A mom in Alabama named Mackenzie was more than a little confused when her HOA threatened to fine her for something temporary that she did to have fun with her kids.
We’ve all heard stories of HOAs that have gone a little overboard with their rules and restrictions. Technically, homeowners agree to live in a neighborhood with an HOA when they buy their house, but there are many cases when they could never have seen the absolute absurdity of the HOA’s demands coming.
Mackenzie, who has three children, tried using chalk to draw on her driveway as a way to express herself and make her kids smile. She started sharing videos of her creations on TikTok, and that’s how her account @chalkwithmack was born. In her bio, she says she is “just out here doing mediocre chalk art for my son.”
According to People Magazine, Mackenzie began making her chalk drawings a daily habit, but she almost had to give it all up just five days after she started thanks to a notice from her HOA. She told People, “I got an email saying someone had complained about it being tacky. After some back and forth, we have agreed to wash it off by the end of the night or there will be a fine.”
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Now, she has a new routine of waking up at 6 a.m. to draw that day’s chalk art, which she washes away before the HOA’s 10 p.m. curfew. She stated, “Waking up early to redraw the chalk art became my quiet protest. I’m not doing anything harmful. I’m spreading color and kindness.”
It sounds like her neighbors agree with her, other than the one who made the complaint. “People have left me chalk, knee pads, and sweet notes,” she shared. “A neighbor even put a little cushion on my driveway for me to sit on. It’s shown me just how kind people really can be, and how one person’s negativity doesn’t speak for the whole community.”
As for the neighbor who complained, Mackenzie doesn’t want to waste the “energy” it would take to confront them. But it seems like she might have called them out on TikTok. In one post, she said, “Shoutout to our neighbor who called the HOA on us…” and included a chalk message on her driveway. “We [love] you Susan,” it read.
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Surely everyone remembers that feeling of going outside to play with chalk when they were a kid and hoping that it wouldn’t rain for as long as possible so they could continue to see their creations each day. And, it does kind of make one wonder, if it was just Mackenzie’s kids who were using the chalk, would Susan have still been so quick to complain?
Antonius Ferret | Pexels
Of course, the HOA took things way too far by threatening to fine Mackenzie for the chalk every single day. It’s far from the strangest thing an HOA has done, though.
The International Association of Certified Home Inspectors pointed out that HOAs are often not bound by any laws and have the ability to “bully their residents into foreclosure.” Sure, there has to be some way to maintain order in a community, but telling homeowners what they can and can’t do with the houses they own feels unfair. It seems like people are getting pretty sick of HOAs, so maybe a change is coming.
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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
