HOA KAREN TRIES TO ARREST ME FOR HAVING A BBQ! “WHAT THE HELL? WE JUST BBQ?”

 

His face turned completely white. He dropped the javelin onto the asphalt with a loud clatter and threw his hands up in the air.

He was incredibly embarrassed. I made absolutely sure to leave my house and walk out to my car while all this was going down, just to let him know that I saw the entire pathetic display. There were a lot of people standing on their porches laughing at him. He moved away shortly after that incident.

I decided I was completely done with condos and shared walls. A few months later, I bought a house in a completely different Los Angeles neighborhood.

I made absolutely sure this new property was completely free of any neighborhood associations. I bought the ugliest house on the street because it was a great deal. The previous owners must have loved abstract art because the front of the house was painted in a horrible mix of red, blue, and yellow window frames.

Within the first month, I completely repainted the exterior a beautiful, clean slate grey with crisp white trim. I instantly raised the property value of the entire street with a single paint job. Several thankful neighbors stopped by to shake my hand and welcome me to the area.

I thought I had finally found peace. But then, the mail arrived.

I received a strange, very official looking envelope in my mailbox. It was an invitation to join something called the Los Angeles Collective of Inhabitants. I read through the thick document.

The terms read exactly like an oppressive neighborhood association that you can never legally leave. It contained a massive list of restrictions and absolutely zero actual benefits.

I threw the paper straight into the recycling bin. No thanks.

I continued my random home improvements. I remodeled the backyard and hired a crew to cut down several massive, overgrown dead trees that were threatening to fall onto my roof.

A few days later, I received a very angry letter in the mail claiming to be from the city. The letter stated that I had illegally cut down a tree without a proper permit and that the city was sending an official arborist to assess the financial damage I owed.

This was extremely shocking to me because I actually work with commercial permits for a living. I did proper legal research before I changed a single thing on my property.

I called the Los Angeles city planning office immediately.

“Hello, I received a notice about a tree removal permit,” I told the clerk.

“Sir, there is absolutely no such thing as a tree removal permit for a completely private residential property in your zoning district,” the clerk informed me.

“Nobody in this office sent you that letter.”

I looked closer at the letterhead. It was completely fake. The tracking number at the top was just a random string of numbers.

The fake organization actually sent a private arborist to my house the next day. I refused to let him onto my property and told him to leave.

A week later, I received a bill for his services. A quick phone call confirmed that the arborist did not send me the bill himself, but he was hired by a private party who he refused to name for privacy reasons.

I knew exactly who was doing this. The fake collective.

When my house was finally finished and I was fully settled in, I decided to hold a massive introduction barbecue for my entire street. I wanted to make friends with all my new neighbors.

I walked door to door, handing out invitations and small cupcakes to everyone. The notes said there would be a grand feast and all were welcome.

A few people looked at me with genuine fear in their eyes.

“You cannot have a barbecue in your backyard,” a nice older woman named Sarah told me quietly.

“It is strictly against the rules of the collective.”

“Do not worry about that, Sarah,” I smiled warmly.

“I am not in that group. They have no power over me.”

The very next day, I received a massive bill in my mailbox for mandatory membership dues to the collective. This mysterious organization sent out bills without any return contact info. I shredded it immediately.

The day of the grand barbecue finally arrived. At exactly four in the afternoon, my front doorbell rang.

I opened the door and found a man standing there wearing a very official looking uniform. He looked exactly like a city supervisor or a private security guard. Let us call him Gary. He looked like a guy who took night school classes instead of actually going to the police academy.

“I heard you are having an illegal barbecue,” Gary stated, puffing his chest out.

“I am here to shut it down immediately.”

I smiled and leaned against the doorframe.

“Would you like to point out exactly which laws I am breaking?”

Gary reached into his bag and pulled out a massive, heavy binder containing over sixty pages of paper. He flipped to a highlighted section and pointed a stubby finger at it.

“It is completely illegal to burn anything for any reason in your backyard,” Gary read aloud.

