HOA Horror Stories Part II

This is episode number 184 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 Haggett, 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 edition of The Homeowner Show here in The Homeowner Show Studios. How you doing, Kev?

Well, it's moving week.

Moving week!

And it is going to be fun.

It's fun.

And I'm gonna tell myself that until I can't tell myself that anymore, which will probably be later on after we're recording this show, because I'm gonna go home and pack. Awesome. Well, I mean, look, it's really not as bad as it could be because we hired professional packers, right? Which is of the smartest things we've ever done. Um, because at this moment in time, we, we close on our house in 1 week.

Okay.

From recording this show. And, um, from this moment in time, you know my— how many things I have put in a box or prepared to pack?

How many?

Zero. Awesome.

And there's nothing like pressure and time.

Exactly.

To give you a good old heart attack.

Exactly. So, but, but legitimately, here's the thing, like, we are going to simply take out the things that we need with us in the little condo we're renting, which is, you know, some dishes and cleaning supplies, toys, clothes. That's about it.

I mean, all you really need is like a loaf of bread and some PB&J, period, and you're good to go.

We're good to go. We can do that for a while. Um, so we're, we're gonna pack all that stuff up and move it, and the rest of it they're gonna come in and pack for us. And so we're not gonna have to touch it until it's time to move it. And, uh, we're gonna have some fun Friday and Saturday moving it all.

But yeah, I got a little notification today saying I'm moving some stuff on Saturday.

That's true. Okay, well, you, you signed up for that, babe. So we're— but honestly, like, it's gonna be great because you're gonna get there and you're gonna be like, oh, it's all— it's just got to go in a trailer. Excellent, I can do that.

Yeah, Jared and I were— Jared, who's been a guest on the show before, he, he's one of the main reasons that this room is actually in any sort of finished condition.

Sure.

He apparently— he and I are doing this on Saturday.

Uh, yeah, I do. I don't know if he's coming on Saturday or not.

Well, we talked about it.

Okay, I hope he's coming on Saturday, but I thought he was gonna be out of town.

Either way, he might be out of town. But one of the things we were talking about is one of the most annoying things that you can do as an individual is ask people to come over and help you move, but what you really mean is to come over and help you pack.

No, no, no, no.

Those are 2 totally different things.

That's not okay.

I can move stuff all day long.

Yeah.

You ask me to pack, We're not friends anymore.

No, no, no. That's not what I signed up for. You didn't— I would not have signed up for that. Like, no. I just wanna eat. I wanna show up and I want to, you know, move a box or a piece of furniture from point A to point B.

Right. And then put it on the truck and send it down the road.

Yeah. And then I wanna eat.

That's right. Feed me. Yeah.

Feed me. And then we're good. You know?

That, that, that's actually a good question that we should just, like, put out to the world. If someone asks you, hey, can you help me move? Which, is a big ask. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's a big step forward in the friendship.

Yes.

You know, it's a big commitment.

It is.

You know, because, you know, like, by asking them, you're— the expectation is that, that when they need to move, that you're gonna be there.

Yep.

There's an obligation that's now, that's now there.

That's right.

So, but, you know, if, if someone asks you to help them move and you show up and they're not packed, is that, is that included Or, or do you, do you walk?

I mean, I feel like—

Or do you expect to help them pack?

What? Okay, look, I think there's a really easy way to get out of that. It's like, look, I, I don't, I don't want to pack your stuff, right? And it's not because I don't want to help, it's because I'm afraid to.

I do. I'm afraid to.

I, I don't think that I'm qualified for this.

Okay.

Um, so That, in my opinion, I think it would be perfectly fine to say, can I just come back when you're ready to move? And then I will gladly help.

Clearly, you're not ready.

Clearly, you're not ready. Yeah. So I don't know.

Steps were missed.

Yes.

I mean, because, like, you could, you could get into the semantics of that because we are packing the truck. Yeah.

So, well, I don't, I don't think so. I mean, I really think that if that's where you're going here, you miscommunicated.

Sure.

Absolutely miscommunicated.

You weren't clear.

No. No. I mean, and that's— I know that there's always last-minute stuff, right? I mean, there's always gonna be that blanket that was on the bed or whatever, right? I mean, maybe the clothes that just didn't finally get into a box, right?

Obviously, not everything's gonna be put up and ready to go. I mean, they had to brush their teeth this morning.

Exactly.

So.

