Joe Kinsey
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As a dad who lives in an HOA neighborhood, the OutKick editors thought I’d be the perfect blogger to address the viral letter written by an angry dad to some “anonymous passerby” who went to an HOA to complain about the tree fort Dave constructed for his kids during the pandemic.
“Don’t worry, you’re safe now!” Dave wrote back to the rat who went to the HOA over his fort. “Your act of casual cruelty was successful.”
“No longer will its presence offend your walk past my house. Please enjoy your stroll free from the sound of my children’s play and laughter. They are safely back inside now, watching television I’m sure.”
“Enjoy the unobstructed view of my backyard. I will try to keep it up to code.”
Dave’s all emotional, and I get that side of things because here he was, stuck in his house with boys. Dad was going nuts. The boys were going nuts. Dave’s survival instincts set in, and he decided a tree fort would suck the energy right out of those kids. I get all of it. I lived that life, but I had the foresight years ago to trade a bottle of Crown for a neighbor’s playset. My dad and I moved it in three pieces before driving to Green Bay for a Packers game one year. I left the bottle of Crown on the neighbor’s porch, and we were on the road.
I look out in the yard and always think about how I saved at least a thousand dollars by trading a bottle sent to me in a promotional package from Crown Royal for that playset.
Dave’s problem here is that he built it in a neighborhood with an HOA. That’s right, I’m going to side with the HOA rat on this one. Think about your neighborhood. Do you want random houses with tree forts constructed from pallets that some of these weirdos find on scrapping journeys? I don’t. That’s what unincorporated land is for.
Dave needs to understand that this most likely isn’t personal. This isn’t about him and his little ‘VID project. This is about pumping the brakes on the weirdos bringing in their pallet wood and building janky sheds, tree forts, etc. This is a preemptive strike, and it’s necessary. You can’t complain about the rules when you knew the rules going into the buying process.
There’s a house in my neighborhood that’s had approximately 6-7 dumpsters in the driveway over the last 12 months. There’s currently an old tire in the driveway, random piles of sticks and other junk laying around. Would I love these idiots to clean their property and live like the rest of us sane people? Yes, I would.
It’s not happening. These weirdos who inherited the house have to be strung out on drugs. I’d also put $100 on the moneyline that there’s a dead body in the house. Do I want these animals constructing tree forts, parking multiple cars in their yard, parking dumpsters in the driveway for months at a time? It’s going to be a no from me, dawg.
Dave needs to go buy a bottle of Crown, get on the neighborhood Facebook group page and ask who wants to trade booze for a play set.
Are you seriously comparing a well built tree-house in a neighbor’s backyard to a house with a dumpster sitting in the front for months? You’ve got to be kidding. Whoever made the request to remove the tree house is a jerk!
HOA’s are like our criminal court system. We have them because others don’t use good judgement.
Agreed. If the treehouse was built in the front yard I could see it being an issue but I’m assuming that isn’t the case here.
I used to live in a community with an HOA and we should have charged admission to the quarterly meetings. There were a couple of occasions where fisticuffs occurred. But don’t worry it was always about something important like parking spaces or paint color(eye roll). After we left I decided I would never live in a place with an HOA again. It’s just un-American for someone else to tell you what to do with your own property.
The HOA’s CC&R explicitly banned tree forts? Man, that’s pretty random and specific.
To quote Walter Sobchak- this isn’t ‘Nam, there are rules! People sign a contract that they will abide by the rules when they purchase a home in an HOA. It’s that simple. If you want to make change to the HOA rules, do like the rest of us red-blooded Americans by complaining, protesting, and then burning down the community center when you don’t get what you want.
You put people in cars. You have people on the internet with anonymity. You have people in HOA. You then get a glimpse what assholes some people are. Allowing them to hide behind HOA, a steering wheel, or a keyboard makes them think they are more powerful than they are. Face to face is where civility begins. Sometimes manners and respect for others need to be learned face to face. This will not stop punk ass bitches from being punk ass bitches, but it will make them reflect upon whether they want to share their limp wrist attitude up close and personal. Come on America let kids be kids. Let’s have some fun. If your easily offended persona can’t enjoy your life, at least let the majority of us who want to have a joyful life alone. Let fathers and sons enjoy their lives. Don’t let the malcontent crybabies’ win. America Matters.
An HOA is a petty tyranny.