A disappointed dad has slammed a “Karen” who lodged a complaint with his homeowners association, which made him tear down a treehouse he built for his sons.
“Don’t worry, you’re safe now! Your act of casual cruelty was successful,” the irate parent, who signed his name Dave, wrote in a plastic-covered note he pinned to a tree, indy100.com reported.
A photo of the note was posted on Reddit, where it went viral on the r/F—YouKaren and r/Facepalm subreddits.
“The complaint you lodged with the HOA was heard. They made me take down the small treefort that I built on this location with my sons during the pandemic,” he wrote.
“No longer will its presence offend your walk past my house. Please enjoy your stroll free from the sound of my children’s play and laughter,” his sarcasm-laden message continues.
“They are safely back inside now, watching television I’m sure,” he adds. “Enjoy the unobstructed view of my backyard. I will try to keep it up to code.”
Reddit users clearly thought the person who lodged the complaint was barking up the wrong tree — as they shared similar run-ins with HOAs.
“I know we’re all joking here but the beauty of this is that it’s preserved in a plastic sleeve so it’s not ‘garbage’ and it’s just a paper sign so it’s also not some kind of new ‘structure’ so likely the HOA can’t say s— about this unless they write some new rules,” one user wrote. “Dave even hung it with the sleeve upside down so water can’t drop into it from the top.”
A Reddit user first posted the letter several months ago, but it has since gone viral. According to the user, the tree fort was at least two feet from the trail, no so passers-by were in any danger.
Homeowners associations are frequently fickle, indy100.com noted, with some known to enforce rules that negatively affect people of color and those who are less well-to-do in neighborhoods across the US.
One user offered a way to handle off-base HOAs.
“I started participating in my communities HOA with three of my neighbors after some weird architecture rules they tried to implement,” the user wrote.
“Come to find out, out of the hundred or so residences only about eight people show up to each meeting making us a good third of the votes. Of those eight two of them were fairly reasonable and one guy proclaims himself a libertarian and votes every new rule down,” the person said.
“If you cant beat em, join em,” the user added.
Margot Judge contributed reporting