the barn. And, and, uh, our realtor Brandy, uh-huh, uh, she, she was like, okay. I was like, what? And she's like, do you think you're gonna put an offer on this place? And I looked at my wife and she goes, no. And I was like, I was like, I guess we don't need to look at the barn. She's like, no, go look at the barn if you wanna go look at the barn. And, and I was like, it doesn't sound like we need to. And, and Kimberly goes, no, go look at it if you, if it's gonna make you feel better. And I was like, it didn't make me feel better.

I just was— Confirm the feeling that I already had.

Yeah, I was just gonna look at it. And, and she was like, okay, fine. I was like, nope, not looking at the barn.

Dude, there could have been like a 3-story bunker underneath there. You didn't know.

Yeah, we, we completely missed out.

aquaponics farm, you know. Yeah.

Aquaponics.

Yeah. So anyway, there's an aquaponics farm in a barn. Uh-huh. I'm interested.

I'm, I'm buying that thing.

Is it right?

I mean, good deal or not, I'm in. I'm in.

Is it automated?

Yeah, exactly.

Double. Yeah.

So I don't know, man. Life's, uh, life's interesting right now, but I will tell you the best decision we've made.

Uh-huh.

Um, and that is that we hired Robert Green at Greenlight Movers.

Oh, to come pack up?

To just pack.

Yeah.

And we're gonna move everything ourselves.

Um, he's coming on the show pretty soon, right?

Yeah, I think, I think we've got him for middle of April or something. But I, you know, I, I just called him and I was like, hey, do y'all do packing services too? He's like, yeah, sure. Uh, do— I was like, I, I think I can find some friends to move it. I just don't have time to pack it. And he told me how much it was and I was like, Fine. That's great. I, you know, I would've paid more, like, to destroy it. But anyway, it was a great, great decision.

So anyway, dude, and we, we have like a lot of cool guests coming up.

We in April, we have a— we are jam-packed. I know we've got a lot of people. So like, if you wanna be on the show, yeah, get up, get in lines. Yeah, get in line. We're booked through May almost, aren't we?

Yeah, we are.

So, yeah, it's good. We got—

she hadn't been on the show in a long time, but we got Hayley Thayer coming up.

Oh, yeah.

So we're excited.

Actually, I think I'm going to be gone for that episode.

Are you going to be gone for that episode?

I don't remember what it is, but—

She's going to get a complex about you.

Well, that's the truth.

It's like 66% of the time Kevin doesn't do the episode with Hayley. No, even more than that, because there was another one where she actually helped me co-host the show. That's true, because I was with Mel.

Oh my gosh.

And, and you weren't here for that one either.

Do you remember what date?

So like 75% of the time.

If, if that's like the, the beginning of April, I'm definitely out.

I think it's the very first week in April.

I think it is too, and I'm definitely out.

You need to send her a bouquet.

Oh, no doubt. I'll send her like, like a Trip to the spa. She probably needs it with new baby. And she's not a new baby anymore. It's like 2 years old almost.

Getting close to 2.

Good gracious.

He's walking. I know that.

It's crazy. How you doing, man?

I'm, I'm good, man. I, you know, I, I'm, I still live in a house that I own.

That, that's, so that, that says something for one of us. Actually, I still own mine.

Oh, you haven't closed yet?

No, I haven't closed yet. I got like 2 weeks left. So we're gonna, we're gonna hope that that definitely is not a, an issue. Definitely not an issue. So anyway.

Wow. So, well, so, and the other thing that we needed to talk about that we've got coming up is Lutron sent us a bag of goodies. Oh, and I should say that it's more like a crate of goodies.

Yeah, they, they, yeah, they really, they kind of rolled the carpet out in some ways and, and were like, hey, we want you to review some of our stuff. And I was like, man, we'll review whatever you want to send us. I mean, I, I don't have a problem with that.

So they sent us everything.

Yeah, they sent us quite a few things. And so We're gonna kind of put them together and do a, do a few episodes, probably.

Yeah. So if, if you're listening to this right now and you are interested in having smart lighting in your house, specifically the Lutron system, uh, by Caseta— is that— am I saying that right?

