Lightbulb Moment
My former HOA threatened to take me to court over the color of a light bulb inside of my condo. They claimed that the color of a bulb inside my unit altered the exterior appearance of the building. I’d had Philips Hue lights for probably over a year without issue.
Then my neighbor left up their Christmas lights well past new years and received a complaint about it. Next thing I knew someone complained about my Hue lights. I switched them to white.
I could have won in court, but it wasn’t worth angering a bunch of petty busybodies who have nothing better to do than to sit on an HOA board. Anyway, the association wanted to add a new amendment that allowed them to sue anyone over anything they deemed a “nuisance.”
They brought in their lawyer for a question and answer session. I asked if the color of my neighbors lights could be considered a nuisance, he clarified that it had to be a bigger concern.
I followed up asking if we could claim that my neighbor had altered the exterior appearance of the building, he laughed and said no dismissively.
So by that point their lawyer had already admitted their case was unwinnable, and he’d said earlier in the meeting a big part of his job was to keep the association from taking an unwinnable case to court. So the lights were whatever color I wanted them to be from then on.
I now live in a neighborhood without an HOA. Sometimes a neighbor’s grass is a bit high and another neighbor just built a patio in the front yard and sometimes people put trash out a couple days before the city says they can and nobody says anything; it’s wonderful. tacojohn48