But at the same time, when you hire packers, they don't care.

No.

What you need for the next day. They were hired to come pack it all, which is so good. It's so— it's liberating. It's so liberating, you know?

So, well, so before, before we get into the episode today, we're, we're gonna, we're gonna do part 2 of some HOA horror stories.

Yeah.

And really, we're doing this right now because we've got a little bit of downtime. We've got a couple of big product reviews that we're doing. We got some big guests coming up next month. So we gotta— we just gotta— our calendar is just chock-full over the next like month and a half, even like 2 months. I think we're booked pretty solid. Not to say that like, you know, if you're a celebrity and want to come on the show, we'll make room.

Yeah.

If we like you.

Meh. And even still.

So, but Today, I was actually doing something and I sent you the pictures.

Yeah.

So we can pull them up. I was installing a Kasa dimmer switch in my wife and I's bedroom.

Okay.

And, you know, light switches in general for me have always been like an easy electrical thing. I don't like doing a lot of electrical work.

Right.

It kind of freaks me out.

Yeah.

Like, I know how to turn a breaker off. I know how to do it safely.

It's simple.

I still don't like to do it.

Sure.

But a light switch, pretty straightforward. Pretty straightforward. Um, these newer ones, I mean, you, you tend to have like a neutral and a ground as well as the, the lead and the load line. Um, but that's, that's still not that complicated.

No, because I mean, a lot of that is, is simply just, uh, I mean, it's really some of those just tying them together.

Yeah.

You know, some of those that are, they're both common or whatever, whatever. Right? Right.

So if you want to, you can pull up the picture of when I opened the light switch.

Okay, here it is. It was just a rat's nest of wires, which I feel like that's what most people find whenever they open up any sort of electrical thing. Like, you're going to pull that up and you're going to go, that's not what I was hoping to find.

It's just like, what the—

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And so I got it, I got it worked to where I could turn on the lights in, uh, in my bedroom, and the dimmer function was working properly.

Hold on, before we get there, I want to point out something.

Yes.

When you opened the— you took off the faceplate, you took out the actual whatever was there, which was a switch, right?

Right.

Um, I see other How many black wires were attached? 5.

No, attached to the switch?

Yes. 3. 'Cause I see in this picture a minimum of 4.

Yeah, there was 5 total black wires.

Okay.

And 3 of them were attached to the switch. 2 of them, I don't even know why they were there. And then one of them that was attached— okay, this is why there was 5, because one of them had actually been pigtailed Okay. And into a single wire.

Okay, yeah. It's not completely uncommon.

It's not completely uncommon, but it was just another mess.

Sure.

That, and it had like the biggest wire nut possible on there, which, you know, those boxes, they're not known for their spaciousness.

They gotta fit in between studs. I mean, you know, they're, they're not big.

They're not big.

No.

And, you know, the, the switch I was putting back in there is bigger than the one that was already in there.

Of course.

And then I, I stopped counting on the number of neutral wires.

Yeah, it's— I— which, it's funny because that happens more often than you think. There's like, there's a ton of them. And when I called my, my brother-in-law who's an electrician, he'll say, yeah, just put them all together.

And that's what this person did.

Yeah.

So here's, here's the problem I'm facing now.

Okay.

is I got the lights in my bedroom to work.

Do we wanna look at— show the final product?

Yeah, you can, you can show that. That's fine. Because I mean, it works and it looks good.

Yeah, that's what it looks like.

So, and that's, that's what it looks like in the off position. When it's off, it has that little circle on it. And then when you press it, the circle turns off.

Okay.

And I think that's so you can find it at night.

Oh.

With the lights off.

Smart. Yeah.

But it's, it's, it's a Wi-Fi enabled light switch. It's dimmer. You can control it from your phone. You can do voice command on Alexa or Google or I think those are the only 2 that— or maybe, I don't know if it does Apple HomeKit. I don't think it does.

Probably not. Um, all the good ones don't.

But, um, now the, uh, lights in my bathroom don't work.

What?

Yeah. At all?

At all.

And I don't know why.

Did you miss something inside? No.

I— not that I know of. Now, it's possible something popped out. when I was taking the switch out.

Yeah.

Because things were jammed in there so tight. Um, so I don't know, I may have to get like— I may have to get some line connectors and do some testing.

