Well, I’m doing it now. I despise my neighborhood HOA. I owned an HOA management company for 18 years and did HOA legal work for over 30 years. In 2007 I warned them of a problem. They ignored me and got caught in a legal battle that made only 125 of the 450 homes actual members. I’m no longer a “ member” yay. Let’s just say I have been at war with idiots for 13 years and I have been very vocal about it. I'm still vocal about the methods they are using to try to trick people into “ joining” the HOA.

We had one Board member. I will refer to him as goat face man. He came on the Board at a time of peace. He decided to create a war. I was stopped in a grocery store by another Board member who told me I was in danger from goat faced man. I only knew him as the nice man who found my dog one time when she got out . I did not know that he came by my house every day looking for violations of the non existent rules in our documents.

At Christmas I put out a 10 k Christmas display. People come from all over to see it. He had the HOA send me a letter calling my property a dumping ground for trash and rubbish. War erupted. He bragged about it at the annual meeting. Believe me, war was a mild term. And no, there was no rules about anything I had done and my 5k nativity was not trash and baby Jesus is not rubbish. Okay so maybe sky diving Santa is questionable but not to children.

Since I am no longer a member, there cannot be war as they can't say crap to me. In fact I bought an 8 foot bird for the front yard for them. Everybody's heard about the bird…, it’s really obnoxious. I have 147 varieties of plants in beds xeriscaped areas, a beautiful flagstone swale thats prevents flooding for my whole area etc and the bird is just awful.

Back track. 10 years ago my neighbors and I entered into an agreement about fences and sheds. She was on the Board. When her part was approved she voted to not approve my part . War ensued and we built our sheds but out mutual fence plan died a quick death. One day I ran an extention cord to my shed and she called code compliance ( over an extension cord)

Code came out and made me hard wire the shed. Both our sheds were on the side of our houses. Hum , we were both in violation of code. No sheds allowed except behind the house. They had other violations with their shed. At that time I did not have 50 k of xeriscaping etc in my backyard. I said Ok I’ll just take down my fence and roll the shed on metal rollers into the back yard. No said Mr Dial from Code. They can’t do that due to trees. Just leave each other alone and we won’t enforce the rule. That was easy, I had not called code on them. They told them the same, my neighbor and I wrote emails about it. For 10 years the sheds have been there. Their house had sold twice. Two more neighbors within 6 houses have barn sized sheds on their side property. In all, I have identified over 150 code violations just driving around. Google Earth will add more.

Suddenly code sends me a letter giving me 10 days to move the shed or be fined 1000 a day. They said an anonymous complaint was made. Mr. Dial is gone and even though they admit they have known it was in violation for 10 years, a formal complaint means enforcement. But the complaint was only against my shed. ( No, it is in like new condition as far back as it can go on my side yard. Others are right up front in multiple colors) It cost me 2 k to move it and destroyed 250 sq feet of xeriscaped yard in the back of my house. Code has advised me that if I make a complaint, they will enforce code on any other offending property.

I put out the word. Either anoymous fessed up and paid me my cost ( as I’m sure it was HOA retaliation) or we were going to have the most code compliant neighborhood in Texas as I was going to make complaints on every violation in the neighborhood.

No one fessed up. Naturally I thought it was goat faced man so I drove by his house. He has two sheds in his side yard. I hate to say it, I was delighted. One is massive and he has a tiny back yard. I don’t think even one will fit.

Now it may be petty to be the self appointed snitch on code violations and I have 150 identified, but… I feel PETTY good about it.