PERMANENT IMPROVEMENT

I have a memory from 1996. A senior manager told me I had too many pictures on my office walls. 

From what I recall, my office was tucked away, mostly hidden from view although it was near an emergency exit. It was basically a closet. It barely fit my desk and chair. There was no space for a meeting, so I kept my door open for visitors. There were no windows to look out, so I covered nearly every inch of the walls with 8x10 photos. I loved it.

I was puzzled. I couldn’t understand why someone had a problem with my wall decorations. Why was I receiving this criticism from someone other than my supervisor? 

I know the comment bothered me, but I don’t remember taking any photos off the walls. I think my supervisor told me that if I received a promotion and moved to a real office, I would have to decorate it more professionally.
 
When I did receive the promotion, I invested in 5-foot wooden folding panel frames that held 15 photos each to decorate my new office. I had at least two of them. I filled them with scenes from my trips to Ireland and England.
 
This memory came to me as I tried to understand my current situation with my HOA. Almost thirty years later, I was once again being told that I had put too much of myself into my space that others could see.

What happens when the way I care, solve problems, seek clarity, document things, and make myself visible is experienced by someone else as excessive?

When does engagement become “too much”? Who gets to decide? And why does someone else’s discomfort with my intensity make me question myself so quickly?

I received an email on September 9 from the manager at the association management firm telling me to take down my decorative skeletons or apply for an architectural review because they were now considered to be “permanent ‘improvements’” to the lot and no longer “temporary” holiday decorations.

The two skeletons outside my home are apparently a neighborhood issue. 

Immediately I looked for my HOA packet and imported it into ChatGPT to find the regulations regarding holiday decorations. There were none. 

I looked at the Architectural Review Board form and filled it out, requesting approval for a Halloween display from September 1–November 1. Yes, I am one of those people who drinks a pumpkin spice latte in August and starts watching Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas in October. I love fall. I love winter. I love the holidays.
 
The timing of that email couldn’t have been worse. I had just put out my Halloween-themed wreath and doormat. I had expected a new standing 5-foot candy bowl skeleton to arrive that afternoon.
 
It’s difficult for me to describe all the feelings that overwhelmed me—paranoia, shame, vulnerability, fear, confusion, indignation, and the feeling of being profoundly misunderstood—but I soon became physically ill. I was so anxious I wanted to take Xanax, but didn’t want to fall asleep during the workday. I tried to calm myself by learning as much as I could … reviewing all the board minutes and the community newsletter. I was so emotional and frazzled that I knew it would help to use ChatGPT to assist in editing my rambling thoughts and to keep my tone professional.

“The fact is that you live in an HOA community, and there are expectations which go along with that.” 

I wasn't arguing that an HOA shouldn't be allowed to have rules about decorations. I was asking what ours were. 

The way I saw it, the problem wasn’t actually me or my skeletons, it was that there was no policy to follow. 

“I am looking for conversation, not confrontation,” I wrote in one of my messages.

I was proud of my correspondence: the context I shared, the questions I asked, and the documentation I provided.

The problem wasn’t just being asked to remove my decorations. It was the uncertainty about the future and confusion about how we got here in the first place. If I understood the process, if I knew that removal was only temporary and I could put whatever I wanted back up on October 1st, I could accept that. My mind spiraled trying to understand what I had done wrong when there was no written rule.

I do not have a problem with strict policies on decorating. I am a very black and white thinker. Most of the time I like to have rules, boundaries, and guidelines. But I also have a strong moral compass, an inclination toward advocacy, and a tendency to fight for what I believe is right. In certain circumstances I’ve been known to ask forgiveness rather than permission. I don’t normally like to do that, but if the choice is between action and waiting, I will always choose to do something.I wish I had a photograph of my office for you to see.

This isn’t my first interaction with the manager handling our HOA. During COVID, when everyone was working from home, a neighbor left their garage door open and right near the back of the garage, above the door to their home, there was a very loud wind chime. I like to keep my windows and balcony door open, so I heard this wind chime when I was working and when I was trying to sleep. It drove me nuts. I asked the manager if there was anything I could do and he informed me it would be nearly impossible to ban wind chimes because you need 75% of owners to agree and you can’t get that number of people to agree on an ice cream social.
 
