An HOA Said Her Tree Swing Had to Go After a Neighbor Complained, So She Answered With a 10-Foot Inflatable Reindeer and a 6-Foot Snowman Family in the Front Yard
A homeowner hung a swing from a tree in front of her house about a year ago. This month, her HOA called to say a neighbor had complained and the swing had to go. Her answer arrived early and inflatable: a 10-foot reindeer and a 6-foot snowman family, now standing in her front yard well before Thanksgiving.
The account was written up by TwistedSifter on Nov. 15. She says she plans to fight the swing complaint the proper way, through the association’s own rules, while making her point in the meantime.
One Complaint About One Swing
The swing hung in front of the house for about a year without trouble, she said. Then the call came from the HOA: a neighbor had complained, and the swing needed to come down.
She believes the real issue is not the swing. She suspects the board is targeting her because members did not like how she spoke to them at the last meeting, according to the outlet.
She has read the bylaws and covenants, she said, and intends to challenge the complaint through the proper process. Her bottom line was simple: the swing is that important to her.
A Reindeer, a Snowman Family and the Kids’ Bikes
While the official fight plays out, she has started a quieter one. She put her Christmas decorations out early in the front yard, including the 10-foot inflatable reindeer and the 6-foot inflatable snowman family.
She also moved her children’s outdoor toys, including their bicycles, to the front of the house. And she is collecting more inflatables, with friends and family pitching in.
Holiday inflatables start showing up in many neighborhoods by mid-November, and the bikes belong to her own children. The effect is to move attention from one swing to an entire front yard, which is exactly the kind of escalation that makes small HOA complaints so hard to settle.
If the association wants her front yard to look a certain way, she is making sure it looks very festive in the meantime.
Holiday Decorations Are a Yearly HOA Flashpoint
Decoration fights with associations are nothing new. One Massachusetts condo attorney told the Boston Globe that holiday decor disputes come up every year, and that threats to sue are common even though few cases reach a courtroom, as the Condo Living newsletter recounted. The same report noted that reporting neighbors’ decorations can create lasting hostility.
Some fights do go the distance. Idaho attorney Jeremy Morris, known as the “Christmas Lawyer,” spent years battling his West Hayden Estates HOA over his family’s Christmas display, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, before the parties settled, Fox News reported last December. Morris said the HOA paid “significantly more” than the original $75,000 jury award.
Associations often write broad rules about what can sit in a yard. Many set standards for play equipment location and visibility, landscaping and exterior lighting, according to a guide from association manager FirstService Residential. A tree swing could fall under any of those, depending on how a community’s documents are written.
Fighting It the Proper Way
Her plan to challenge the complaint under the bylaws is the route most guides recommend. LawnStarter’s guide to neighbor disputes suggests reviewing the HOA’s bylaws, documenting everything with photos and dates, and moving to mediation or a formal letter only if a conversation fails.
Her story is one of many where a single complaint turned into a yard-wide standoff. Earlier this fall, a family met an HOA rule to the inch by trimming a tree to 8.3 feet after a letter said it hung 3 inches too low over the sidewalk.
For now, the swing is still the subject of a complaint, and the front yard is filling up with inflatables. The write-up did not say whether the board has responded to the reindeer.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Visitor7 – CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia Commons
