I believe most of HOA are being strict. They even send me a warning twice for not allowing to use any woodwork in the garage, and I was like what the .... is this apartment or what?
The HOA sent me a letter saying that the trash bin and recycle bin are not allowed on the front garage door except on trash pick up day. No personal plants outside of my porch, and many to list. Yet, they clean it up once every month, and I've complained to HOA that a dude use grass cutter and the rock hit my car window, and it cracked. HOA said there's no valid evidence that the landscape dude did it, and then one day I caught him and showed him the window cracked and he said he is sorry, then refuse to accept that he was the one who made a mistake. My car was parked in front of townhouse all day during the landscape duty, it must be him. My gf car got cracked too at another landscape duty day. There's nothing we can do about it unless there's camera or dashboard cam to capture the situation. HOA - dirty pig.