I don't know.

I know it's either Caseta by Lutron or Lutron by Caseta. I can't remember which way it is.

We'll figure it out.

The smart lighting Lutron system, um, the, the hub system, um, and pretty much everything that has to do— we have all that now, right? And so if there's one particular item in there that you are interested in, And want us to do a, a long review on, leave that in the comments or send us a note at info@homewonershow.com and just let us know what you think. If there's like a specific item in that, in that group, the only thing that we don't have yet because we're still talking about this is the smart blinds.

Yeah, those, those smart blinds are pretty, pretty amazing. Yeah, but, um, we haven't got a shipment of that yet. So we'll see if that happens.

We'll work on that.

Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway, Yeah. We're gonna do something kinda fun tonight.

Yeah. Let's do it.

We're gonna, we're gonna talk about some homeowners association horror stories.

Yeah. Okay. So here's the thing. Like, I never, never understood or knew anything about homeowners associations until I moved here. I mean, there's a lot of places in the world that don't have HOAs.

Right.

And, and part of that is because you really don't need it. Well, you know, small town, whatever, not a big deal. But some of these, some of these bigger, especially bigger cities, Yeah. You know, they've got HOAs everywhere. And the reason for it that they state is they want to keep your home value high, right, by making sure that the neighborhood looks nice. And so you can't have trashy homes, you can't just, you know, put all your junk here, you can't put mobile homes here. They're all the different rules, right? And, and it really, it is to protect your home value and those sorts of things.

However, that's what they say.

That's what they say.

Yeah.

However, that jerk that they hire to just drive around and find violations, the enforcer, I wanna just, like, take his knees out. I've had some frustrations.

Yeah.

So.

I don't blame you.

Yeah. I mean, recently, so we built Like, shortly after—

I would say this. Like, I haven't had any, interaction with our homeowner association.

Sure.

And I think that has a lot to do with, I don't know that a lot of people know that my house is back here.

Oh, yeah. I mean, you, you're far enough off the road that—

Nobody knows.

Nobody knows you're here. Right?

So even though, like, I, I am, I am in a neighborhood, and I do have an HOA.

Yeah.

I have some good friends on the HOA, and so they usually tell me if there's something weird going on.

Yeah.

Because I really don't go to the meetings. meetings, which, I mean, probably makes me a really bad homeowner.

Most people don't go to those meetings.

Really? On a Saturday?

What? So no, thank you. Yeah. So we, not long after we moved into the house we're in right now, which is almost 5 years ago, believe it or not, we put in a sandbox for my kids. And I had big aspirations. I was gonna build, like, this really cool cover for it and all that kinda stuff. I was like, I ain't got time for that. So what I did was I just took a blue tarp, put it over it.

Right.

Because I don't want cats.

Yep.

Taking a you know what in the, um, sand. So, um, that was probably 4 years ago.

Uh-huh.

About a month ago, I get a notice from the HOA that says if you don't move the blue tarp, we're gonna fine you like $150 or something. And I was like, That thing has been there for a very long time, and I don't want cats in— this is not a litter box.

Yeah.

You know? And, um, so I'm sitting here just frustrated, not to mention the fact we're trying to get ready to sell our house. I'm like, I really don't need a litter box right now. And so, um, you know what I did?

What?

Well, first of all, I moved the blue tarp.

Okay.

But I covered it back up. with a painter's cloth.

Okay.

The clear kind.

Oh.

Just like, maybe they don't see it.

I see. Like, if, if they'd been— and this is just the way I am— like, if I get a notice that says unless you remove the blue tarp, you're gonna get fined $150, I'm gonna get a green tarp.

No, that's— and that, that was kind of my— I didn't have another color.

Uh-huh.

But I had that clear painter's Tape.

No, no, it's not cloth. I know what you're talking about.

It's like the plastic. It's plastic. It's a drop plastic, but it's see-through. It's see-through. That's just what I had. Mm-hmm. If I had like a brown tarp or a green tarp, I probably would have done that same thing because I'm like, I did what you asked me to do. Yeah. So I got rid of that thing. Right. But anyway, but that's not a horror story.

