A father has told Newsweek how he grew “angry and disappointed” after receiving a letter from his housing association regarding a swim spa installed in the garden for his disabled daughter.
Dan, who asked not to be formally named, is a teacher and lives in the Newell Creek development in Ohio and, for almost a year, his family has benefited from the use of a swim spa donated to them by the charitable organization A Special Wish to support and comfort his daughter.
Dan’s eight-year-old girl has McCune-Albright Syndrome, a very rare bone and endocrine disease that has led to complications throughout her young life.
“She has had over a dozen surgeries ranging from taking her adrenal glands out when she was three months old to four months ago in May 2024 when she had yet another metal rod put into her tibia,” Dan told Newsweek.
“She has rods and plates in both of her femurs and she has a rod in each tibia. She hasn’t walked since she was two years old.”
One of the recommendations doctors gave Dan and his wife was that their daughter enjoy as much water-based physical therapy as possible, but that initially proved easier said than done.
“That time is hard to get and costly,” Dan said. “We do physical therapy on land with her as well as aqua therapy each week. My wife and I are both schoolteachers, so those costs can add up quickly for us.”
Their lives changed immeasurably for the better when A Special Wish got in touch in 2022 to say they would foot the bill for a swim spa. It’s been a blessing ever since.
“The swim spa gives her the ability to swim year round and rebuild her muscles from the atrophy of the many surgeries to hopefully get her to walk, even if it’s just a small distance or even to transition from her wheelchair to the couch, car, or bathroom,” Dan said. “She loves to swim and it’s the one place she feels “normal” and like just one of the other kids.”
Before it was installed, however, Dan had to get the approval of his local homeowner’s association (HOA) which was no mean feat.
“They don’t let people have pools, I’m not sure why. I guess it’s an eyesore to put a pool in the backyard of a home, even if it is an in-ground pool. So I had told them that this was a spa for my daughter and it was being donated due to her condition,” he said. “I guess that’s where they decided to say it was a medical exemption.”
Dan was initially appreciative of the leniency shown in these circumstances, but things changed a few months after the swim spa was installed when he received another letter from the HOA carrying with it a warning.
“This is simply a reminder that a medical exception was granted for having the larger swim spa to be used by immediate family and as a form of therapy,” the note read. “It should not be used by others that are not residing in the home or for parties etc.”
The letter from the HOA. They approved the swim spa but with stipulations.
u/rayh8su
According to the website HOA-USA there are an estimated 370,000 HOAs across the U.S. representing over 40 million households. That’s around 53 percent of all occupied households in the country.
While many of these HOAs operate with little in the way of friction between neighbors, there are instances of HOAs overstepping the mark. To Dan’s way of thinking, this was one of those occasions. Though other kids have been in the spa, they have only done so to keep his daughter company and play.
“I felt angry and disappointed for my daughter,” Dan said. She doesn’t get to play with friends like a ‘normal’ kid would. She’s always in a chair, always shorter than everyone else, and always trying to keep up. In the swim spa, she’s equal. They swim, laugh, and play without the typical barriers that my daughter has to go through on a daily basis.”
The letter left Dan “very upset” and alarmed that one or more of his neighbors would make this kind of complaint. “I feel infringed upon. I feel like someone is spying on us and keeping track of who is entering and exiting the swim spa,” he said.
Newsweek made several attempts to contact the HOA involved over email, Continental Management, but received no response. In the meantime, Dan has been getting a huge response on Reddit after posting a heavily-redacted version of the letter to the platform under the handle u/rayh8su.
He said his family felt “targeted and harassed” over the letter regarding the use of the swim spa and while he appreciates that some leniency was given it terms of allowing it to be it place it “means nothing when they try to dictate who can enter the pool.”
“I am finished talking to the HOA because they don’t give me the impression that they want to help us,” Dan concluded. “They give me the impression that they want to be in charge of us and that doesn’t feel appropriate.”