I looked at the cover of the heavy binder. It was clearly labeled Collective Laws and Rules. Gary stood there smirking at me like he had just caught a master criminal.

“That is very nice literature,” I laughed.

“But I am not a part of your little group, so I do not see how that applies to me or my property.”

“These rules apply to every single person living on this street,” Gary demanded, his smirk fading.

“Yeah, no they do not,” I replied, crossing my arms.

“You cannot just go around inventing laws. Could I have a copy of that ridiculous book please?”

Gary stupidly handed me the heavy sheaf of paper. I immediately tossed it onto a table inside my house.

“Hey! Give that back!” Gary protested.

“I am keeping this for future legal reference,” I told him.

“So I take it you will not halt the barbecue?” Gary asked, trying to sound intimidating.

“Oh no,” I smiled.

“I am definitely having the barbecue. And I am going to make it my personal mission in life to break another one of your fake rules every single time you bother me. So far, I am two down and I have plenty more to go.”

“This is completely against the law!” Gary shouted.

“I will be calling the police!”

“No, this is against your fake rules, not the actual law,” I corrected him.

“Sir, if you do not comply, you will be placed under citizen arrest,” Gary threatened, taking a step toward me.

That was the absolute wrong thing to say to me.

“Oh yes? Shall we call the actual police right now and see what they think about you threatening to kidnap me?” I asked.

I took out my phone and dialed the non emergency dispatch number. I put the phone on speaker so Gary could hear the ringing.

Gary face turned pale white. He panicked.

“That is not necessary!” Gary stammered, backing away quickly down the porch steps.

“You have not heard the last of this!”

Gary practically sprinted down the street. I hung up the phone and yelled after him.

“Have a wonderful day, officer!”

The neighbors started showing up to the backyard party a few minutes later. A man named John walked up to me with a plate of ribs.

“Do you have any idea who that was?” John asked, pointing toward the street.

“That is the president of the collective. He terrorizes everyone.”

I laughed out loud.

“Well, I just told him to call the real cops and he ran away.”

That is when my introductory barbecue turned into a massive therapy session for the entire street. For the next six hours, my neighbors spilled all the tea and told me absolute horror stories about this fake organization.

If you leave your trash can at the street after eight in the morning, you get a massive fine. If you put it out before ten at night, you get a fine. If you have a barbecue, you get a fine. If you paint your house the wrong shade of grey, you get a fine.

As it turns out, my house was the absolute only one on the street that was not formally trapped in the collective.

“We are trapped,” Sarah told me sadly.

“They threatened to put liens on our houses years ago, so we all signed their stupid contract out of pure fear.”

“Well, you are not trapped anymore,” I told the crowd of neighbors.

“I just moved in, I already owe them four fake infractions, and I am completely open to suggestions on how we can destroy them.”

Three of my neighbors, including John and Sarah, were extremely fed up and seized on this perfect opportunity. They were perfectly willing to inconvenience themselves to be absolute menaces to the collective. It turns out this extortion had been going on for about six years.

We formed a rebellion right there in my backyard.

Our first mission was the trash cans. The fake rules stated that trash cans are to be placed by the curb no sooner than ten at night and removed no later than eight in the morning.

The very next day, I suddenly gained seventeen extra trash cans in my backyard. I graciously allowed all the other people on the street to use my property to store their garbage.

However, we intentionally left my massive collection of trash cans directly at the pickup point on the street all day long. Since the cans were technically on my property line, nobody in the collective could be fined. Gary drove by four times that week, glaring at my wall of garbage bins, completely powerless to stop it.

Our second mission involved parties. Due to terrible legal wording in their fake rulebook, it was strictly not allowed for collective members to organize a party outside after nine at night.

I was suddenly extremely outgoing. I organized at least one massive party every single week. I went so far as to use other people backyards to host them. The brilliant part was that I was the official host of the party, not the homeowner.

When Gary tried to issue fines, the homeowners simply stated that they were not organizing the party, I was. And since I was not in the collective, he could not fine me.

Our third mission involved pets. The rulebook stated that dogs weighing over twenty pounds were strictly prohibited.

