HOA banning dogs on grass - suggestions?

iluminae@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 226 points –

Hi Lemmy, My HOA sent out a email saying dogs are no longer allowed on any grass in common areas or front yards including grass between sidewalk and curb which is.... everywhere except our own tiny backyards. The reasoning is some dog urine effected dead spots. Honestly I didn't even notice them, it's 95° here and all the grass looks sad.

It's a walking town and we are not a gated community, non-residents walk their dogs here all the time, so this rule can only punish those who live here and has no ability to effect others.

Anyway, this seems like a 'we have tried nothing and we are all out of ideas!' moment so I wanted to see if anyone here had any suggestions I can pass on to maintain a "good" curb appeal ground cover-wise while allowing dogs to do normal dog stuff.

I can converse with the HOA board in good faith, but this rule is basically banning dogs from the neighborhood - which I super did not sign up for.

Pertainent info: PA, USA - Town Home style homes - small central common grass - owned for 8y.

Edit: it seems like people may have glossed over the question part and skipped straight to HOA bashing (which is warranted at times!) so I will rephrase:

What ground covering or neighborhood solutions to similar (perceived) issues have other communities employed?

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Check to make sure that the HOA actually has the power to do this. As a land owner you are bound to follow the covenants that run with the land, but you are only actually bound to follow those covenants. You don't have to do random stuff just because the HOA board or even a majority of the HOA voters say so, you only actually have to do what's in the covenants.

Unless the covenants say that you agree to follow a bunch of dog-related rules to be defined later, you almost certainly are allowed to park your dog in your own front yard or in that of any consenting neighbor.

The HOA can pass an amendment or addendum to the covenants at any point, which then instantly enacts the rule and gives them the power to fine you and put a lien on your property if you don’t pay…with the caveat that I’m speaking about in the USA. Do other countries have HOA’s? You could go to a meeting or take them to court of course.

Most other countries do not have HOAs. In Finland where I live, municipalities can enact ordinances to limit what you can do on your property, but they are often very limited if they exist at all. The most restrictive ones that I know limit the type of house that can be built (eg. no flat roofs, although this can be a zoning issue as well), the color of the houses and other similar limitations.

I'll take my socialdemocrat "hell hole" of a country over the "free" USA with HOAs any time.

Who would build a flat roof in finland. That has to a hazard with all that snow

I agree, but they were in style for a while. Until it dawned on people how utterly stupid that was.

Pretty sure all nordic countries have HOAs though, it's just that here they basically only manage common infrastructure in an area and tell you to fuck off if you try to paint your house polka dot lime-green and purple.

The HOA generally can only amend the covenants if a large majority of members vote to do so.

It doesn't look like HOA is telling OP, they can't have dog piss on their property and looks like at least residents are not interested in providing consent here.

I don't think there is any legal right for dog owners to have their dogs piss in public or private areas accessible to public.

Many people are tired of the increased costs other people's dogs impose due to piss damage.

Wtf are you talking about... a animal doesn't have the right to piss in public?? I really hope you did drop a /s. I'm going to assume you did, because this is not reddit etc...

Strange as it sounds, it's possible to stop animals pissing in public. Our HOA just installed laser turrets on every street to establish a no fly zone for birds, and birdshit has largely stopped.

There is a new problem of insect infesations and bird carcasses on people's properties though. Several people have been fined for leaving them there for more than an hour, but on the plus side that's helping pay for the turrets, which are EXTREMELY expensive to purchase, maintain and power.

There's also been an uptick of plane crashes nearby caused by sudden pilot blindness, but we're told that's an issue of personal responsibility on the part of the pilots. They've been advised to take regular eye tests.

Our HOA just installed laser turrets on every street to establish a no fly zone for birds,

Wtf? Please tell me this is satire.

Yeah. There's no way they're serious. The FAA would come down on that HOA like the CIA on an off the reservation drug cartel.

Animal is property, it has no rights per se. Dog owner has no right to take their property ie dog to someone's else property to piss and shit.

This rules limits members from having their own dogs pee on their own property. Literally you own a dog and now cannot allow that dog to go to the bathroom in the front yard you own and maintain.

If you told me this in person, I'd follow you home just to piss on your lawn.

Uhh, dropped your /s?

At least I hope so

Why is it parks that have dogs slashing all over them all the time still grow fine? What naff turf are these people using on their lawns that dies off due to a bit of wee?

In California, Arizona, and the like, dog pee will kill off grass at the park, too. Lots of places have grass that should have desert climate flora, and dog pee does damage there.

My inlaws have a herd of Chihuahuas and they've actually managed to kill big patches of lawn along with about half the shrubs bordering their yard with all the piss. I think this rule is stupid and HOAs are dog shit but this stuff can damage plants.

