Homeowner's Associations are the Devil

So, yesterday I get home from work and notice our grass is cut very, very short and there's a lawn service truck parked in front of our house.  A guy is walking in our yard with hedge clippers on the way to cut our tree.  What is going on?!

I get out of my car and asked what they are doing.  They say, "The homeowner's association gave us a list of houses that needed to be mowed, so we're just following their list."  We cut our grass a week and a half ago and it has been raining since Monday in the afternoon and evening.  It was a little longer than normal, but every week, our neighbor or John mows both of the yards.  Our neighbor's grass was not touched even though it was the same height as ours.  I was livid.  I told them to get out of my yard and that  I don't care if we're ever on that list again, do not step foot on our property.  But you know, they knocked on the door during a work day and no one answered, so I shouldn't be mad since they tried.  Yea, ok...

Does their grass look out of control?  No?  Ok, didn't think so...

We are required to have St. Augustine grass in our yard.  That stupid grass is hard to maintain as it is and there is a book that's 1" thick that the University of Florida has written on how to properly maintain this type of grass.  John's read it.  All of it.  It's what he does.
Rule 1. Don't cut it lower than 3-4 inches and do not cut until the grass is over 6 inches tall.
Our grass is 2 inches tall at best now...they scalped our yard which probably will kill portions of it. So, we'll be buying sod soon I'm sure to fix their damage.
Oh, and we have chinch bugs in our grass right now because we have an absentee neighbor on the other side that has only weeds and bugs coming from his grass that we fight off all. the. time.  The grass has to grow a certain length so we can pull it out to replace the not so pretty parts in our front yard.  You know, if you ask UF, the inventors of the grass.  You should read up, yard guys and HOA.

AND, they ran their mower into our fence so now it has marks all over it.  And they didn't know this, but if they cut our tree, someone would have died because it's not yet time in Florida to trim that type of tree and we really like it and don't want that dead too.  It's thriving!

Where do HOA's get off sometimes?  I understand they serve a purpose.  But only to a point.  You cannot mow someone's yard without warning.  A week and a half of growth is not going to devalue houses in the neighborhood.
I drove around the neighborhood after that, taking a look at the damage...and guess what?  They didn't cut any of the abandoned houses with grass that was over a foot tall with weeds because no one would pay them to do that.  Instead, they come after the people who try and follow the rules, but just so happened to hit the mowing cycle wrong and went a little over a week's worth of growth on the lawn.  It's Florida.  It's summer.  It rains.  Grass grows out of control.  But a little over a week's worth of growth and you come butcher our yard.  Rude!

And that folks, is why we're selling our house next summer.  No more HOA's for us.  We really like our neighbors and where our house is at, but we'll be moving here next:

Oh, you've heard of it?  

I hear it's real nice and they let you live your life without trying to ruin it.

Do you have any HOA stories?  

Do you like or dislike HOAs?