Our rural neighborhood has CCRs but no HOA so there is no enforcement. The county codes are enforced on the good old boy system. Basically everyone just does what they want.
Parcels are RU4 meaning they aren’t less than 4 acres. Very easy to not look at everyone else’s trash. And there is a lot of it. Our house is situated so that we can’t see it from our porch.
Had the house appraised a few years ago and the appraiser dropped $20000 off because of the garbage around us. I am very much a private property rights person but when someone’s rights start affecting mine and my pocket book, I have a problem. Plus with that much acreage, it would be easy to put stuff behind your house instead of up against the property line. We decided we would just wait them out. One property the couple got a divorce and the spouse that remained cleaned everything up. The other neighbor is being foreclosed on so the bank will clean it up. If we weren’t able to wait it out though, we would have lost quite a bit. We were there long before either of those properties had people living on them. People just have no self respect anymore.
We do have a road maintenance agreement but after 30 years of work or paying someone, we are done helping because there is no way to enforce it. People just won’t pay their share. Or they drive like maniacs and tear it up on atvs or dirt bikes doing donuts. Most of our vehicles are 4x4 so we just laugh at the city people that move out here and tear up their vehicles in 6 months.
PS. Before we bought our property we lived in military housing. The Army is worse than any HOA.
2 family members have HOA experience.
Daughter lives in a community where there is a pool and common areas. She knew there was an HOA but didn’t know how restrictive it was on paper. After living there a few months, she realized that nobody really follows the rules except for the ones that everyone can see. Excess weeds in front, trash cans not left on street, etc. Everyone pretty much ignores what goes on in the backyard as long as it doesn’t affect them. New comers are usually more focused on the rules but are more interested in following them than reporting anyone else. Common sense neighbors so far.
Brother lived in an HOA community in Georgia. He got sent overseas TDY while his wife was pregnant. She was about 8 months along when she got a notice her grass was too long. She was supposed to be on newly prescribed bed rest. She asked for an extension until my brother got back. After finding out, the neighborly thing would have been for someone to mow for her. Instead they sent another notice denying the extension and giving her a final date. On a tight budget, she took a chance and did it herself. The grass was not too bad, maybe an inch over the specified length. Brother had mowed before he left and was due back before the baby was due. My brother got really mad at the HOA. Hadn’t really paid attention to the HOA because it hadn’t been an issue before. Hadn’t made any complaints or received any. He started going to every meeting he could and made their lives a living hell. Started reporting every little thing on the so called neighbors. Eventually he was elected to the board and started reigning in the HOA’s nonsense. It became a better neighborhood after that.