How the fuck are they going to enforce this?

You're assuming the point is to stop it. It's far more likely the point is to create an excuse for issuing fines.

As John Oliver showed: ridiculous fines and if you don't pay then they foreclose on your house.

I'm sure there's some nosy old biddies who would love an excuse to take a picture of every dog that pisses where they can see it

I'm not American so I'm not familiar with how HOAs work

What's the consequence to just ignoring the rule?

They'll fine you, and if you don't pay they'll put a lien on your house. You can't really just ignore them.

Find out when the next meeting is. Tell them you're going to attend.

Organize all the other dog owners and all of you attend. Explain why the new rule is a burden on you all. Explain what you want. Listen to their reasoning. Come to an agreeable compromise.

A complicating factor: I would say ~50% of the houses are rented and only the homeowners have a say in HOA matters. So, assuming any owners without dogs (including the whole board) and any landlord would logically vote to ban all use of the grass, while all dog-owning homeowners would vote to allow dogs near the grass.

Obviously that's generalizing what the votes would be - even though the majority of the houses have dogs, I would say the minority are homeowners with dogs.

The reason I bring this up is a petition-style response may be dismissed as "well those dog owners have no say as they are not homeowners"

If any of the home owners are happy with their dog-owning current renters, it would be in their interest to support the dog owners.

I actually don't know if a landlord has to do anything to keep a renter happy these days? Or if there is enough demand that they would not care? Not sure, perhaps I am approaching that question pessimistically.

Most landlords would be more than happy if their renters dog died... You tried to get a lease with a dog lately? Unless you have something like a teacup poodle a vast majority of landlords don't want to lease to you.

i don't even understand why this is the case, why would they care if i have a dog? like why would they bother?

Because dogs tend to cause damage to rental properties. I was looking recently, and at least 80% of the rentals in my area had chew marks, claw marks, etc on doors and walls.

They can damage property. People let their dogs chew on stuff, pee on the floor etc. Dogs are also an insurance issue. When I bought my house several insurance companies didn't want to insure me because I had a German Shepard.

In a vacuum, yes. But what if some of them have been there for a few years and are paying below-market rent? Or are generally dicks but not egregious enough to go to the trouble of evicting?

So the AKC has this page that lists about half a dozen alternatives to outright banning dogs on grass.

https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/home-living/dog-pee-killing-grass/

I agree this very much sounds like the HOA taking the laziest route possible at the expense of it's residents.

But also, fuck HOAs. Get on the board and take that shit down from the inside, only reliable way to destroy those parasites.

Get on the board and take that shit down from the inside, only reliable way to destroy those parasites.

I live in an area where most houses predate HOAs and home values are too statically low for anyone to want one, but if I were in a position where an HOA started passing nonsensical rules like that I would 100% be reading every rules document and figuring out how to get in charge in order to dismantle every single rule until the only thing the HOA does is pay for necessary/agreed upon shared services

Former real estate agent here

All you can do is talk to the hoa board. That is it. If they won't listen then you have no options. Other then pointing out this wont solve the problem and only punish members. Good luck.

You can get on the board and change it from the inside.

Well assuming such a position is open Some hoa I know were set up that the head is 20 year position. One hoa had it so 1 guy had complete veto power and the way to get rid of him was to wait for every plot of land in the hoa to sell. This was out in west Texas and 10 years ago. They have not sold all of them and he is still in charge.

Move to a place that is not in an HOA because fuck HOAs.

I truly don't understand how HOAs aren't illegal. Or at the very least restricted.

Local governments love HOAs and they are only giving construction permits to HOA communities. Why they love it? Easy, they onload the government duties of maintaining infrastructure on the HOAs, who charge a "tax" that doesn't risks the political career of the elected officials.

I'm pretty sure it's a case of gradually increased powers, afaik basically everywhere has HOAs, the difference is just that outside of america they basically just maintain common infrastructure like roads and utilities and the only things they can really enforce is when you're actually being a prick towards your neighbours, e.g. bright pink house or excessive blinking lights.

I've read some folks being a bottle of water on walks to dilute the pee so it's less likely to ruin grass. But in fairness if some dog pee is ruining grass, owners are not watering their lawns enough. There are plenty of dogs in my neighborhood that are walked and I don't think there are many pee spot issues.

But even better would be to not use grass :) uses too much water in the first place hehe

As someone not from the US. What in the world are you guys doing with your grass that makes it need watering and gets ruined by dog pee?

I have lived around dogs my entire life and never seen any grass get miscolourd by their pee.