No, it's not necessarily.

You've got some.

Let's, let's go through your doozies here.

Through your list. Let's do it.

We'll just, we'll just get through. I mean, because there's a ton of them.

Okay. And so give us 2 or 3 good ones.

Yeah, we could, we could, we could circle back around to this.

Okay.

Yeah, if this, if this goes over well.

Okay.

So here's the, here's the story. It says firefighters in Pasco County, Florida, gave an HOA horror story a happy ending in July of 2018 after a man suffered a heart attack trying to lay sod at his home to avoid an association fine. While he was having his heart attack, literally in and out of consciousness, He kept begging me to figure out the sod, the man's wife wrote on Facebook. As firefighters took the man to a hospital, a brother-in-law took up the task, planning on staying there by himself until midnight to get it finished. But the firefighters came back to finish the job and make sure the grass didn't go to waste. We believe in helping the community

whenever we are needed, firefighters said in their own Facebook post.

Oh my goodness. So the guy The guy didn't have enough grass in his yard.

Yeah, he had some dead spots and they were, they were gonna fine him because it wasn't filled in with grass.

And it was probably some old dude or—

It could be.

Or maybe it was like—

It doesn't say how old he was.

Maybe it was Houston in August.

Well, it was Florida, so it could have been hot.

Okay.

Yeah. But I mean, just really? I mean, like, you can imagine Like, how stressed this guy had to have been trying to put the sod out. Like, one, he's probably embarrassed. Yeah. Because he's— one, like, nobody likes being called out.

No.

Two, like, it's like putting out sod is not necessarily easy work depending on how much he was putting out.

Yeah.

And it's not cheap either.

Nope. And if you don't get it down in a timely manner, it will die.

Now, I will say, like, if this was, like, the third notice, Yeah.

I mean, that, that's actually— I was thinking about that. I was like, okay. Like, how long did you wait? Was it— I mean, you waited till the 9th hour. Yeah. You know?

And, like, I— again, this is, this is, like, my problem with, like, the whole HOA concept because everyone always says, like, we're trying to keep the home values up.

Right.

And, like, I'm sorry. Like, that is just not a— it's just not a contributing factor. What ends up being contributing factors to property and, like, yes, if every lawn in the neighborhood doesn't have grass, the property values are gonna go down.

Right.

But that's not going to change the quality of the school or the proximity of the amenities.

Mhmm.

Like, you know, if, if they're all beachside, like, who cares if they have grass?

Right.

Like, and so, like, there's other contributing factors. And so, like, HOAs, when they get so militant about this stuff, it's like, okay. Like, you are, like, trying to, like, get the sand spec out.

Yeah. Like, why?

Just leave them alone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and most people, for the most part, if you are in a neighborhood that keeps things nice, yeah, you're probably— I mean, there's a little bit of a, you know, there's mud on your face whenever you wind up having the worst yard in the whole place. For sure. And, and I, I— look, I've been in neighborhoods where, you know, the grass is 12 inches tall.

Yeah.

And it's like, that, that's not okay. Like, someone needs to mow that. And I— and so I get it as far as that goes, but, um, I, I don't know, it, it gets to a point where it's just like, you're, you're being unreasonable. I, I literally got a notice once that I had leaves on my roof. I mean, and it was like November, right around here. That's when leaves start falling a lot.

Yeah.

And there's gonna be leaves on my— I literally walked out of my house and I went, there's leaves over there, there's leaves over there. Every house had leaves on it. Yep. I was like, what?

So when you start knocking doors—

Yeah. And I'm just like, did you get the same notice that I did? I'm like, at some point I'm like, I promise you the leaves on the house, on the roof, are not causing the home values to go down. See? You know?

Well, and I think that whoever is the person going around and writing these things up, it— they should have to list their name and address.

Right.

So that we can go to their house.

See what they look like.

Exactly.

Yes.

And reciprocate the, favor.

That's, that's a good— I would leave them a note.

Yeah.

That just says, you have a crack in your driveway. Leaves.

