I got a letter about needing to take down the swing in the front yard of my house. Only thing they are able to tell me is that it's unattractive. Maybe I'm a little biased but I think it's adorable. When I meet new neighbors I describe my house as "the one with the pink swing out front" and most people make a positive comment about it.

What's my best course of action on a subjective ruling like this? My first line of defense is that plenty of houses have basketball goals which in my opinion are pretty ugly. Also right now half my neighbors have skeletons, ghosts, and inflatables in their yard...





Looking for advice and also doing a little vote below

Edit: there are no good trees in the back for a swing. Plus it melts my heart when I get home from work and she is swinging and gets excited to see me.

Only rule in the HOA says

All lots that have been improved with a residential dwelling shall be kept at all times in a sanitary, healthful, safe, and attractive condition

Never mentions anything about children's toys, basketball goals, or holiday decorations. It's completely subjective on if someone says it's attractive or not.

There is a small picture in the letter above. I'll try to get a better one.

It's ambiguous on purpose. That way they can do what they need and they know most people won't have the time or inclination to fight it.

And there may be people that like the swing, but there may be many more that don't.

Martin Q. Blank said:

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It says you can store it out of view. Put it in your garage or put a blanket on it while not in use. Better yet, role a basketball goal in front of it.

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I honestly don't mind storing it but in my opinion it looks worse with the chains hanging there and no swing on it. I wanted to store it originally to keep it from fading and getting dirty but my wife convinced me it looked better to leave it up.

I love the basketball goal idea. I'll let them know I have access to a really ugly one I can put up there to cover the swing.

To me pink is the problem, we have a green eliptical one in our front yard and no one has said anything. Ours is more towards the house though not front and center.

That and the yellow rope are what some guys at work pointed out. Sounds awfully sexist to me...

I really just hope someone can explain it to me better than "you can't put a swing in the front yard". If they tell me to put up a more subtle swing I'm fine with that. You see those giant round swings all over the place in memorial and river oaks. I don't think their home value is suffering as a result.

My house had 2 feet of water in it, and now has 15 dead trees stacked out by the street. Nice your little neighborhood from The Giver can worry about 18 ounces of plastic. Sure, everybody's home value dropped by 20%, but it's not the end of the world. You could have had some black people move in.

That's my other issue. We had 13 houses on my street flood and this is what the HOA is worried about.

Sorry to hear about your house.

replace the swing with a deer carcass for processing every Saturday afternoon.

Don't fight it. Take it down.

Had similar issues but about something that wasn't as easy to correct as your issue. They wouldn't listen. I fought with letters and pictures of other homes with Worse issues. My mistake.

Next 7 months consisted of letters every month about a weed here or grass on the sidewalk...just nit picking everything whereas my next door neighbor hadn't mowed in 4 weeks and never received anything.

I didn't fight, did as I was told and the issues went away....until about 6 months later we get another letter about the initial problem which was corrected. We put our house up for sale for other reasons so that solved the problem. Come to find out, my wife's brothers ex was hired at the HOA management company and was the reason for the letters starting back again. So glad we sold.

Good reason to buy a nice swing set fort for the back yard, oh the horror!

Put a couple of disconnect clips on each rope so that you can easily store it when not in use. That way your kid can still swing in your front yard.

That's already done, I just feel like they will get on me for having chains hanging from a tree.

Fighting an HOA is a real uphill battle. They have authority, money, lawyers if needed, and time. You agreed to their authority by buying the home.

I'd disconnect the swing and place two hooks on the main trunk to hang the chains along the limb. Then if they still complain at least you shown willingness to work with them.

Look, you got an 80 year old retired English professor who spent her child-bearing years working on tenure at a 3rd rate university. You can either vote her out, move, take down the swing, or maybe convert it some kind of awareness monument...WNBA height discrimination, hamster obesity, dutch elm disease...

I hope you sold to Meth Cookers!

I'm vindictive enough to fight the HOA on something like this.

What does the rest of Article 5 state.......

DadAG10 said:

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What does the rest of Article 5 state.......

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Talks about grass and weeds being under control, storing of equipment, parked cars, typical stuff. Even goes so far as to call out that you can't hang your clothes in the front yard to dry. Never once does it mention swings or kids toys anywhere in the restrictions. In my opinion, the only power the HOA has is what is given them directly by the documents. Since they go so far as to call out hanging clothes, cars parked more than 48 hours, and ATVs it seems to me they should have to specifically call out a swing.

Take the swing down and take it back to walmart, those were recalled months ago

Your heart won't be melting if it falls apart with your kid in it

I checked it and it's outside the recall range. Thanks for the heads up though.

I am on the board of my HOA and we are in process of getting the neighborhood back in shape after almost a year of non-enforcement so I can see both sides. The fact that there are front yard basketball goals opens an entire can of worms as to enforcement. Ours says implicitly that neither are allowed so there is no gray area.

Now the 3rd option you may want to entertain before you go to war, is what if they decide to make everyone remove toys and goals to be fair? Then you are the #$%$hole that got basketball hoops banned.

P.S. I used to have a swing at my old house and completely understand your argument.

Deats99 said:

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I am on the board of my HOA and we are in process of getting the neighborhood back in shape after almost a year of non-enforcement so I can see both sides. The fact that there are front yard basketball goals opens an entire can of worms as to enforcement. Ours says implicitly that neither are allowed so there is no gray area.

Now the 3rd option you may want to entertain before you go to war, is what if they decide to make everyone remove toys and goals to be fair? Then you are the #$%$hole that got basketball hoops banned.

P.S. I used to have a swing at my old house and completely understand your argument.

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I agree that I don't want to get hoops banned. I love the sound of basketballs on the driveway. As far as I can tell there is nothing in the HOA documents that outlaws basketball goals. The only thing I can find is the language that talks about something being unattractive. If the board wants to put their foot down on their definition of attractiveness then they need to be ready for the backlash when someone doesn't agree.

I'm even willing to conceed that the swing could be considered ugly, problem is I have been told all swings are banned regardless of how they look. They aren't even giving me the option to change it out.

No, I get it, but as mentioned the language is purposely ambiguous. The better way is to play the long game. Run for the board. Why do you think I did? I hate HOA's!

How many votes did it take to win? Did you have to put in a lot of effort? Our neighborhood is about 850 houses

In our old neighborhood it was easy - I showed up to vote against putting a speed hump on our street which as luck would have it, would have been right in front of our place. The board had 5 seats with one person stepping down because they were moving. Three people on the board were normal, the fourth had a touch of BSC going on so I volunteered and got in unopposed. Simple as that!

So from that point on I rubber stamped everything people wanted to do. It was just a bunch of pergolas, pools, and whatnot in the back yard that nobody was going to see anyway, or people wanting to cut down 20-year old redtips that shouldn't have been planted up against the house to begin with.

Not a lot, I was the #3 vote-getter out of 11 for 3 positions. The other two jackwads resigned over control issues with the developer so I appointed 2 new board members per the CC&R's.

Basically I had been a vocal thorn in the side of the developer in making sure they completed their obligations before leaving our community and they neighborhood decided they wanted that represented.

As soon as we are done and I have gotten the CC&R's redone to reflect a community and not a development, I am out.