Global Courant
A Redditor was eager to help an elderly neighbor after a draconian homeowners association (HOA) cut down his flowers.
When it comes to building a garden, HOAs can sometimes be the enemy. Many insist on a regular lawn, restrict pots and planters, or ban certain plants and other garden features.
In extreme cases, HOAs sometimes even enter a homeowner’s property to make changes. According to this redditor, it happened in their neighborhood in Texas.
“My elderly neighbor had a beautiful patch of bluebonnets in his yard that he and our community really loved and cherished,” the user shared r/texas. “My neighbor is 76 years old, lives alone with no pets and still works 9-5 for the city water. He’s a nice old man.”
Bluebonnets are the state flower of Texas, so it’s not surprising the neighborhood loved seeing a slice of it. “Some of us even had professional photos taken!” said the Redditor.
However, the HOA took a different view.
“Our HOA arbitrarily took it upon themselves to mow them down after being told it was against the rules regarding excessive weeds,” the Redditor said. “He spent an hour in his truck and literally cried about it because he loved those flowers.”
The user then asked Reddit for advice. “Can we do something about this? I assume not as the HOA overlords rule everything unsupervised.
In many areas, a homeowner could work with the local Audubon Society to get protection for native plants in their yard. Some states also have laws to allow homeowners to grow native flowers or anything else.
In this case, users in Texas couldn’t agree on a legal basis to challenge the HOA. Instead, they suggested collecting the neighborhood and local news.
“This is horrible,” said one user. “Does your community have a Facebook page? I would start there and call them out.
“Let a reporter write a story about HOAs and their excessive power,” said another commentator.
Several users suggested running for the HOA board, but the original poster wasn’t confident they’d make it work. “I actually did it a while ago for various reasons, but unfortunately it turned into a popularity contest and I lost to a very very social butterfly in our neighborhood,” they said in an edit of their post.
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