HOA HELL: Notice of Violations
THE FXBG ADVANCE SUNDAY 7/7/26 AFTERNOON READ
By Drew Gallagher, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
To: Homeowner of Lot 8675309
From: Hummingbird Property Management
Dear Homeowner of Lot 8675309:
We recently conducted our spring inspection of the homes in ___________ (enter name of subdivision) and have determined that your property is in violation of the HOA regulations listed below. Failure to correct these violations prior to __________ (enter date of pool opening because this is the only thing homeowners care about) could result in revocation of all rights to common grounds and amenities including, but not limited to, the POOL, the clubhouse, the charcoal grill located at the pavilion which newly-elected HOA Board member Bill thinks will work if you build a charcoal pyramid instead of spreading the briquets evenly at a depth of 1-2 inches even if that is what the faded instructions on the lid read.
Violations are as follows:
MULCH MIX-MATCH: Uneven distribution of mulch in front planter; failure to match brown mulch with tan.
RECOMMENDED FIX: Your wife told you to buy 15 bags of brown mulch when it was on sale 5 bags for $10 but you decided that you could cover the front planter in 10 bags because the cart at Home Depot had a bad front wheel and you were worried that five more bags of mulch would cause you to inadvertently push it into the Asian periodical display near the checkout line and make people look at you funny and suspect that you were a British Lit major in college. After you got home and realized that 10 bags only covered part of the front planter, you returned to Home Depot later in the day only to find that they had sold out of the brown mulch and would not be getting in any more pallets until Monday. You subsequently bought five bags of the tan mulch thinking that it was close enough to brown that no one would notice after it rained. Listen to your wife next time because she is overworked and tired, but in the short term remove all tan mulch from planter, return to Home Depot, pay regular price of $2.79/bag for the brown mulch. Apologize for wasting $3.95 because of a squeaky Home Depot cart.
NON-REGULATION BASKETBALL GOAL IN DRIVEWAY
Eight-foot basketball goal in driveway obviously found on Facebook marketplace; embarrassment to kids.
RECOMMENDED FIX: Find a job in the private sector instead of continued employment as a public school art teacher due to your athletic dreams dying in middle school PE class. Just because you bombed at sports doesn’t mean your children have to suffer the same fate of shooting at a rim that can never reach regulation 10 feet even if you put a few more of those left over bricks from the unfinished patio project under the base. Your kid might be named Michael, but he’s never going to appear on a Wheaties’ box unless he’s abducted. And he’ll probably warm up to the idea of abduction and never seeing his art teacher father again if it means he gets to shoot at a regulation basket in a remote New Mexican desert. Many years later, long after your wife has left you and you’re paying monthly to stay at a Knights Inn in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, you might wonder if that kid draining three-pointers for Texas Southern looks familiar. Guess what, he does look familiar because he is your kid who went to live with his mom and her boyfriend and practice on a regulation 10-foot home in somebody else’s asphalt-cracked driveway instead of molding clay into Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
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WHITE PEONIES ON FRONT PORCH TWO WEEKS BEFORE MEMORIAL DAY.
RECOMMENDED FIX: No white before Memorial Day. Most likely the reason families at the end of the cul-de-sac don’t invite you to their monthly First Friday cookouts. They say it’s only for cul-de-sac residents, but you know of at least three families from the front of the neighborhood who are on the invite list—and none of them are you. When your husband goes back to buy tan mulch at Home Depot have him pick up some purple or pink peonies.
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OFFENSIVE FRONT PORCH SIGNAGE.
RECOMMENDED FIX: Sure it’s 5 o’clock somewhere, but it’s also 10 o’clock somewhere, and it’s also 3 o’clock tomorrow in the Marshall Islands. Your sign does not signify anything beyond the not-so-subtle admission that either you or your husband (or both!) are raging alcoholics. This is a family neighborhood, and people with Stanley Tumblers filled with water and kids in strollers are walking by your Tuesday front porch happy hour. It might look like they grin when you keep asking what’s actually in those Stanleys, but inside they’re grimacing and hoping their infants never grow up to be like you or your child who is hoping in turn that he’ll be abducted before nightfall.