Leaves.

You have leaves in the crack in your driveway.

Or just jerk plant leaves at their house.

all of my leaves that I just got off my, my yard. Like, what are you doing?

What are you—

I'm just throwing these up on this homeowner's roof.

Yep. I want you to write yourself up. What you gonna do now?

What you gonna do now? I'm like, HOA bullies.

Get up there.

Oh, man.

All right, here's a good one.

All right.

It says one HOA threatened a Missouri family with fines and even jail which I don't know how they can do that, because their backyard playhouse and swing set were purple, a color that wasn't pre-approved. Though the playset was up for more than 2 years before the HOA took issue with it, a judge eventually ruled in the family's favor. Thank you for having some intelligence. Scruples.

I mean, here's the thing that— and this was the problem that I had with the tarp. It's like, it's been there for how long? 2 years? And it's in a way— it's in the backyard. Like, I mean, I— okay, my backyard, I get it because I'm on a golf course, right? Okay, but it probably looked fine. Purple's pretty. I like purple.

I mean, what's wrong with purple?

Nothing, nothing.

Absolutely. It's a royal biblical color.

There it is.

Was it Lydia that sold the pearl?

Yeah, she did. It was a very— it was a prominent— but not a prominent, it was a very, um, high, highbrow type of— yeah, type of color. Like only royalty could really afford it because of the plant that it was.

Well, you know, those Missourians are very anti-highfalutin, so—

Yeah, uh, the state of misery, I say.

And 10 people just clicked off.

Yeah. Yeah. All of the, all of the, all of our listeners in Missouri. Yeah. The Mizzou fans over there. All right. What else we got? All right.

Oh, this is another, uh, play— playground issue. Okay. So a Georgia HOA sued a homeowner. Homeowner. Why can't I say that right? This is, this is the homeowner show.

Yeah. Right.

A Georgia HOA sued a homeowner after it decided a little girl's pink playhouse had to go. The crux of the issue was the playhouse, which wasn't even visible from the road, play equipment that didn't need HOA approval, or an outbuilding that did. The HOA finally backed down, perhaps partially spurred by national news coverage.

What?

Yes.

Oh my— look, okay. Now you start venturing into a place that I get really, really frustrated whenever you tell me I can't have stuff for my kids to play.

Right.

That, I mean, what? Get off whatever horse you climbed up on.

Like, if you can't see it from the road, it's none of your business.

None of your business.

And like, I'm sorry, the front yard's none of your business either. Because, I mean, like, I'm sorry, people put tacky crap in their yards all the time that personally offends me. If you have a garden gnome in your front yard, you immediately lose 10 points with me. But I don't wanna take that away from you. Like, I'm not gonna knock on your door and be like, what are you doing with this tacky thing in your yard? Like, if you like garden gnomes, put 10 garden gnomes. I don't care. Right. It's your yard.

Yeah. And I mean, there are certain kind of plants that I hate.

Uh-huh.

Like hate. I don't like the way they look. I don't like the way they smell.

Anything in particular or? Yeah.

I don't know what they're called. I'd have to ask your mom about that. But I, I had some that like, they were awful. Thankfully they freeze. Well, no. Well, I, I paid someone to pull 'em up cuz I tried and I just, I don't even, yeah.

They're so filthy. I don't wanna even touch 'em.

No, they were awful. But like, I, it's just, It's one of those deals. It's like this— it just becomes this weird opinion and, and people's personal vendetta, right?

Right.

And whenever you tell me that I can't have something for my kids to play with, that— or even worse than that, not just that I can't have it, but it's been up, right? You're, you're trying to tell me I have to take my, my daughter's playhouse down?

Yeah.

That— you're going to have to tell her that.

Yeah.

I'm not telling her.

That's right.

Well, I'll bring her out in the front yard. Right.

You can talk to her.

Exactly. And oh, by the way, you need to come back here and do it. Yeah. She's not seeing me take that thing down. Right? I think— nope. Sorry. Yeah. That's not okay. Yeah. So, all right.