I suddenly became the proud owner of a massive Great Dane. That is to say, the dog still entirely belonged to John in every logical way, but on paper, I claimed ownership. I really only saw the dog when John took him on walks past Gary house. Gary tried to fine John, but John simply handed him a printed piece of paper showing that I owned the dog and was just employing John as a dog walker.

But the absolute greatest revenge came from John teenage son, Michael.

Michael had heard all about the strict community pool rules that Gary enforced. The fake collective somehow managed to control the access to a small local pool, instituting an unenforceable ten at night curfew for anyone under eighteen.

Michael was a smart kid who spent a lot of time browsing military surplus stores online. He stumbled upon something called an ejection seat dye marker. These are incredibly powerful dye markers attached to military pilot seats. In the event of a water landing, the pilot can be easily found because the marker turns the ocean water into a massive patch of bright neon green dye.

Michael bought one for eight dollars.

One night, after Gary instituted his ridiculous teen curfew, Michael took a little stroll over to the community pool. He tossed the dye marker directly into the deep end.

Much to his absolute delight, it worked exactly as designed. The entire swimming pool turned bright neon green in a matter of two minutes.

The next day, Gary was running around the neighborhood pulling his hair out. The pool was completely ruined. In the ensuing weeks, the collective had to drain sixty thousand gallons of water.

A professional power washing company had to be brought in to clean the expensive concrete which had completely absorbed the neon green dye. Then the pool had to be refilled and treated with massive amounts of chemicals.

All told, it cost the fake collective nearly ten thousand dollars to fix.

Gary was desperate for money to replenish their bank account. That is when he made his fatal, criminal mistake.

A few weeks later, I received a highly aggressive phone call from a real debt collection agency.

“Sir, you have failed to pay your collective membership dues on time,” the aggressive agent told me over the phone.

“You owe a massive fine and we are preparing to impact your credit score.”

“If you can provide me with absolute written proof of a signed contract, I will gladly pay it,” I told them calmly.

The agency sent me a formal letter with a copy of a contract. I stared at the paper in absolute shock. The contract was signed by me. Well, it was signed by someone who used my last name and my first initial. The signature was a terrible, sloppy forgery.

I realized right then that forging a signature on a financial contract is a serious federal crime.

I called the debt collection agency immediately.

“That is absolutely not my signature,” I explained to the manager.

I emailed them a copy of my real signature from my driver license. After some intense back and forth, the collection agency completely dropped the case and flagged the collective for fraud.

Unfortunately for Gary, I am not a lawyer. But fortunately for me, one of my new neighbors who attended the barbecue is a very successful corporate lawyer. And he was extremely motivated to destroy this fake association.

We gathered all the evidence. The fake tree bills, the forged signature, the harassment letters, and a slew of other illegal extortion attempts. We filed a massive lawsuit against Gary and his entire board.

We finally went to court in downtown Los Angeles.

It took the judge exactly ten minutes to read through the evidence and completely destroy them.

Gary stood at the defense table, acting as his own lawyer because they could not afford a real one after the pool incident. Gary desperately pointed at his thick binder of fake rules.

“Your Honor, look at the rules he broke!” Gary pleaded, sweating heavily in his cheap suit.

“He broke the trash can rule! He broke the party rule! He brought a massive dog into the neighborhood!”

The judge, a stern woman with zero patience for nonsense, glared down at Gary over her glasses.

“Mr. Gary,” the judge said coldly.

“Did you or did you not forge this man signature on a binding financial contract?”

“Well, he is not a member, but he broke so many rules!” Gary stammered, completely missing the point.

The judge slammed her wooden gavel down so hard it echoed through the entire room.

“You committed clear and obvious fraud!” the judge yelled.

“You have been operating an illegal extortion ring disguised as a neighborhood association! You have harassed these citizens, sent fake government bills, and forged legal documents!”

The ruling was absolute perfection. The collective was ordered to immediately disband. They were banned from ever forming a neighborhood group again. Gary and his board members were ordered to pay a massive sum of financial damages to me and several other neighbors for the harassment and fraud.