Yeah, because I mean, if they were all working before, theoretically you could take that thing out, put it back together, and just figure out, okay, did I do something wrong, or Is there another problem somewhere? But I mean, that's the, that's the frustrating part. It's like, this was a 5-minute project.

Yes.

And here I am.

Now it's turned into a 2-day project.

That's the problem. So yeah, and, and honestly, like, this is the bigger, the bigger thing that happens every time there's a home project, right? If you would have called Weston He would have been here, and he would have done that in 5 minutes. It would have worked. Most likely.

It's a matter of pride at this point, though.

Well, I, I, I get it. I'm just saying that's the problem. And whenever it comes into that cost calculator that we've got on our webpage, is that, do you wanna do it? Do you feel confident in doing it? Yeah.

I don't. But I'm not gonna let it beat me like that GFI switch did. So Yeah. Coming for you, light switch.

Yeah. I mean, it's a simple light switch. It's smart, but it's simple.

Supposedly.

Supposedly.

Yeah. Who knows?

I mean, that's— again, I come back to it all the time. It's a problem with these home improvement projects. It's like, nah.

Yeah. I, I do— I, I, I, I do at least have all the tools. I've got all the right tools.

There you go.

So that's half the battle. And that was, that was a big help. Had I not had the right tools today, It would have taken a lot longer because it would have— like, by the— the problem with all the wires being the same color is you eventually lose which one's the hot one because you've got the breaker off. And if you don't have a line tester, yep, you're screwed.

Yep.

I mean, it's like, well, let's just hook it up this way, and well, maybe it's this way. And yep, you know, so yeah, label—

proper labeling at that point would be helpful.

Would be helpful.

But— or photographic memory.

Yeah, well, like, and I, I usually do those kinds of things, like, when I know it's gonna be complicated. But, like, with a light switch, I'm expecting 3 wires.

Yes. But obviously this one's at the end of the line or something, or maybe in the middle of the line. I don't know.

But I think it's in the middle because on the opposite side of the wall is the bathroom switch, and then the other side of another wall is the laundry room. And I think they just all sort of, like, came there.

Interesting. Well, so I, you know, again, one thing to note whenever you're doing all of these home projects, it would be really wise to take pictures.

Yeah.

Take a picture of what you're looking at, and that way you know.

I don't know how that picture would have been helpful.

That one, that one probably wouldn't have been, but it could be helpful. Yeah.

So So anyway, we're doing a few more of these HOA horror stories, and Kevin and I are just gonna— we haven't read them in advance.

No.

So that we can react naturally to them.

That's right.

So, and so we wanted to give you the authentic Craig and Kevin reaction to these HOA horror stories. So let's see. Okay, yeah, this one should be good. It is titled Kids Shouldn't Be Seen or Heard. It says one—

Seen or heard?

Seen or heard.

Yeah. Okay, this should be good.

It's a— this is like, this is like the Google game. It's like Florida Man.

Uh-huh.

It's one Florida HOA caused a furor when proposing that kids no longer be allowed to play in common areas. No running, tag, or acting boisterously whatsoever. Children would also have to be supervised by an adult at all times. Residents in violation could get slapped with a $100 fine.

Oh my goodness.

Eventually, the HOA delayed its decision as parents threatened to sue. It's unclear whether it ever came up for a vote.

Oh my goodness.

The fact that it was even proposed. What?

Like, okay. First of all, this is— we were talking about this a little bit this weekend, about how our minds work a little bit. My question would be, what does boisterous mean?

Yeah.

I mean, right? Like, where's my loophole here that I can easily get out of this? Boisterous.

Is a sparkler boisterous?

Exactly.

It's 4th of July, a-hole. Right, exactly.

I mean, okay, no Roman candles. Okay, I'm okay with that, maybe. But a sparkler? And at some point—

That kid's smiling too much.

Because at some point you got to go, okay, we can't even get adults to do this.

That's right.

What makes you think that a child, even a well-behaved child, Yeah. Is going to be able to do this, you know?

Our adult citizens feel uncomfortable being boisterous in public because the children are taking all the boisterous energy out of the atmosphere. Just need to simmer down.

Oh, this is ridiculous.

They're children.

And, and this is like, this is way at the top of the list of why HOAs are horrible.

Yes.

way at the top of the list.

I mean, I get it if it's like a 55+ community.

Okay.

And that's why those exist.

Sure. Yeah. Well, because, I mean, they just drink all day.

They're anti-boisterousness.

