A fuming Redditor went online to complain when their grandmother's HOA threatened to sue her if she would not shut down the garden she'd been growing for 30 years.
HOAs in America have a lot of power to control what homeowners can and can't do in their own yards. While some have no problem with gardens, others start major conflicts over tiny issues like the placement of plants or the size of the beds.
One Redditor said their grandmother was dealing with a situation just as unreasonable. "My grandma lives in a neighborhood with an HOA," they wrote. "She's never had a problem with them before."
The Redditor explained that the HOA's rules restricted gardens to residents' backyards. However, the Redditor's grandmother had a very shady backyard, which was a huge problem for her. So the grandmother got an exception from her HOA decades ago.
"The original HOA leader … gave her and only her permission to grow her garden in the front," said the Redditor. "30 years she's been doing that."
But a change in HOA leadership shook everything up. "Now, the original guy retired, replaced by some 20-year-old college student," said the Redditor. "She's demanding she do [her gardening] in the back."
According to the Redditor, explaining that she had been granted an exception didn't help. The new HOA president didn't care that moving the plants would kill them, either. No matter what, she insisted on the change.
"That same woman came to her house and knocked on her door, asking her one last time to move the garden to the back," the Redditor said. "Now that lady is threatening to sue Grandma if she refuses."
Other users left scathing comments for the HOA president.
"Making her yard look beautiful! How dare she?" one Redditor said sarcastically. "For real, you'd think the HOA would be happy she's caring for her yard."
Other users suggested the grandmother stand her ground.
"If your grandmother has in fact had the garden in her front yard for literally 30 years, she could possibly legitimately argue that by letting it go for that long that the HOA has given up the right to try to enforce the rule on her now," said one commenter.
Residents running into this kind of issue often have more options than they think. This guide outlines how to change the rules in an HOA.
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