Knowing my sanity was now in my own hands, I wrote a note asking them to close the garage doors so I wouldn’t hear the chimes. I saw the tenant outside and asked her if she got my note. I basically begged her to remove the chimes and even offered to pay her for the cost of the chimes and the inconvenience. She actually apologized profusely and said she had no idea it was bothering anyone, and moved the chimes. It never was a problem again.
 
I didn’t have such an easy resolution to a tenant who moved in next door and smoked on the balcony. I reached out to the manager. Once again I was told it wasn’t against any policy to smoke so there was nothing to be done. So I personally asked her to stop. She agreed, then continued to smoke despite it being against her lease agreement. It was a nightmare. 

I was so relieved when she moved out. I’ve had two wonderful months with no neighbor drama.
 
Then I get this email about my decorations.

The association was powerless against intrusive noise and secondhand smoke, but decisive about two silent skeletons?
 
WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
 
I was 48 when I bought this townhouse in 2019. It is my first and only home purchase and I was so excited to have a front lawn and balcony to decorate. I’ve had lights up nonstop since March 2020. No complaints. I’ve had Christmas decorations up on November 1st every year for at least 10 weeks. No complaints. The 5-foot skeletons arrived in October 2025 and they gave me and my family so much joy that I became one of those people who leaves them up and decorates them for the seasons. 

Finding out that even one neighbor didn’t like my skeletons was disheartening. 

I wondered: if they knew how much decorating meant to me, would they still file a complaint?
​
It isn't that I need every neighbor to love my skeletons. They're plastic skeletons. People are allowed to think they're ridiculous.

What I wasn't prepared for was how an anonymous complaint would change the feeling of my own home. Suddenly somebody had been looking at something that gives me joy and recording it as a problem. I didn't know who. That meant it could be anybody.

My home is where I expect to be most completely myself. And suddenly I was self-conscious about what I had put outside it.

When you have an anxiety disorder, an anonymous complaint doesn't remain anonymous in your mind. It becomes everybody.

I wanted all the data available to understand why this was happening to me, but I couldn’t get any details on what was said and when. I specifically stated I didn’t want any identifying information, but I was still denied. 
 
It’s hard to understand what the process is for taking action on a complaint when nothing about the complaint is transparent. The initial email from the manager was vague and I only got slightly more context during my follow-up questions. 
 
There are two issues here: one is the complaint process and the other is the messenger. It’s bad enough to feel like anonymous neighbors can be responsible for making you change something about your home that you enjoy. It’s even worse when the person who is managing the situation is withholding and comes across as condescending and dismissive. 

If someone had come to me personally and asked me to take the skeletons down, I probably would have. I come in and out of my house more than anyone else. I walk through this neighborhood more than anyone else. I am accessible and available for a conversation—even a lively debate about dead decorations.

Being asked by a neighbor would have felt like a conversation. Being instructed by a management employee, without being given an actual written rule, made me want to push back at the way the whole thing had been handled.

I ended up taking a sick leave day because I couldn’t think about anything other than how this situation could be amicably resolved for me and handled better for other residents in the future. 

​My husband’s initial advice was simple: “Don’t piss off the HOA.” Eventually he conceded I made a valid point comparing differing treatment of the windchimes and my decorations.

By late that evening, my eloquent summary was: “That fucking skeleton thing sucked up my entire fucking day.”

Being told to rely on “common sense” was especially frustrating because it substituted an unwritten expectation for an actual policy. 

Common sense, unfortunately, was not included in my HOA disclosure packet.

My position, in less diplomatic terms: Put it in the damn rule book.

How was I supposed to follow a rule that didn’t exist? Was the problem the skeletons, the lamppost, the length of time—or simply somebody else’s taste? Who gets to decide when a decorating season begins? What exactly is the statute of limitations on a skeleton? Why can’t changing its outfit reset the clock?