They sit by the pool and drink all day.

That's what they do. Yes.

And okay, that's not conducive to children running around and being boisterous, 'cause who's gonna go fetch them?

Right.

That's right. No.

No inebriated senior citizenry need to be doing childcare. Right.

Just probably not the best choice.

So, yeah. If you live in a neighborhood where they allow children, expect boisterous nights.

And again, even those 55 communities, like, I know that that's probably the only place that you could legitimately say, yeah, they don't allow children.

Yeah.

I mean, who doesn't allow children in a neighborhood? Yeah.

It's like, hey.

Right. And at that point, it's like, grandkids, done.

Yep.

No grandkids.

I'll go watch them over at your house where they can destroy that. This place is gonna stay pristine.

And it's— I'm not too far at this point from 55. I feel like the closer I get to 55, the closer I get to like, wow.

You're closer to 55 than you are 25.

That's right. That's, that's stupid. But, but even still, like, I'm, I'm sitting here going, What 55-year-old lives in those places? Some 55-year-old. If you're 55—

That is some cantankerousness right there.

Yes, it is. Because here's my contention here. If you're 55 and are able to live in a 55+ community, you're not living there. You got a nicer place on a lake somewhere. With, you know, 65 acres in a barndominium with horse stalls underneath.

Hey, yeah, we just shared that thing. That thing's awesome.

Go look at our Facebook page.

Is this right?

You know what I'm saying? Like, if you're 55 and you've retired, yeah, you're, you're not living in one of those places, probably.

I really want to get the square footage on that because Chris and Laken told us they could do it for $130 a square foot.

Well, okay, so they've gone up. It's $137 now.

Oh, those—

but but there's a reason for it. They've included closed-cell foam, which—

Okay.

Before it was open, which closed-cell is just gonna last a whole lot longer.

Okay.

And, um, they're also including rock facades in that price.

Oh, okay. So I'm in.

Yeah, I mean, an extra $7 a square— now that changes the price quickly.

Sure.

$7 a square foot is quite a bit higher, but $130 was Pretty stinking good to be—

heck yeah. I'm going 37.

Doesn't bother me. And I'm— here's, here's a question I actually have for them. Does that— what if it's a 2-story and your slab is not— I mean, slab is a huge part of, right, of the cost. I wonder if the cost goes down if you go up to a 2-story or a loft or something.

I would assume the slabs they're putting in can handle 2-story.

Oh, that— no, they absolutely can.

Uh-huh.

They— yeah, they absolutely can.

Or you're saying because they're smaller?

Because it's—

I get it. Okay.

You have a smaller footprint.

I think on this one, I don't think that'd make a difference. Doesn't matter.

$6.9 million, it ought to have—

Yeah.

Whatever you want. All the things, right? Yeah.

So let's— okay, so moving on.

Moving on.

Talking about yards. One California homeowner thought she was doing the responsible thing by ripping out her grass during a drought and replacing it with plants that needed far less water. But her HOA demanded she restore some grass, telling her it would look better. and threatening a $50 monthly fine until she complied. California later passed a law protecting residents from attempts to penalize them for installing drought-friendly landscaping.

What?

Yes.

I mean, okay.

So I actually had a boss when I was younger who said that he wished he lived in a neighborhood where he could put rock down instead of grass. Okay. And that's essentially what, what they're talking about here is because they're putting in like succulents and cacti and all these kinds of things, which can look really nice.

Yes, it can.

Um, but, you know, this neighborhood's going like, no, no, no, you got to have grass. And, you know, she's probably going like, look, I can put in the grass, but it's just gonna be brown, right? Like the rock, right?

Which do you prefer? Yeah, ugly, disgusting, or nice and pretty?

Yeah, uh, we'll take ugly and disgusting because that's what the rest of us have. That's—

you can't be better than us. And And I get it. I mean, grass looks nice.

His thing wasn't even like aesthetics. His thing was like, look, I hate mowing and I hate paying someone to mow, so I can eliminate this permanently by just putting in pebblestone.

Yeah. And I hate pebblestone. I mean, it's awful. I have some now.

You mean awful like to walk on?

No, it's awful because it— I mean, unless you get that— you remember those honeycomb things you showed me?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That like keep it in place. Um, unless you have something installed like that that actually keeps the pebbles in place, it just, it gets everywhere.

Yeah, it does.