Since the fake association was completely bankrupt from the pool cleaning, the heavy financial burden fell entirely on Gary and his board members personal bank accounts.

Gary was completely ruined. He put his house up for sale two weeks later and fled the neighborhood in absolute disgrace.

There was massive rejoicing in the streets. We had won our freedom.

To celebrate our incredible victory, I invited John, Sarah, and a few other neighbors to a local family owned pizza place down the street. The owner of the restaurant, a great guy named Bill, always treated us like royalty.

We were sitting at a large wooden booth, laughing, drinking beers, and eating the best pepperoni pizza in Los Angeles. The atmosphere was completely electric.

While we were eating, I saw a familiar face walk through the front doors of the restaurant.

It was a woman named Brenda. Brenda was one of the board members who had helped Gary run the fake collective. She had just lost a massive amount of money in the lawsuit and she looked absolutely furious.

Brenda spotted us sitting at the booth. Her face turned bright red. She stormed directly over to our table, completely ignoring the hostess.

She slammed her hand down violently on our table, knocking over a glass of water and spilling it onto John lap.

“You ruined my life!” Brenda screamed at the top of her lungs, pointing a manicured finger directly in my face.

“You arrogant little punk! You think you are so smart destroying our community!”

The entire restaurant went completely silent. Everyone stared at the crazy woman screaming at a table of happy people.

“Brenda, you need to leave right now,” I said calmly, wiping the spilled water off the table with a napkin.

“You are embarrassing yourself in public.”

“I will not leave!” she shrieked, shoving her finger even closer to my nose.

“You owe me money! You owe me respect!”

Before I could even react, Sarah, who had been quietly eating a slice of pizza, did the absolute most unexpected and hilarious thing I have ever witnessed.

Sarah simply leaned forward and clamped her teeth down hard on Brenda pointing finger.

She bit her.

Brenda howled in absolute shock and pain. She yanked her hand back, clutching her finger to her chest like she had just been shot.

“She bit me!” Brenda screamed, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Call the police! She assaulted me!”

Bill, the owner of the pizza place, came storming out of the kitchen wiping his hands on an apron. Bill is a massive, intimidating ex police officer who takes absolutely zero nonsense in his restaurant.

“What is going on out here!” Bill boomed, his voice shaking the walls.

“That woman bit my finger!” Brenda cried, pointing at Sarah with her other hand.

“I want her arrested right now!”

Bill looked at Brenda, then looked at me, and then looked at the spilled water on our table.

“Stop acting like a baby,” Bill told Brenda bluntly. “She did not even bite you that hard. Now get out of my restaurant before I call the cops on you for harassing my best customers and causing a massive public disturbance.”

“I want the police!” Brenda yelled stubbornly.

“I will personally tell the police that it was total self defense,” Bill smiled coldly. “And who do you think they will actually believe? A crazy woman screaming in a restaurant, or me, the owner and a former decorated police officer?”

Brenda realized she was completely defeated. She deflated, her shoulders slumping.

“I just wanted to order a pizza,” she muttered pathetically.

“Well, you should have thought about that before you decided to attack my customers,” Bill pointed toward the door.

“Out. Now.”

Brenda turned around and walked out of the restaurant with her head hung in absolute shame. The entire dining room erupted into applause.

Bill walked over to our table and apologized profusely for the interruption. He insisted on replacing our spilled drinks and bringing us a brand new pizza entirely on the house. He even gave us free slices of his famous homemade strawberry cheesecake for dessert.

We spent the rest of the night laughing until our stomachs hurt. We laughed about Gary and his heavy binder of fake rules. We laughed about Richard throwing a javelin in a track suit. And we definitely laughed about Sarah biting Brenda finger in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

I guess the moral of the story is that you should never let miserable, power hungry people dictate your reality. Bullies rely entirely on your silence and your compliance to maintain their fake authority. If you just stand up, ask for proof, and refuse to play their stupid games, their entire empire crumbles to the ground.

I still live in that exact same house today. The neighborhood is completely peaceful, the barbecues are legendary, and there is not a single fake police officer in sight.