HOAs do serve some good. My former 400 home NJ neighborhood didn’t have an HOA. Neighbor converted his traditional American Center Hall Colonial into a Hellenic palace or temple replete with numerous columns and bright red and orange statuary.
Oh yeah, the statues (and there were at least a dozen of them just on the roof) had their unmentionable parts painted gold.
As if all that wasn’t enough, the house was on the main street, on a rise in the first cul-de-sac next to the main entrance. No way to miss it.
Truth is stranger-than-fiction. Not only am I not even exaggerating, I didn’t begin to describe the front and back yards!
Who knows how much the conversion cost, but there was plenty of marble everywhere.
FWIW, I would very likely have enjoyed living next door to such a person. Conformity is very overrated and the nonconformists are usually the most interesting characters in the neighborhood and make for excellent landmarks. My fear is that we seem to be trying to effectively outlaw the very act of nonconformity through the use of HOAs where virtually every aspect of ones property and lifestyle (sometimes even to the point of earnings and account balances) is carefully prescribed through the use of mandatory HOA agreements that are virtually inescapable in many areas of the country. That’s not to say that I would not shake my head and chuckle at a site such as you describe, but I would not find such something to be feared.
I take great sadness in the knowledge that very amazing and giving characters like my (deceased) grandfather would have been forbidden to even be a part of such communities and the entire community is effectively diminished by that exclusion as is the character and heart of the community. As long as people do not pose a danger to their neighbors or themselves then what is the real harm if the grass is an inch or two taller, yet still green, or a house is painted a bright color or they park their issued work vehicle in their own driveway for the night?
Just my $0.02. I just wish people had a real choice as to whether they wished to live in an HOA, or not, without being forced to buy greater than 40 year old properties that need major renovation as their only option to escape an HOA in so many parts of the country (though even that does not preclude any nearby HOA from annexing your property if they wish).