I mean, and you know, anytime a, a person or a dog or anything kind of walks on it and the wind blows, anything. Um, but you would have to, um, invest in some Roundup, uh, for that.

That, well, unless you did like some, you know, like an underlayment. Yeah.

Is that the right word?

Sure.

Okay. We'll allow it. Okay.

So until the HOA tells us otherwise.

Alright. Alright.

So this, this one I know will get you fired up.

Okay.

It says, again, a Florida woman.

Of course. 55 and alive.

The HOAs in Florida just must be a—

Well, I believe it.

So a Florida woman and enthusiastic Disney fan.

Oh.

decided to plant a whimsical flower bed in the shape of Mickey Mouse.

Perfect.

But her unimpressed HOA told her Mickey didn't fit in with the neighborhood and to either remove the flower bed or modify it by removing the ears. She decided to move out, pledging to avoid HOAs in the future.

Oh, I am all in on what the homeowner did. On the Mickey ears? This homeowner was within her rights. As a person, as a human being with smart mind and sound thinking, I— this is dumb.

It was 3 circles.

3 circles.

3 circles.

It just happened to be in the shape. And honestly, unless you're in a helicopter, you wouldn't even know.

I'm sure it became a kerfuffle when she said, look at my Mickey Mouse ears.

Yeah, that was her.

Or something like that.

She shouldn't have said that. You know, maybe.

Or— You know, who knows? Maybe it's like a former disgruntled employee from Disney or something that was on the board. But like, I mean, like, really, like, what's the big deal?

Well, and if you've ever been to Disney, you know that Disney does this type of thing all the time, right? Especially in their Flower and Garden Festival.

Hidden Mickeys.

Hidden Mickeys. But they've got these flower arrangements, these patterns that are really quite beautiful.

Yeah, they're pretty.

And so I'm sitting here going, okay, that— it probably looked great.

It probably did.

It probably looked great.

So, I mean, even if it didn't, it's her yard.

That's right. I mean, and you're, you're planting things. Most likely it was kept nicely. This is dumb. This is dumb.

Yep.

I got no words. It's just dumb.

I mean, I guess she could have put the circles on the bottom and they said, hey, we don't like having the things that's shaped like testicles in the yard.

I don't know.

That doesn't fit with our community guidelines. It would also—

that would also— yes, it would also not fit within the lines of what they're trying to draw.

It's too boisterous.

Can't have that. Can't have any fun.

Will attract children.

No fun. Let's not have any fun. We're the HOA. That's right.

Yeah. All right. Let's see that. Okay, so here's, here's a different state. So this should be fun. A Maryland HOA decided some homeowners' mailboxes were looking a little rundown and did the completely logical thing. required every homeowner to shell out $500 for new matching mailboxes. One homeowner who'd just bought a new mailbox on his own decided to fight despite facing a $100 monthly fine for noncompliance. He prevailed in court, but was still on the hook for more than $30,000 in legal fees.

What?

Over a mailbox. Now, okay. While I am on the side of the homeowner and his choice of mailbox.

Yes, me too.

That was dumb. Don't—

look. I tell—

I get the principle of the thing.

Sure. I work with children, and I tell them many times, if you're gonna be dumb, don't be stupid. I feel like this is good advice to people in general.

If you're gonna be dumb, Don't be stupid.

And I feel like that was a little stupid. Don't, don't rack up $30,000 in legal fees over a $500 mailbox at all. I mean, I'm with him.

Pride goeth before the $30K.

I mean, I never played mailbox baseball growing up. I don't know if you did, but I never did.

I did not.

I, I do think it would have been fun, um, but I never did. I'm, I'm just wondering I mean, these brick mailboxes, because you don't, you don't baseball bat the brick mailbox. No, you don't.

But, um, I was gonna say that, like, like, if I was gonna go mailboxing, I probably wouldn't have used a baseball bat.

Sledgehammer?

No, I don't want to. I don't want the chance of me coming in contact with something to injure me.

That— well, that's exactly what happens.

Fired some sort of projectile. Okay. Yeah. So if I was going to do something like that, but I wouldn't do that because that's dumb.

And if you're gonna be dumb, don't be stupid. Don't be stupid. It's good advice. It is. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Come on, Marilyn, get your stuff together. All right, here we go. Here we go. Those darn kids are at it again. Okay, this time with chalk. Oh, a Denver area. So Colorado. Denver area HOA decided kids' chalk drawings in the common areas were an eyesore that could disturb residents, but banning them whipped up so much negative attention that a larger homeowners association in the area took pains to distance itself from the situation.

