Man Fights Back Against His HOA With 'Petty' Revenge That's Protected By Federal Law
Don't get mad, get even… with bats. Tons and tons of bats.
ARVD73 | Shutterstock The more stories about HOA overreach there are, the more it becomes clear: The only way to actually win a fight against one of these bizarre, uniquely American despots is by fighting fire with fire. And one man on TikTok has come up with the perfect way to do so. With bats.
A man is getting revenge on his HOA after they began fining him for his garbage cans.
It all began when fitness influencer Scott Kramer, known on social media as @scottykfitness, got a notice from his homeowner's association about the kind of ridiculous "complaint" that only an HOA could be so petty as to muster: His garbage cans, you see, are "ugly."
As Kramer put it in a video, "Yeah. It's a trash can." The HOA insisted that he put his trash cans in his garage, but that is where Kramer keeps his home gym. The only other option they offered was for him to build a fence around them, which is expensive and also dumb because they are not hurting anything.
Nevertheless, the HOA told Kramer he'd be fined $50 a day for every day his garbage cans are visible from the street. So he decided some revenge was in order.
The man turned his yard into a federally protected bat sanctuary.
Kramer seems to have decided that the only real antidote for unreasonable demands is an equally unreasonable response — and one that literally has the full force of the federal government on its side. Revenge is a dish best served with a side of federal law, as the saying goes.
Kramer bought a bat house — similar to a bird house, but bigger and taller and, you know, full of bats. Which most people find terrifying and disgusting (they're actually very cool little guys, even if they are vampires).
Presumably, the people who hate bats include the vice president of Kramer's HOA, who happens to live riiiiiight across the street from his "ugly" trash cans and, now, his giant at-home bat sanctuary. This means Kramer's HOA now has a far bigger problem on its hands than his trash cans. Oops.
Building homes for bats and other protected endangered species has become a common way to retaliate against HOAs.
"Some of you may be asking, Scotty, why bats?" Kramer said in his video. "A fun fact: Bat sanctuaries are federally protected." Kramer's HOA will surely pitch a fit about the hordes of winged vampires swarming around his house, but there likely won't be a thing they can do about it.
Because many species of bats are endangered, they are legally protected on the state and federal levels. Contrary to what many HOAs seem to believe, this legislation does, in fact, supersede an HOA's ridiculous by-laws.
Building a bat house as a snub to the HOA has become something of a trend online, though there seems to be some disagreement over the actual legalities involved. Some say that while the bats themselves cannot be messed with, the HOA can still fine the homeowner anyway.
But would those fines hold up before a judge? Well, there's only one way to find out, so I might start a GoFundMe for Kramer's legal fees. This is still a democracy (for now anyway), and bats have rights too! See you in court, HOA!
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.