There’s good and bad to everything. I’ve lived in neighborhoods that had HOAs and others that didn’t. Generally speaking, an HOA run properly does nothing more than protect the value of the surrounding homes in the neighborhood by passing and enforcing common sense common courtesy outcome based guidelines vs mandating restrictive rules.
It’s when you get the zealots on the board that assume nobody has any common sense or courtesy for their neighbors and therefore starts creating mandates that go completely overboard. That is an HOA run amuck and unfortunately isn’t at all uncommon. Fortunately there’s a fix for out-of-control HOAs. Just get a couple of like minded neighbors to join you for a run on the board (you’ll need enough to out vote the remaining morons on the board) then when elected flip every stinking rule and resign when your work is done. Repeat as necessary, or vote with your feet (Willy?) and just move to a better neighborhood.
