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AITA for Getting Back at the HOA Over Stop Signs? Living in an HOA community has its quirks. My neighbors have put up passive-aggressive signs like “Slow down, this is a neighborhood, not a race track” and “Drive as your children live here.” Even though I always drive cautiously, one of these neighbors aggressively signaled me to slow down while I was going 20mph. I didn’t change my speed, and he looked pretty annoyed.
In retaliation, I started driving at 15-17mph in front of his house by shifting into first gear, which made my engine much louder compared to the 20mph in second gear. I’ve even thought about using low 4WD to hit 6k rpm at 5mph just to make more noise.
Update: The HOA has now put up a 25mph speed limit sign, and all the passive-aggressive signs have been taken down. I now drive at 20-25mph and take pleasure in the neighbor’s frustrated looks as I pass by. It seems my actions might have played a part in this change, as others in the community also seemed to have raised concerns.
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AITA for Getting Back at the HOA Over Stop Signs?
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I live in an HOA community, which comes with its challenges. My neighbors have put up passive-aggressive signs like “Slow down, this is a neighborhood, not a race track” and “Drive as your children live here.” Despite never speeding and driving cautiously, one of the sign-posting neighbors aggressively gestured for me to slow down, even though I was going 20mph. I didn’t adjust my speed, and he seemed frustrated.
To get back at him, I started driving at 15-17mph in front of his house by shifting into first gear, which makes my engine rev much louder than when I drive at 20mph in second gear. I’ve even considered using low 4WD to hit 6k rpm at 5mph just to annoy him further.
Update: The HOA has since installed a 25mph speed limit sign, and all the passive-aggressive signs have been removed. I now drive at 20-25mph and enjoy the neighbor’s disgruntled looks as I pass by. It seems like my actions might have contributed to the change, as many others also seemed to have raised the issue.
Let’s swiftly assess a handful of the top comments: AITA for Getting Back at the HOA Over Stop Signs?
jcgreen_72 Writers:
Upstairs bedroom, my bed was against the wall by the window. My daughter’s Winnie the Pooh pillow was up against the window one day and the golf cart stasi took umbrage.
ghalta Writes:
We had an HOA at our first house, and had a similar rule. One year, there was a huge push to get people to attend an HOA meeting. They brought free food or something. At this meeting, they got a new rule rammed through that, if a meeting didn’t have enough members represented to achieve quorum, they could reschedule the meeting, without notice, and in the new meeting the quorum would be halved.
From then on, if the scheduled meeting was 7 PM, quorum wasn’t achieved and they would schedule a new meeting for 7:02 PM. Then 7:04 PM. Then 7:06 PM. By 7:08 PM or 7:10 PM, the 8 people who showed up would be quorum.
This is also when they went from fully passive to enforcing lots of stupid rules and foreclosing on those who couldn’t pay the subsequent fines. I got onto the board in the last couple years I lived there, and they were foreclosing on a single dad whose wife had died because he worked too many shifts and couldn’t mow his lawn often enough. And they knew he was struggling to keep the house on his salary alone.
labdsknechtpiraten Writers:
I live in an HOA neighborhood.
I got stuck on the board for 3 years because we couldn’t get a high enough voter turn out to get new people who WANTED to be on the board voted in.
Why does that statement matter? Well, to add, remove, or make any ‘significant’ changes to the bylaws, it must be approved, by vote, by a 2/3rds majority (off the top of my head, there’s 60 houses in the hoa, which means for any bylaw change, there must be 40 votes approving of it…. if there’s 40 total votes, but 10 of them are against, the motion fails).
EducatedRat Writers:
This is the exact reason I am looking to get one. I have lost the ability to ride and jog. It’s a hidden disability, so I look like I should be able to. I miss it, so an e-bike would let me be outside and be active again.
SunflowerSpeaks Writers:
I’m old. My knees and hips can’t take the hills like they used to. I have a hidden disability (besides being old, lol) that makes people judge me for using my e-bike. I can go so much farther with assistance on the hills. Before my e-bike,I was contemplating giving up riding bicycles at all. I’m happy to have the means to get a great one!
