Rarely do we ever hear a homeowners’ association story that involves decent board members. There are countless horror stories of police state-style neighborhoods that terrorize their residents with excessive authority, and one Arizona botanist had had enough of their HOA. The drama started when the board members fined the plant enthusiast “$50 because my ten-year-old son couldn’t lift a heavy trash bag into the bin.” Watching someone’s child to that extent is creepy enough, but it wasn’t until the HOA sent someone to destroy the botanist’s rare succulent collection that they crashed out.
A few months after the $50 fine, the botanist received an email accusing them of having “too many” plants. They, in turn, responded with a detailed explanation of how the species they tended used hardly any water and were of no risk to the community. That’s when things took a nasty turn. “Two days later, I came home to find my collection hacked apart. Rare agaves and aloes that had taken decades to grow had been cut to pieces by a gardener the HOA sent without my consent,” the botanist recalled on Reddit.
The gardener was nothing more than a hired hand to do the evil HOA’s bidding and was only following orders. Infuriated, the resident messaged the board, threatening to take legal action if they ever pulled something like this again. The last straw was when the same gardener was told to go outside the botanist’s home and use a leaf blower after a wildfire caused ash to cover everything. Even though there was a city ban to do so, he still obeyed the HOA: “he thought it was stupid too, but was told to do it,” the plant lover explained.
At the end of their horror story, the botanist concluded with “What I learned is simple: HOAs are a waste of time. They exist to control, not to build community. I’ll never live under one again.” And while they claim to have moved to a different and more suitable neighborhood, many commenters were rather surprised that the poster didn’t pursue legal action after the destruction of their property. After all, the HOA most certainly deserved every last bad thing that could ever happen to it. But perhaps, the trouble was more than it was worth for the plant lover.