That's really it. Chalk? Really?

So here's, here's the thing. I may actually be on the side of the homeowners association on this one.

Okay.

Like, if it was in someone's driveway.

Oh, if it's not your own property.

Right.

I can understand that.

Right.

And depending on what's being drawn, right?

Sure.

If it's Mickey Mouse, yeah, we have issues, obviously.

If it's other circles, I don't know.

Yeah.

But if it's like that, the park or the pool. Yeah, like, I see no problem in making a rule that, hey, no, no sidewalk chalk.

Sure, I'm, I'm okay.

But you could also be in a community that's like, hey, hippie go free, you can paint whatever you want. Like, that's— it's your community, you can, you can make your rules. Um, but like, if it's, if it's your own driveway, you know, unless it's like something obscene, right, or inappropriate, right, draw away.

Yep, that's my thought.

So yeah. All right. So this, this is— this one looks good. A North Carolina homeowner installed vinyl trim on her home in an upscale community, a move approved by the HOA until it wasn't. 6 months after the trim was installed, the HOA reversed course and decided it didn't like it, revoking the homeowner's right to use community amenities and threatening fines and litigation After a little media attention, the HOA dropped the issue, though.

Well, yeah. I would think so. You don't get to approve something and willy-nilly just disapprove it.

Now we don't like it. So let's change the rules. Right. Which happens a lot.

On it. The rules get changed very often.

That's like the seedy underground of HOA stuff is the problem is, is it's run by people.

Yeah.

And people are, can be mean and vindictive and underhanded, and they'll seek power in order to just nudge.

Well, yeah, I mean, their neighbor— the HOA is a board, and the board has elected people on it. And look, after an amount of time, you re-pick board members, right? And people run for that kind of stuff to tell people you can't draw chalk on your driveway, right? Or that you don't like the vinyl that my neighbor just put up. That's why they get on those boards sometimes.

Which I'm no fan of vinyl either. I mean, like, I, I'm sure.

Yeah.

I don't like it.

I don't either. But, I mean, that being said, though, if it's legal, and, and I am saying legal because HOAs are, are legal entities. Right? I mean, there is— that's the reason that there's these $30,000 lawsuits because it is a legal piece of thing. Piece of thing? It's a legal document. What? I don't— what am I trying to say? Legal. It's legal or illegal.

It's not against the law.

Not against— there we go. Anyway. But it's a, it's a matter of legality. And so therefore, People, people are going to get on boards to change the laws. And so 1 year, you may have something. 2 years later, you may have something else.

Yeah.

And then no longer are you in compliance. And then you have to move your blue tarp off the sandbox. That's right.

You're not bitter about that at all, though. Not, not at all. So here, here's something I think a lot of people don't know about HOAs is that if you move into a new community, meaning where they've just started building homes and there's not a lot of people living there. What a lot of people don't understand is those HOAs are actually run by the builder.

Oh, okay.

And or the community organ— because sometimes you have like multiple builders in one neighborhood, but whoever designed and did the layout, the, the corporation that set up that neighborhood, they run the HOA.

Okay.

And, and so that— this is why new communities can be so popular is because the HOAs can be extremely efficient and helpful and good for the community because they set up the rules, but they're, they're, you know, designed to draw people into that community because they want people to want to live there.

Yeah.

I'll give you a good example. One community we used to work in before the HOA was taken over by the actual people who lived in the neighborhood, part of the amenities of that neighborhood where you could have the milkman deliver milk on your doorstep.

Okay.

And that was just something— it was a, a perk of living in the neighborhood that the HOA provided. Now you paid for the milk.

Sure.

But it was a service that they subsidized so that it was a, you know, a, a cute little thing that you had living in that neighborhood.

Yeah.

Well, as soon as that corporation sold back the HOA to the neighborhood, which is part of the way they end up making money on these deals.

Right.

The board looked at the numbers and said, not paying for that. Not paying for that. And, and the milk service went away. Well, people, people were up in arms like, what the heck?

That's why we moved here.

Yeah. And, and so, you know, a lot of times, the amenities that you get when you move into a neighborhood through the HOA are there because they're looking to draw you into the neighborhood. And as soon as people get involved, It just— yeah, it just goes to hell.

Yeah.