It makes no sense. Why would someone wait until now to complain about my decorations, especially since Halloween is less than 2 months away. If you didn’t like my seasonal skeletons, why didn’t you raise concerns in February when they had Valentine boas and hearts, or in March when they wore St. Patrick’s Day hats, or in April when they had bunny ears, or in July when they held American flags? I’m supposed to take them down in September when it’s actually their natural season?! 

Somewhere between Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day, my removable plastic skeletons had achieved permanent-improvement status. Tenure, but for bones.
 
It’s not a popularity contest. But complaints create a record; compliments don’t. For every person who files a complaint, I guarantee you there are many more people who smile when they walk by. I’ve seen it myself in person and as I’ve reviewed my security cam. At least a dozen people have stopped to tell me they loved the decorations. The HOA never hears from them. When there isn’t a rule, a complaint can effectively become one. So whose voice becomes most important? The complainant? The owner? The board?

How can issues like this be addressed fairly? What is the process to achieve resolution?
I’d start any enforcement request by identifying the specific written rule involved, how it’s being violated, what corrective action is being requested, and what process exists for questioning or appealing that determination. I’d allow the homeowner access to the actual complaints with names redacted. 

Had the first message I received contained all of that information—or simply said there is no specific decoration rule, but the Board has concerns about how long these have been displayed—this entire exchange might have unfolded differently.

I’d also suggest giving all parties involved the opportunity to discuss the matter with the manager or Board as mediator, if requested. We are all neighbors. We should be able to talk to each other about our concerns and motivations. 

I have plenty of ideas about how this could have been handled better. Figuring out how best to communicate them took longer.

My coping mechanism is deliverables.

I was told to remove two plastic skeletons and somehow ended up conducting an extensive ethnographic study of Pavilions at Pantops outdoor décor.

Walking every street of my neighborhood, I documented each and every decorative element, knowing that many have been there as long as mine. I also saw pumpkins, ghosts, and skeletons, too. So Halloween decorating has started for others besides me!

As I tallied the results, I wondered: Why are stone lions permitted while human bones require architectural approval?

I spent hours writing emails I didn’t send. And then writing new ones I did send with the help of ChatGPT as an editor. I spent hours researching HOA decoration policies and seasonal skeleton controversies. And then I used ChatGPT to help summarize and organize all the data. 

I was proud of myself for everything I compiled. Proud of the messages I sent and even prouder of the ones I didn’t. I thought about this situation obsessively and anxiously, but also organizationally and analytically. I sent one final email on September 10 summarizing all the work I had put into this project and I offered to help the board with the creation of a decorations policy. 

I was relieved. I was hopeful. I felt good.

I thought I was done.

Then I got his response.

He thanked me for my feedback and said he would share it with the Board, but then referred to my “vigorous interest and desire to assist,” said he didn’t think the Board needed “any more input on this topic,” 

“Vigorous interest” may be the most HOA way anyone has ever called me too much.
At some point the subject changed. We were no longer only discussing the skeletons. We were discussing the fact that I kept discussing the skeletons. 

And then came the words that I could not get over: 

“You have now sent seven responses on this topic to me, most of which I believe to have been primarily AI-generated.”

I have an MFA in creative writing. I use ChatGPT. Both things are true.

I don’t use ChatGPT because I have nothing to say. Clearly, I have plenty to say. Sometimes too much.

Seven emails in less than twenty-four hours is a lot. I know that. I ruminate. I know that, too.

If fewer emails were the goal, more details earlier on would have helped.

Every new response—or refusal to answer—gave me information I hadn't had before, which gave me another question. I was still trying to find a compromise. 

I turned a complaint about two skeletons into a research project. That is who I am. I’m intense. Too much. And ChatGPT gave my passion some paragraph breaks.

If he had any idea how many longer messages I could have sent, he would be grateful that I convinced ChatGPT to stop me. 

It didn’t matter that I was doing the groundwork and offering to help.

It didn’t matter that I had actually served on the Board in 2023. I’ve seen ARB applications. I’ve heard the conversations that don’t make the meeting minutes. I know where the skeletons are buried.

A friend of mine was shocked by his response: “Coming from the board side of this, I would be thrilled if someone volunteered to help with literally anything.”