As someone not from the US, your pets probably aren't fed horrible food options multiple times throughout the day. You (your fellows in general) probably got your pet knowing it wasn't an ornament. And you probably don't have grass that is so heavily genetically modified that it can't filter the poison most of these animals piddle out. Yes, we get burn spots in lawns. Yes also, most of us are slowly killing our pets. Who has time to train an animal? Who has time to feed them a diet that is remotely in tune with their biology?

What are you talking about? The grass burns from dog pee because urine has nitrogen in it and the grass is over fertilized.

shit like this is the reason I will never ever participate in an HOA

Is this legal? My understanding is that the strip of grass between the sidewalk and street is "semi-private", in that the homeowner has to maintain it, but that the city actually owns it.

I'd check local laws and see if the HOA has any right to restrict dogs there.

HOAs have excessive rights especially newer ones and this is probably actually legal. The city likely owns none of it btw.

HOAs are a blight on American home ownership, John Oliver did a segment on it, but new HOA contracts are crazy if you haven't had a peek at one.

I am still confused how these "home owner associations" have any legal right to tell you to do anything…

When you buy the house you sign a contract giving them authority over certain things. You're bound by the terms of the contract.

Is it not possible to just not sign that contract? All contracts can be changed and if part of selling the house is that you are not beholden to the HOA, why is it forced on you?

Why does the HOA have any authority in the sale of a house? The contract is between the buyer, seller, and their financial institutions. Anyone else is unnecessary.

It's not, not if you want to buy the house. The way it works is this:

I'm a property developer and I want to put in a new area of housing. Well that's gonna be expensive up front, roads have to be paved, utilities like power and sewage ran, and houses and common areas built. That's all very expensive, my incentive for doing so is that the property values will remain high. So before I sell a house to anyone, I establish an HOA and require anyone who wishes to buy a house to sign the contract for it. You don't want to sign the contract, you don't buy the house. That contract also includes a stipulation that if you sell the house you have to include the provision for the HOA.

Now HOAs can be dissolved. Once enough people own houses that they can form their own HOA board they are free to do so, and usually do. That board then takes over the control of the content of those contracts including the provision requiring their signing. So if you want to dissolve an HOA you get on the board or lobby your neighbors to do so, call a meeting, and dissolve it. If you can get enough of your neighbors to agree, the HOA is gone.

There's usually some bullshit to allow the developer to retain control indefinitely. There will be provisions for the turnover, but the stipulations will involve something that won't happen for sixty years.

But HOAs are communities right? Doesn't a HOA meeting have super authority, to remove bylaws like that?

No community I know of in Dutch legislation can block a community ('vereniging') from dissolving itself. Moreso since there's always a law above it on how to disband a community, which cannot be bypassed.

No, I don't believe we have that kind of protection here. I don't know enough details to say what kind of protections (if any) we do have.

Any HOA can dissolve itself, it merely requires the consent and vote of the board. The rules on how that happens are in the HOA's bylaws. There's nothing in law preventing them from doing so.

This is mostly governed under American contract law.

It's possible to not buy the house, but the covenant/contract comes with it. Can't do one without the other. When it's formed the owner and the HOA have an agreement that no sale of an HOA'd property can take place without the buyer also agreeing to be in the HOA. The HOA has authority given to them by the owner of the property.

2 more...

In an additional effort to refocus this thread to ground cover, has anyone here in the northeast US gone with a clover ground cover, rather than grass?

Why not put down mulch and native perennials? Skip fussy turf grass altogether.

Clover would be a good option, it's more resistant to burning from dog urine than most grasses. It wasn't that long ago since clover was included with standard lawn seed mixes.

You have been living there for 8 yrs. Is this the first time the board has been unreasonable? If not, you might not have much recourse. Except for becoming president of the HOA and changing by-laws yourself. Unfortunately, HOAs in America are fucking weird she mostly unregulated which leads to these power tripping people.

If so, I would converse with them and present the same arguments you posted here.

In both cases, it would help if you can get your neighbors on the same page and agree. If more than half of the neighbors come to the consensus that it’s unreasonable, could easily force the board’s hand and revert. If they don’t bend, I would then ask your neighbors to re-elect the board. If at this point, you would need to check your HOA by-laws since it wildly differs across the USA.

Pour used oil on the head of the how's lawn. Then have every dog owner complain about it.

Collect all your dogshit and dump it in the yard of the HOA president.

Try to get the rule changed so it reads "no UNLEASHED dogs allowed on.... " And try to get them to add some kind of punishment for those who don't clean up after their dogs (i.e. a $50 fine or something like that). Sure people can bash HOAs (and I totally agree with why they are hated so much), but the rule was probably not enacted because of one incident. It was probably put into place after many issues with owners not cleaning up after their dogs, so they felt they had to do something.

