HOA's: "Give me a Break!"

In most "master planned" communities, home owner's GET the joy of having an HOA. It's no difference in our condo community, but it is something that we have dreaded since the day we moved in. The HOA board members are ridiculous. If we would have known the trouble this HOA would have caused, we probably wouldn't have moved into the condo in the first place. Now that we are looking for a house we have talked about moving into a community that doesn't have an HOA, but what happened this week put Dan (and I) over the edge...we don't want to see another HOA for a long, long time.

We have been fighting the HOA for about 8 months about a barbecuer on the patio. They have sent numerous notices that the barbecuer must be removed. We have sent numerous replies saying that:

1. There is no propane tank attached
2. It is not being used
3. There is a cover over it
4. Many condo's around us also have barbecues on their patio that are not being removed
5. It's electric (O.K. it's not, but it's not being used so what's the difference?!)
   

Well this week we received a suppina to appear in court for the "excessive trash" on our patio. According to the HOA this excessive trash is a wind chime. Give me a break. What a great way to clog up the court system, with a stupid case of an unused barbecuer trashing up the neighborhood. To prove our trashiness point, Dan took a picture of our unruly patio.
But alas, the HOA won :( We dragged our barbecuer inside to the guest room...but hey it's a plus for the guest, they can sleep over AND barbecue at the same time, sounds pretty sweet to me.

P.S. This is no reflection of our condo which we LOVE and we are so glad we have been able to live there-Thanks Loren and Sonya :)