Apparently the difference between civic engagement and being a pain in the ass depends partly on who's answering the emails.

When I complain about something, even if it’s a complaint about a complaint, I don't stop there. I will try to fix the problem. No choice but action.

My house was too decorated. My questions were too numerous. My interest was too vigorous. And apparently my writing was too polished to be entirely mine.

I don't know why he brought up AI. I know what it did. It moved the conversation away from whether my questions were reasonable and toward whether my words were artificial. 

I use ChatGPT because when I’m anxious and overwhelmed, my thoughts come faster than I can organize them. I can write ten versions of the same email and still not know which one I should send. It helps me sort through all of that. It helps me figure out what I’m actually trying to say and, more importantly, what I probably shouldn’t say.

I used technology to help keep my correspondence factual, organized, and professional when I was anything but calm. 

“I stand behind everything I send, regardless of what tools I use to research, organize, or edit my writing.”
​
The suggestion that my emails were “primarily AI-generated” felt dismissive and devaluing in a way I wasn’t expecting. It reduced all of the research, questions, documentation, editing, and restraint behind those messages to: I don’t believe you wrote any of this, AI did it. 
​
I was obsessed. I researched this far beyond what most people would. I walked around the neighborhood photographing outdoor décor. I created a policy checklist. I looked up other HOAs. I offered to rejoin the Board. I am aware this is an intense response to a complaint about plastic skeletons. But intense is not irrational. Thorough is not wrong. And using ChatGPT to help me organize an overwhelming amount of thought doesn't negate my core beliefs.

Maybe he was just annoyed. I asked reasonable questions, but answering them created more work for him and the Board. I’m aware that it would have been much easier for everyone if I just removed my skeletons and didn’t point out that there was nothing in the HOA packet that specifically prohibited these decorations.

This felt uncomfortably familiar. 

When something important feels uncertain, erasable, or capable of being misrepresented, I make it visible.

My HOA was not Grafton Place. Two plastic skeletons are not a dead man’s Instax collection. I knew the stakes weren’t remotely comparable. What felt familiar was the structure: incomplete information created questions; answers created more questions; and eventually the number of questions I was asking became part of the problem.

When I was trying to retrieve Keith’s photographs, the lawyer involved also commented on how many emails I sent. I eventually pointed out to him that if I had gotten complete and necessary information upfront or answers to questions the first time I asked, there wouldn’t have been a need for so many follow-ups. 

That’s what bothered me here too. The number of messages became part of the criticism without any acknowledgment of why there were so many messages in the first place. I didn’t have the information I needed. There seemed to be contradictions and uncertainty. I needed to see the whole picture.

Sometimes there is something good on the other side of all that persistence. Keith’s photos, which took months to receive, were eventually displayed as three teeny tiny collages at Second Street Gallery. I raised $50 for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer by selling one. I made a difference. I did something good.

Yesterday, in between sending emails and pacing inside for fear of leaving the house and unknowingly running into the anonymous complainer(s), I decided to make a good-faith effort at modifying my décor. If the biggest problem was the string lights and skeleton on the lamp post, I could easily remove the lights and move the skeleton to the other side of the stoop. Any chance that would suffice? 

The thing that upsets me is that I actually do think about other people. I gave away my Christmas inflatables years ago because I worried they were too noisy. I was willing to compromise before anyone acknowledged that there had been no written rule for me to follow.

When I opened the door to get a package for my daughter, I saw the two skeletons on either side of the stairs and smiled to myself, "This looks good. I like this." Maybe it's ok that someone complained. It's an opportunity to do better.

I still don’t understand how leaving a removable decoration in place for too long transforms it into a “permanent improvement.” Maybe the policy that my “multiple responses” prompted the Board to create will explain this.  

If the eventual policy allows skeletons only during the month October, I will follow the rule. I’ll put all seven of them in my yard for one glorious month. It still feels like discrimination against skeletons, but I will respect the rule of the HOA.

For now, maybe improving my decorations instead of removing them will suffice.

My twin took a photo of the new layout as she left and texted me.

“I like them so much better together!”

Me too.

Essay in Google Docs 

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