Gonna start calling my HOA the "Romulan Senate" because the similarities are striking.

Honestly, if Commander Toreth was a little older and had white hair, she'd be a ringer for our current HOA president.

carolyn seymour; she was twice cast as romulan, then appeared in episode where riker gets trapped in an alien hospital - she got warp scientist role who in the end left planet onboard enterprise. and eventually she could be seen on voyager as holodeck character of mrs templeton.

Might I suggest a reasonable way to deal with Romulan HOA Boards:

In what aisle in Coscto would I find one of those? Asking for a friend.
In all fairness, my HOA isn't that bad. They're more annoying than totalitarian. HOA President Commander Toreth is actually pretty nice. Weirdly, all the people close to my age (mid 40's) like her, and all of her Boomer peers seem terrified of her. I kinda want to know the story there. Like... is she former (or current emeritus) Tal-Shiar?
- We have an HOA and it's not really terrible either. Most of the money (only recently raised to $100 er year) goes towards the custom mailbox frames & street sign posts along with maintenance for the common grounds. Their bigger rules (guidelines) are 1. no above ground pools and 2. if you're gonna build a shed make it a permanent structure; on a slab or at least gravel base, and try to make it match the house.
  Thankfully it's not an HOA where there is a dedicated color all houses have to be painted, and you need approval for landscaping.

We have a neiboring HOA. holy shit, yeah.

Fun story. there's an HOA that developled some property adjacent to our neighborhood. The HOA President lady has been hating on stray cats (thinking they're being let out.) Like trying to poison them with bait level of hate. One day not too long ago, she posted a video on next door bitching about the cats again. Apparenlty a "Cat" was chilling on her front porch and "peed" on her, when she went to walk her annoying little freak. (it's not the dogs fault. raised by bad humans.)

Anyhow. She posted the video to prove how awful the strays were.

It wasn't a cat. It was a skunk. And it wasn't piss. She got sprayed. and everyone on next door apparently started giving her fake solutions to getting sprayed.

Oh no.
Is the skunk ok?

I live in an area where HOAs are the norm, and yet somehow lucked into buying a property without one. I count my blessings for that every day.

I complain about the colors of the houses, because I think most people are terrible at judging colors that age well. That being said, I'm as much against a HOA as I can be. It's a concept that starts out as a good idea in someones head, but almost immediately warped into a village fascists tool.

Did it start out with good intentions?
Someone on Lemmy suggested it started with racist intentions. They're very rare in the UK. I don't remember seeing one. It's not a sane or common sense thing.

So someone who didn't put money into my property, doesn't have rights to the land. Fitted Dictates to me how I use it for frivolous things and I have to give them money.

Ok freedom land

Well, I could tell you there is a Romulan HOA Board I heard something about where they took a kid's insulin during a seizure because their Romulan HOA Rulebook said it was unauthorized medication. At the center of it, were two self-appointed Romulan Neighborhood Enforcers who chose power and power over a dying boy's life. But what they didn't know was the boy's father wasn't just a grieving parent, he was a Federation Admiral, and he had the Federation Law on his side. What followed was a investigation reckoning, a firestorm in a social media group, and a brutal unraveling of a Romulan System bent on control. And just wait until you find out how this battle ended, because Federation Justice didn't just knock, it kicked the whole damn door in.

HOAs are a problem the way governments are a problem.
Anarchy isn't the solution. Getting involved and working to fix bad rules and regulations is the solution.

If the color palate is too small, don't ask for your specific color to be approved, offer an expanded palate to be adopted. Put it in terms they understand. "Conformity is valuable, yes. But uniformity is a liability. People like to be able to customize their homes. When the HOA hinders that too much, the neighborhood becomes less attractive to buyers. Property values are kept down."

HOAs are inherently a problem. They exist purely for the benefit of busybodies and people with an unhealthy obsession with perceived property value. If your home doesn't share the same physical structure as my home (ie condos, semi-detached houses, etc), you get no say in what I do with my property. There's already municipal bylaws for the all the important things.
- well that's what they do now the reason they exist was to keep black, Jewish and Asian people out of the neighborhood
- They exist purely for the benefit of busybodies and people with an unhealthy obsession with perceived property value.
  They don't have to though. The problem is, nobody but the busybodies and obsessives normally get involved. If you got involved that could change.
- Often times, US HOAs are doing the things that the government does in normal countries. Maintaining the streets and public trees (if they exist), clearing and maintaining "public" facilities like parks or sports areas, etc etc.
HOA's are a problem though "property values" shouldn't be the arbiter of what you can do to your home. Nothing should be off limits baring safety issues.
- So a continuous siren on your roof shouldn't be a problem for your neighbors?
  Safety shouldn't be the only limit.
What does anarchy (the fact entities can act independently of others) have to with this?
Anarchy isn’t a solution nor a problem it just *is *and nothing a human does can chance that.
You trying to get involved to fix the bad rules is an act of anarchy if no one else is telling you to do so.
- In the analogy of HOA = government, getting rid of HOA = getting rid of government. That's anarchy.
  Getting involved in the HOA is the opposite of anarchy. Sorry if that was confusing.
I have never met an HOA that would even understand what you just said.
- That may be true.
  All the more reason to join, so at least someone would.
What I still don't understand is why American house prices depend so much on what their neighbors' houses look like.
Where I live, even a fully abandoned broken down house with one meter high wild grass is not bad enough to devalue its neighbor.
- Because the value of the community plays a role in the price and there is a significant variability in neighborhood "value" within cities. A lot of it is tied to crime rates, but there may also be class signifiers which affect valuation.
- It's not about colour. It's about signalling this neighborhood has "the right kind" of people.

So in the "Land of the Free", you are not even free to paint your house as you wish?

For a country so based on freedom, they certainly love restricting what people can do with their property and bodies.
You are free to live somewhere else and not enter that contract. I'm always amazed by people who didn't read the covenant or rules of the building as the case may be.
- From what I've read on Reddit, not all HOAs are required to disclose their rules before you live there.

My question is...what power does an HOA have? If you paint your house a color they don't approve of, do they think they can kick you out of the neighborhood? Fine you? Go full kristallnacht?

Typically yes, they can fine you. That fine is often a certain amount per day. If you don't pay it, they can put a lien on your house so it gets taken out of the proceeds when it's sold. Oh, and if you die and your kids can't pay off that ever growing fine, they can force the house to be sold.
The body that regulates "asthetics" in my city is not part of the HOA. They're related to the original developer. They keep losing lawsuits regarding fences and paint colors so at this point I'm not really sure why they exist other than to provide local lawyers with steady work.

We bought our latest house (a few years ago), were in it for a month in early summer, and went to visit relatives for a couple weeks. By þe time we got back, þe lawn was 6 or maybe 8" tall, and we had a warning letter from þe HOA about our grass being too long.

Every time þere's a state or city initiative restricting þe power of HOAs, I vote "yes". HOAs are a racket.

I'm sure it didn't help your case that it was also full of thorns.

Over my dead resale value!