As with all HOA issues, the solution is to be in on it.... be part of the HOA. Run for office and get on the board. Being part of the process makes it that much easier to control what rules get put up.

We don't have issues with unleashed dogs, or even with people not cleaning up dog crap, it's just too much dog pee causes dead grass.

So it's not directed at members for the states of their lawns (they are maintained by a common landscape company) it's directed at people who have dogs who urinate - which is all of them.

It seems like all the retired people in the neighborhood have a excellent reason to be on the board but with a full time job and a kid I just don't have the time to put towards good faith governance of the neighborhood. Maybe that's the idea though - to get on the board and reduce their scope to paying the lawn care guys and collecting dues to pay the lawn care guys.

Can the dog owning houses replace their grass with wood chips or something?

The HOA is taking the 'our responsibility is to keep a consistent curb-appeal' stance so I think seemingly random houses not having grass at all may not be acceptable - though maybe that's appropriate for the strip between the sidewalk and road.

i will never understand the US’s obsession with “consistent” housing

It's easier once you realize it's mainly real estate developers trying to oppress minorities by setting up a a bunch of shitty rules to be enforced by a petty wannabe-dictator named Ted

Honestly, review you HOA requirements for imposing new rules, make sure they followed the rules and if they didn't demand the rule be withdrawn until the proper process is followed.

And this is reason 4779637, never to buy a home in a HOA....

In before you get a fine for someone else's dog being on your lawn.

I know this is more of a petty answer, but if the head of your HOA lives in the HOA and you know where, have your dog deliberately shit in their yard if there are no security cameras. Early in the morning, be sure to take pictures as proof there was a dog in their grass at some point.

If enough people in the area start doing it, the rule will either change or you can start complaining like Hell that the head is of HOA isn't following the rules and hope that changes things. If not, and you are willing to be locked away, arson on the HOA owners' home (if they live in the HOA) isn't a bad option either, assuming you start the fire in their bedroom so they can burn to death.

Unethical LPT is THAT way. Also, you forgot the piss disc

@iluminae raised platform with fake grass.

something like this seems doable in theory but without describing the community let's just say there is no spot to put this or any other 'dedicated dog spot', other than existing house's lawns or the one 40'x40' area which is the community green - and that totally is not going to happen.

Ban HOA's. I really don't understand why there allowed to exist.

Yeah, I suggest you go back in time and smack yourself upside the head for even thinking about moving somewhere with an HOA.

Not ground covering, but new ground. If you want a say, then you have to take on personal responsibility. Or move. Either way, you choose to not look behind the curtain. Enjoy Stepford.

HOAs often impose yard upkeep rules on owners. I have a buddy whose front yard grass keeps dying from dog walkers letting their dogs pee in his yard, and then as an insult to injury, the HOA cites him.

It'd be ideal if your neighborhood had a dog park established as an alternative, but honestly, this rule is on the more agreeable side as far as HOAs go.

Oh wow I read a functional ban on dogs as extreme rather than agreeable - that's interesting.

I'm of the opinion that more often than not, dog owners suck for everyone around them. They typically suck so much, that dog owners don't often even like other dog owners. But the problem is that the individual dog owner can't see that they themselves probably suck.

So, I personally find strict rules about their impact on a neighborhood agreeable.

Interesting perspective. Other than being mad that dogs exist and inconsistent grass color I can't imagine other slights dog owners are applying to the neighborhood. Maybe barking? But that has never really been a issue here, to my knowledge.

Constant barking, dog crap on my lawn because the dog owner doesn't want to deal with it on their lawn, dog running into the middle of the street and nearly getting hit, and my personal favorite, chasing children and trying to bite them.

Sounds like you have a problem with extremely irresponsible people who happen to have dogs.

You're not wrong, but I'd offer a slightly more generalized version: People suck.

There's a forest near my house that has a public trail network and it's explicitly marked as an on-leash area at every point of entrance. About 90% of dog owners seem to think they're the exception to the rule. 20% immediately leash their dog when they come across other people, 30% have aggressive dogs that the owners don't seem capable of or interested in controlling, and the rest are somewhere between the two.

Maybe it's a localized phenomenon, but it's telling that most of them think the rules shouldn't apply to themselves.

(And before anyone says I'm biased, I like dogs!)

The ideal solution is that HOAs be abolished op lives in a community where 50% of the residents are held to a collective standard they have no say in that's enforced by those who's qualifications are they've nothing better to do with their time. The idea that HOAs increase property value is a scam.

For once I agree with an HOA decision. I wish I could just enjoy my yard without having to worry about some asshole letting his mutt shit all over my yard.

Fairly certain leaving shit there is already illegal.

Glad HOAs aren't a thing here. What dystopian bullshit.