So this one should be good. An Ohio veteran became embroiled in controversy for wanting to fly a US flag in his yard. The problem: his 15-foot flagpole was against HOA rules, which required flags to be flown from a short stanchion?

Stanchion.

Stanchion attached to each house. After plenty of media attention, the HOA backed down and the homeowner's flag went up again, complete with patriotic songs, Boy Scouts, and the American Legion on hand.

That is so good. Oh, I would— that's, that, that's the vindictive type of person I would be.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I would have like You know, I, I would have 'em traipsing in there, man.

With, with the, uh, the person who wrote it up in, in the first place in attendance.

Yes. Yes.

Has to be.

I'm sending out invitations for this thing.

There will be cookies.

Yes. Gather at my house for the early morning bugle that's going to be sounding.

That's right.

I mean, goodness gracious.

And Reveille will continue.

Yes. And until the morale improves. Until, yeah, not just morale improves, but that Till that guy shows up to rope me up. I'm gonna play until you get here, right? Come see this flag.

Oh my gosh.

It's a flag. It's a— first of all, okay, this isn't some offensive flag because there's plenty of those out there.

Oh yeah.

We— so a few weeks ago, uh, President Trump was in Conroe.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. And so you had— it was like one of the biggest rallies that's like ever— there was like 90,000 people there.

Oh, yeah.

And, um, you, you want— there, there were people with flags, selling flags on the side of the road.

And— Oh, are you talking about the offensive flags?

The offensive flags against—

I hate those.

I do too. I'm, I'm just not okay with them. I don't care what you— what your stance is.

Yeah.

But whenever, whenever you've got foul words.

Yeah.

Uh, and, and—

Well, here's, here's the problem, because they think that they're being funny.

Yeah.

Okay. And they think, they think that by being slightly offensive, that they're actually garnering more attention. But here's, here's the thing is like only people that agree with you are going to like that. And, and, you know, around here, if you have any sort of like scruples about you, like, I'm sorry, like, I don't want to explain that word to my 7-year-old.

Exactly.

Who can read.

Yes.

And go, Daddy, What does that mean? And like, you're putting it up on the side of the road. And at that point, you have now pissed me off.

Right. I agree.

And so even if, even if I liked Trump, like, I'm done with you.

Right. Yeah, exactly. And so we're not talking about some offensive flag here. Right.

This is the American flag.

The American flag that you're trying to be patriotic with. Come on now.

But this also kind of, it reminds me of a, uh, King of the Hill episode.

Oh, I, I knew you were gonna go there.

Where, uh, I think it's Dale wants to build a security tower and like it's no structures. So like he's like taking it up to like the millimeter. He just will.

It's so good.

Uh, so, okay. Yeah. We can't have flagpoles at 15 feet. So fine. I'll do it at like 14.9.

Yeah, exactly.

What's the— where's, where's the cutoff?

And really, again, that's, that's me.

I mean, like, I want to know, like, what is it? Okay, I'm gonna push it right up to it.

Exactly. And, and, and whenever you come with your tape measure, I'm gonna shoo you off my lawn. Yeah, sorry. Get off my lawn. You know? Yeah.

That old castle doctrine.

That's right. It's not gonna go well for you. I promise.

Yep.

Yep.

All right. So this I'm interested in this one because this is an issue that's actually come up in our neighborhood.

Okay.

It says an HOA left plenty of nature-loving North Carolina homeowners in disbelief over its decision to trap and kill up to 3 dozen beavers who'd taken up residence on neighborhood creek. The problem? Beaver dams were causing water levels to rise, threatening the community's boardwalks and bridges. Pleased to simply relocate and beavers fell on deaf ears because the state deemed them a nuisance animal, legal to kill, but not to move.

Oh, so they— the homeowners wanted to move them.

They just wanted them to catch them and relocate them.

But that, my friend, is illegal. It is because they're a nuisance. Get them out of here. It's like, it would be like, you know what, I'm going to capture all these hogs. And I'm going to release them over there. Yeah, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Well, so, okay, that's, that's actually an interesting one. Because there are some people right now who are making the case to catch and release hogs.

What?

