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I've also had problems with a HOA. Unfortunately, the HOA President lived a few doors down from me. Fortunately, she died and anyway I no longer live in that house. Also fortunately, I got the idea for a prize-winning short story about it.
I do want to say one word in defense of home owners' associations. While it is a principle of the Common Law that a man's home is his castle, and a principle of libertarian philosophy [this is philosophy, not politics!] that "I can do whatever I want with my property," the fact is that some people's use of their property effects others' property values. I might not care if you paint your house purple, but I might care if you had a dozen cars parked on your front lawn while you worked on them, sloooooooowwwwwwwllllllllyyyyyyyy. So HOA rules were designed to protect Person A's property values from Person B's mis-use.
In any community, community members have to consider others' needs. In a society in which we don't really know our neighbors and don't really care what they think, the HOA fills an important role, something like a synthetic conscience. Unfortunately, we've devolved from communities like the Pre-Tragedy of the Commons villages, to the Tragedy of the Commons anything-goes situation. And thus HOAs are necessary.
So when they come knocking on my door about my Sport 22 parked in my driveway for 6 months, I'm going to have to just apologize and pledge to mend my evil ways.
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