Coming home after a trip is always a mess of "why is this here?", "who unpacked the thing?", "did this spoil?", and "since when do we have ants???"

Ugh. We've had to struggle with the latter problem constantly. At least we have a contract with a good extermination service.

They have advised that we need to solve our ivy problem, though. Which also requires that we replace a fence that the ivy has basically taken over. Which requires HOA approval because apparently people don't properly own their own property in the US anymore.

Or is this a city thing?

The most we had to worry about in Maine was, "if it's on the property line, does the appropriate next-door neighbor have a problem with it?"

We have managed to avoid HOAs, thankfully. Sadly, our town has a few HOA-ish things like "no clotheslines".