Yeah, no. And they actually— it's like, I'm actually kind of with them on this.

Okay, tell me why.

Okay, because the strategy is, if you catch them, and this, this really only applies to male hogs, because, you know, around here, hogs can be a real nuisance. And I know hogs can be like feral hogs in particular, right? Be a real nuisance wherever they show up, right? The problem with them is that they can have like, I think it's like 3 litters a year. And so they reproduce really— and so there's multiple piglets in each litter, so they can just reproduce very, very quickly. They say one of the things that you could do is, you know, they make these huge, uh, hog traps, right?

Right. Yeah.

And so you can catch multiple pigs in those traps if you separate the males and then castrate them.

Oh.

Um, you actually take their attention away from Miss Piggy.

Yeah.

And put it on eating.

Okay.

And you end up with fatter, tastier wild hogs.

Okay.

In the long run, because they can't reproduce.

Uh-huh.

And they're only just gonna eat and get bigger.

Uh-huh.

And so then you end up with Well, and if they were a good game animal. Yeah.

And if they were eating there, that produces multiple good things. Yes. But tell me what's not a nuisance about a beaver. Like, they're not gonna be—

beavers can be extremely destructive.

Exactly. So just—

no, I'm not, I'm not making the case for beavers.

No, no. I'm just—

but the hogs are an interesting one because people are making the case that you castrate them and then release them so that they become a, a tasty— I mean, if they can't reproduce, I could see the value in that.

Yeah. I mean, you're not in any way increasing the population at that point. Um, but you're— I mean, if you're getting more food out of them, hey, that's a good thing. Yeah.

And I think, I think I mentioned a couple episodes that my son is like really into like hunting beavers now because he started watching Duck Dynasty.

Yes.

And like, they hate beavers.

Yes, they do.

And like, we actually have beavers in this neighborhood.

I did not know that. Yeah.

And so every once in a while I'll get a call from a neighbor, it's like, the beaver's cutting my trees down again.

Oh my gosh.

And man, they'll just— I mean, it happens overnight and you don't even realize it. So I am— I'm actually kind of with the association on this one.

Well, but they, they wanted to move them.

But no, no, the association wanted to kill them.

Oh, that's what it was.

The homeowners were protesting, saying, that's mean. That's cruel. You can't kill them. And it's like, yeah, you can. I mean, like, we've been doing it for a long time.

Right.

I mean, they're, they're actually, they have good fur on them. There's some people that enjoy eating them.

Yeah, not me.

Dude, some people think like the tail of a beaver is like a delicacy.

What?

Yes.

That's, um, okay, I'm out.

Look it up.

I'm— I won't. I'm not interested.

Hey, if, if you ever get really hungry one day, you might wish that you have looked up a good recipe. Uh, and it's typically barbecue.

Well, okay, if we're gonna smoke it for a while, I'll eat— I eat a lot of things that are smoked. You had me, barbecue. Uh, I will tell you that the, uh, the house that we went to look at today, um, had this big pit that was like a bunch of cinder blocks, and it had just like this, this wooden door over the top of it. And Kimberly goes, what's that? I was like, I don't know. She goes, it's got a thermometer on it. I was like, that's a smoker.

Ooh.

And she was like, what? I went over there, I lifted up, there's a grate in there. And I'm like, they're using that as a smoker. And it was probably, I mean, it was probably 4 foot by 4 foot.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it was huge.

So it was built in?

It, it, well, it, it would, it had cinder blocks around it, like probably 3 or 4 high. Uh-huh. Um, but they weren't, mortared in or in or anything.

Okay.

They were just loosely set. All right. But it would take a while to move them all.

Is this the one where you didn't look at the barn?

I, I did not look at the barn.

Okay.

But I saw the smoker. So, all right, here's, here's a good one to end on, I think. Okay.

I think for this particular episode, it says pink plastic flamingos remain a kitschy favorite of some homeowners. But one HOA decided there was nothing charming about this particular lawn decor, iconic though it may be. It fined a Georgia homeowner $25 a day for setting out the flamingos, something he didn't discover until trying to sell his house when he was hit with a $3,400 lien.

