A homeowner in a Midwestern suburb has relocated to a new neighborhood following a months-long dispute with her HOA over sidewalk chalk drawings on her own driveway.

The homeowner, who documents her chalk art online, used commercially available washable sidewalk chalk to create temporary drawings on the concrete of her private driveway. The drawings, by the nature of the medium, washed away with rain or a garden hose.

A neighbor, identified by the homeowner only by the placeholder name “Susan,” objected. Over the course of roughly twelve months, the HOA sent three separate violation letters.

By the homeowner’s account, each letter was “progressively more unhinged.” The third and final letter cited a bylaw prohibiting, and we quote, “visual disruption to neighborhood aesthetic cohesion.”

The medium in question: washable chalk. The surface in question: her own driveway.

The dispute reportedly escalated to the point that the neighbor convened an emergency HOA meeting. An emergency meeting, the homeowner noted, of the variety typically reserved for genuine community crises, called to address children’s sidewalk chalk.

After a year, hundreds of pieces of chalk, and one final strongly worded letter, the homeowner chose to move rather than continue the fight. She has since relocated, by her description, to a neighborhood with a driveway “the size of a canvas” and neighbors she expects will react somewhat more warmly.

The chalk, as always, will wash away. The bylaw citing “aesthetic cohesion” is now a matter of permanent record.