So, all right, let's, let's end with this one because we've, we've got a good one here. Um, says, Little Piggy Can't Stay Home. A Texas man surprised his wife with a unique Christmas gift, a 7-week-old pot-bellied pig named Wilbur. His HOA decided the pig ran afoul of pet regulations forbidding animals that aren't common or traditional, eventually threatening a lawsuit if it wasn't gone within 30 days. The homeowner sued instead, and a judge sided with them, saying Wilbur was indeed a pet and could stay.

I actually know someone who has a pet pig in their house.

Pets— I mean, pigs can make really good pets.

They can. Yeah. I mean, they're—

Potbelly pigs in particular.

Yeah. I mean, they're, they're lovable. They, they're pretty— I mean, I know most people think that pigs are gross and disgusting because they wallow in the mud or whatever, whatever. But that's if you let them. Like, they can be clean.

Well, there's different kinds of pigs.

Yeah.

So I've actually— I've, I've come afoul some bad pigs as well.

Yeah.

And like potbelly pigs. Yeah, they're like dogs, man. I mean, like, yes, they tend to reflect their owners.

Yeah. And now, now some of these potbelly pigs are stupid.

Smart.

And, and smart. Yeah, they're huge, they're smart. Like, some people would never want them in their home.

I'm guessing this was a mini potbelly pig.

I would bet— I would guess so too. I mean, because some of these potbellies are like 400, 500, 600 pounds, right?

Uh, the bigger ones, yeah, they can. I don't know that they can be 400 or 500.

Okay.

Potbelly pigs.

Okay.

Other, other pigs, yes. I don't know about potbelly pigs, but I could be wrong.

But you can get some that are well under 100.

Easy, easy.

Yeah. Yeah, and Wilbur probably was. I would, I would guess so.

Yeah, I mean, he's— I mean, with the name like that, you're gonna have to be a runt.

Yeah, I mean, you have to have a spider web somewhere. That's right, just to let the pig know what to do.

And I don't know, do it. Would, would you be okay if your neighbor had a potbelly pig? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, I mean, as long as it wasn't a nuisance.

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like the same with a dog. I mean, like, I don't care if you have a dog, just take care of it.

I mean, I would actually far— I would be far more frustrated with a dog that barked all the time or that was like not leashed, right, or had a hole in the yard and kept getting out. I would be far more frustrated with that than I would a pig that was maintained. Yeah, you know.

Yeah, I got you.

Yeah.

Okay, so which, which one of these was— do you think was the most egregious?

Definitely the kids.

Oh, the kid one?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, that's— that one's— that was pretty bad.

That's pretty bad. I mean, if it's probably either that one or the, um, or the one that was, that was planting—

Oh, the grass.

The grass, the planting, the actual plants that were gonna do better in that environment. That would, to me, those most egregious. Yeah, those are the 2 worst. What about you?

Um, yeah, I think, I think probably the lawn one. Yeah, I think that was probably the worst one of them. I'm trying to go back through and see if there's Oh no, you know what, I gotta go with mailbox. Oh yeah, just because he was dumb.

I say he was stupid.

I mean, $30,500, that's dumb and stupid.

I don't know, I don't get it. Yeah, well, again, if you have some crazy HOA stories, please send them to us. We'll even talk about them on the show if you want us to. I mean, It— there— I guarantee there are some from around here. I didn't even know about HOAs till I moved around here. But they're definitely—

Is that not a thing in Arkansas? Well, just not where you live.

Not, not where I lived. I mean, I, I think in larger cities that have planned communities, those sorts of things, they tend to have them. But where I lived, it was kind of a suburb. There was no HOAs. I mean, I say that. I, I'm sure there were because there were some really nice gated neighborhoods that probably did have an HOA. I didn't live there and I didn't know about it. So, but yeah, send them to us. And, um, yeah, thanks for, uh, joining us on today's show. If you haven't already, go ahead and take a moment and click the like button and the subscribe button and, uh, let us know, uh, what you want to hear. We're always looking for new

things. We're booked up, but we always want to know what you want to hear about. Send us a message at info@homeownershow.com. Go ahead and do all the things. What else, Craig?

I think that'll probably be it. I need to remember to hit the bump music here at the end.

Bumpity bump. Yeah.

Share, like, love.

That's it.

So we love hearing from you guys. Yeah.

We're here each and every Tuesday. And until next time, we'll see you later.

See ya.