Oh my goodness. Are you— are you— oh my— how do you— first of all, how do you not know?

Yeah.

I mean, I, I mean, there's HOA.

There's many questions I wanna ask here.

Yeah, exactly. The HOA is required by law. Uh-huh. To send out notifications. Notifications.

Yeah.

Like they're required by the law.

Uh-huh.

So, um, that, there's a lot of questions I got, but dude. Yeah. Pink flamingos.

Like, this is like, like, this goes back to my gnome comment.

Well, it does. Right? Yeah.

I mean, like, I, I don't care if, if Flamingos are your thing.

Sure.

Like, although I think they're tacky.

Sure.

And I wouldn't put them in my yard.

Well, but I, I would put them in your yard.

Oh, yeah.

As a joke. Exactly. So, well, not just a joke. It's a fundraiser.

Yeah.

Have you heard about this? No. So they, they'll go get like, oh, by the way, I just got an alert that there's a thunderstorm warning. Oh, you're about 20 minutes late. Yeah. It just finished. It was just here a while ago.

Exactly.

Thanks. Uh, anyway, no, they've got this fundraiser where you can go get the, the, they're the cheap plastic, like party flamingos, right? Yeah. And you stick about 50 of them in someone's yard. And you have to pay to get them removed. And then you pay. So, so like, for example, blackmail. It is. So basically, you, let's say that my, my yard got flamingoed. Right? What I would do is I would say, here, here's $100 to— for you to take them and put them in Craig's yard.

Okay.

And so, and so then Craig's like, I, I'll give you $150 to put them back in Kevin's yard type of thing, or, you know, take them over to so-and-so's yard or whatever. And it's, it's this whole thing. They'll, they'll come and move them.

Oh, that's cool.

But you, you're paying to get them moved.

Well, it's, it's much better than forking someone's yard.

Oh. I have a friend from high school. Her name is Erica. And I remember we forked her yard one night and we got her good. And, um, and we didn't say anything about it. And it was probably a month later, I was like, hey Erica, okay, did, did you have a bunch of like forks in your yard? And she goes, oh yeah, I did. And I was like, well, what was that like? And she goes, I just mowed over them.

Oh gosh.

I was like, I was like, okay.

That's, that's one way to go.

That's one way to do it, I guess. But anyway, she just said she mowed right over them.

For those that don't know, forking a yard is when you take plastic forks and just stick them in the yard and you do it by the box.

Yes.

And it's, it's quite lovely. And if you mowed them, that ain't good.

Yeah, there's a lot of other destructive things that we've done Like, I'm sure Oreo'd people's houses.

Uh-huh. So you like unscrew the Oreo and stick it—

You gotta lick it. You gotta lick it and stick it on a window. And, uh, I'll just tell you this, it does not come off.

Like, I mean, you— everything you need to know about eating them.

Yes, it does not. It does not come off. Same thing with marshmallows. Marshmallows are actually worse. You take marshmallows, you lick it, you stick it on a window because, because, you know, you know what happens whenever you pull off a marshmallow that's been stuck?

No, it just tears. Oh, you gotta go in with like a— you gotta scrape that thing off.

Yeah. Oh, you know what would be really fun? What's that?

Is to like get like 4 bags of marshmallows and just completely cover a whole window. Oh, or to do it like somebody's like car.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and, and again, does not come off, so please don't I end up taking these things too far.

That's why it's better for me just not to do them at all. It's not fun for me unless it's painful for the other person.

I believe that.

How can I make this horrible?

Yeah, I'm gonna take this awful thing and make it way more awful and then write love, Kevin. Yes, yes, yes. Done in love by somebody else. That's right.

That was always— that was always my signature.

Yeah, exactly.

Who's the Escape goes.

Yes, exactly. Well, thank you guys for downloading today's episode. It has been good to be with you. And, uh, look, we're here each and every Tuesday, so thanks for downloading. If you haven't already, subscribe, click the like button, share with your friends, share on Facebook. We would love that. So we're here all the time. Find us everywhere. Until next time, we'll See you later. See ya.