content: So I sit on the board of an HOA.  Allow me to paint you a different picture:  you buy a home, and then you get neighbors.  You paid $100,000 (random number) for the home, and you pay your utilities.  Your neighbors are freaking awesome, and they NEVER mess with you, break things, and if they see something messed up they attempt to fix it themselves because that's what a good citizen does.  After a bit of time, your home is worth $110,000 because that's just how things works.  Then an urbanite moves into the neighborhood.  At first you don't hear from them, and you just keep living your life.  Your grass is getting cut, your streets are being maintained, and big problems are taken care of by the dues you pay.  Then all of a sudden you start seeing fences knocked down, trash overflowing ('cause people can't break their damn boxes OR be bothered to take the bulk items to the dump) and you're having to pay contractors to come in a rebuild your fence, resod the lawn, and haul away the extra trash.  Each time a contractor comes out, it's $100.  This bullshit happens every.single.week.  Next thing you know the new neighbor (and their kids) are causing $450 worth of damage EVERY SINGLE MONTH.  You attempt to deal with them but they won't listen.  You send them letter, they won't listen.  Then you get the people who shouldn't be involved in governing ANYTHING involved, because all they see is their HOA dues going up and up and up...  all this is being 'caused by a single family, but the HOA has to abide by certain rules and can't just "take away your home" like everyone claims.  The HOA has to hire a lawyer, members of the board have to fend off the "libtards" who want to join just so they can keep the fees from going up, and usually fail 'cause that's how things work.  Now the libtards are in charge of the HOA, they realize that the problem is ONE homeowner, and the lawyer comes back and tells them that NO, YOU CANNOT EVICT THEM, REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH THEY OWE YOU BECAUSE OF THE LAW.  Eviction law is a PITA.  So the libtards, not knowing how to deal with anything besides making everyone else's life impossible... do what's natural to them:  they go to the offending homeowner's place and because the homeowner doesn't want anything to do with them, they avoid them.  So they libtards start passing new regulation.. quietly.  Next thing you know they put a HUGE lien on the house and the rules are so tight that other homeowners who know even less about governing get on the board.  Now people want to get out and the only way they can is by selling the house.. BUT THE HOUSE IS NOW WORTH $80,000 BECAUSE OF HOW THE COMMUNITY LOOKS (not to mention that the police has been called MULTIPLE times because the bad neighbor keeps threatening the HOA board members whenever they are near his house).  Anyway, long story short, HOAs are great, but only if the neighbors can police each other.  If neighbors make it a point to police each other (I mean talk, not beat down and shoot), then there would be no need for HOAs. The problem is always more complicated than they seem.  A properly-ran HOA can get you some amazing results.  A poorly-ran HOA will usually have dicks and twats in it and the ONLY way to solve that issue is for the responsible homeowners to encourage others to pay their damn dues and to run for the board themselves.