Homeowner decorates entire house in rainbow lights after being banned from flying Pride flags

‘I see this as an absolute win,’ one Reddit user wrote

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A Reddit user is being applauded for lighting up the outside of their house in rainbow-coloured lights after being informed by their homeowner’s association that they could not display a rainbow Pride flag.

On Tuesday, the Reddit user, who lives in Wisconsin and goes by the username @memon17, posted about their Pride decoration in the subreddit MaliciousCompliance.

In the post, they revealed that their homeowners’ association (HOA) announced a new rule last month that allows homeowners to only fly the American flag on their properties, after some residents had put up Black Lives Matter flags, thin blue line flags to show police support and “other opinion flags”.

According to the original poster, a day after the announcement, they received an email notifying them that someone had reported the Pride flag they’ve displayed on their front porch since 2016, and that they needed to take it down.

After removing the flag, the user says that they looked through the new rules, only to discover that removable lights are permitted - so they purchased multi-coloured lights to decorate their house in rainbow colours.

“We complied and removed the flag. Looking through our new rules, we noticed that removable lights are permitted without restriction so... we bought six colored flood lights, and we washed our house in Pride colors,” they wrote. “A little less subtle than our simple flag. A lot more fun for anyone complaining about the flag itself and what it represents.”

In the post, OP then included a link to a photo of their house, with the home seen lit up in the colours of the rainbow.

Pride home

Since the post was shared less than a day ago, it has been upvoted more than 78,000 times and received numerous Reddit awards.

The clever workaround to the rule has also been met with thousands of supportive comments, with many applauding the Reddit user for finding a way to show their support for the LGBTQ+ community and Pride month without a flag.

“Well f***ing done! I live in a country that doesn’t have to deal with HOA BS. But! If someone came around to my house and tried to tell my son to take down his flag? I would leave my house looking like an explosion at the Skittles factory!” one person wrote. “Love is love, enjoy Pride!”

Another person said: “Actually, this is cooler than the flag, so something nice came out of the situation.”

“Happy Pride month! Love your lights!” someone else wrote.

In the comments, many others expressed their hatred of HOAs, with many asking OP why he lives in a neighbourhood that allows rules such as flag banning to be passed.

In response, they revealed that there weren’t many choices when they were looking at homes and that this one “ticked most if not all of our boxes of what we were looking for,” before adding that the flag rule was not in place when they moved in.

The Reddit user also revealed that they sit on the HOA board to “help keep things as unrestrictive as possible, and keep the conversation going”.

In a follow-up to the original post, the user added that they don’t hate their HOA, nor do they believe they changed the flag rule to “attack me personally,” but that they ultimately decided to decorate their home with rainbow-coloured lights to “show [their] individuality while still following the rules”.

As for what they will do if their HOA updates the rule to also restrict lighting, the Reddit user joked that they would “have to paint the grass then”.