Do Homeowners Associations Go Too Far?

April 20 -- Thinking of putting up pink flamingos in your garden? Or hanging the laundry out to dry?

You might own the house, the garden and the lot, but if you're one of the nearly 50 million Americans living in communities run by homeowners associations, you may find you don't have the freedom to do everything you like on your property.

Homeowners associations are nonprofit organizations that manage the common areas in a housing development. They have rules that can be strict, and critics say that enforcement of those rules is increasingly turning neighborhoods into battle zones.

"The level of frustration in associations is escalating and in some cases, going through the roof," says Evan McKenzie, a political science professor at the University of Illinois who has written a book about homeowners associations, Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government.

"The problem is when they go to ridiculous extremes, when they become neighborhood tyrants." McKenzie adds.

The rules can be very picky. A homeowners association in Mesa, Ariz. said no to a resident's frog planters. An association in Atlanta, Ga. ordered a family to remove their pink flamingos, and a board in Sun City, Calif. put the kibosh on clotheslines. Associations can even dictate where you can park your car, with one in Escondido, Calif. requiring residents to leave their cars in the garage not in the driveway.

At the Briargrove Park development in Houston, resident Bruce Kycklehahn shifted the position of the lamppost in front of his house, because he said he needed more light on the street. The homeowners' association said he was violating the rules, and is suing him for $200 a day in fines. It has been more than a year and a half since Kycklehahn moved the lamppost, so he estimates it could cost him $125,000. But he is determined not to move it, because of the "principle of the thing." An attorney said the association had no comment.

Flying the Flag

In Richmond, Va., Richard Oulton, a Vietnam veteran, is fighting his homeowners association for the right to fly an American flag on a 25-foot pole. The association ordered him to take the flagpole down, calling it a "visual nuisance."