The letters arrive in clusters every spring across the metro's master-planned subdivisions, and they're rarely a surprise to anyone who walks their own street honestly. Here's how the enforcement cycle actually runs, the eight things a drive-by flags, what clearing each one costs, and the playbook for closing a notice before it escalates.
Photos in, flat quote out — loaded from the side yard or garage, never the curb
Upload Photos & Get Quote →It feels like a crackdown. It's mostly a calendar collision.
Winter damage becomes visible. Dead vegetation from a cold snap, a leaning fence panel, patio furniture that spent four months degrading in weather. None of it changed in March — it just became obvious once everything around it turned green again.
Homeowners start projects. Spring is when people trim, tear out beds, replace fences and start the deck. Every one of those produces a pile that lives in plain view for longer than intended.
Associations inspect on a schedule. Boards tend to walk or drive the neighborhood ahead of spring meetings and the start of the growing season. So the inspection that generates letters happens in the same few weeks that the yards look their worst.
The practical implication: the window is predictable. If you clear before the drive-by, there's no letter to answer.
Specifics vary by association and by covenant, and Texas property-code procedures govern how notice has to be given before an association can levy a fine. Read your own documents rather than a blog post — including this one. But the shape is consistent:
1. The inspection. A drive-by or walk, generating a list of addresses.
2. A courtesy notice. Often the first contact, often friendly, and often ignored — which is the mistake, because it's the cheapest moment to resolve anything.
3. A formal violation notice with a cure period. Around 30 days is common; the only number that counts is the one on your letter.
4. Escalation. Fines, loss of amenity privileges, and in serious cases legal costs. This is where it gets genuinely expensive relative to the cost of just hauling the pile.
The single highest-value move: if you can't meet the date, say so in writing before it passes. Associations respond far better to a homeowner who supplies a date than to silence.
Narrower than people fear, and more specific. An inspector notes what's visible from the street — not what's inside your house, and generally not what's behind a solid fence. Eight categories account for nearly every spring letter in this metro.
The most common, and the most self-inflicted. A sofa put out "for pickup" that sits through a weekend is a covenant violation in most of these subdivisions regardless of whether a collection date is genuinely coming.
The cost to clear: sofa $126, queen mattress $103, refrigerator $164, washer $133, dryer $128, large TV $73 — carried out of the house rather than staged outside it. The full HOA bulk-trash rules by subdivision.
The side yard is where things go to be forgotten, and on a lot of these lots it's fully visible from the street or from a neighbor's second floor. Stacked pots, leftover pavers, a disassembled bed frame, the old grill.
The cost to clear: usually a loose pile — $82 small, $129 medium, $208 large — or a quarter truck at $241 once it's genuinely accumulated.
The irony of spring: doing the yard work generates the violation. Oaks get trimmed, beds get cut back, and the pile sits by the driveway waiting for a collection window that may be weeks out.
The cost to clear: clean brush and yard waste at $88 per cubic yard — the cheapest material we haul, because it routes to composting. A full trimming session is often a quarter truck at $241. Brush and yard waste removal.
What the cold killed and the spring exposed. Dead shrubs, frozen-out beds, a tree limb that came down and stayed down.
The cost to clear: same $88 per cubic yard for clean organic material. Worth pairing with the trimming so it's one visit rather than two. We haul what's already cut — cutting, felling and stump grinding are arborist work, with different equipment and insurance, and we'll say so rather than take the job.
Central Texas is hard on outdoor furniture — UV, heat, then a freeze. What looked tired in October looks derelict in March, and a visible back patio counts on plenty of lots.
The cost to clear: patio chair $30, patio umbrella $53, outdoor lounge chair $61, patio table $89. Note the crossover — a table and four chairs is $208 individually, which is the same as a large loose pile and cheaper than a quarter truck, so per-item wins on a small patio set.
Every third garage has a mower that hasn't started since the drought and a grill that rusted through two summers ago.
The cost to clear: charcoal grill $59, lawn mower $65, smoker $65, propane grill $71, set of tires $87. Propane tanks must be detached and handled separately — a full tank can't ride on the truck.
Trampolines and swing sets outlive the children who wanted them by about six years, and a rusting play structure is a common covenant note in the newer subdivisions.
The cost to clear: trampoline $116, swing set $143, both disassembled by the crew — you don't take them apart first.
The half-replaced fence, the deck boards bought in November, the pallet of pavers. Building material stacked in view is one of the fastest-escalating categories, because it reads as ongoing rather than finished.
The cost to clear: construction and deck debris at $120 per cubic yard, or truck-fill from $241. Treated lumber and hardware price on the construction line rather than the cheaper brush line. Construction debris removal.
Worth its own section because it's the sleeper. Many covenants address keeping the garage door closed, and a garage packed to the door is a garage that stays open — which turns an interior storage problem into a visible one, and often into a car parked on the street, which is its own violation in some subdivisions.
Clearing the garage frequently resolves two or three notes at once. A packed two-car garage is typically a half truck at $431; a three-car bay or a genuinely full one runs $587 to $732. Garage cleanout details.
| The job | Flat price |
|---|---|
| A couple of items (minimum) | $75 |
| Brush & clean yard waste — per cubic yard | $88 |
| Construction & deck debris — per cubic yard | $120 |
| Loose pile — small / medium / large | $82 / $129 / $208 |
| Quarter truck — a typical spring list | $241 |
| Three-eighths truck | $338 |
| Half truck — a packed two-car garage | $431 |
| Three-quarter truck | $587 |
| Full 16-cu-yd truck | $732 |
| Hot tub, if the deck project ends there | $322 |
Loading, the carry from wherever it sits, disposal and donation routing are inside every number, and we quote both per-item and per-truck automatically so you pay the lower one. Full Austin price list.
This is the step that turns one problem into two. Much of the metro's master-planned housing sits outside Austin city limits or is served by contracted collection rather than the City of Austin's on-demand bulk program — so the free pickup people picture frequently isn't available at the address at all.
And even where a collection date genuinely exists, staging material at the curb for days ahead of it is often the exact violation you're trying to cure. The covenant doesn't care that a truck is coming Thursday; it cares that there's a sofa on the lawn Monday.
Confirm your own collection terms with your HOA or waste provider rather than with a search result — contracted terms differ subdivision to subdivision and aren't published the way a city program is. Bulk pickup vs paid removal · what no program takes.
Day 0 — read the letter properly. Note the specific covenant cited, the specific condition described, and the deadline. Vague reading is why people cure the wrong thing.
Day 1 — walk your own street. Stand where the inspector stood. You'll usually see one or two things the letter didn't mention yet, and clearing them in the same visit costs nothing extra.
Day 2 — get the quote and book inside the window. Don't book for the deadline; book for a week before it, so weather or a schedule change doesn't eat your margin.
Same day — everything leaves at once. No staging, no partial progress that looks like a new pile.
After — photograph it and reply in writing. A dated photo and a short note closing the loop is what stops a cured violation from resurfacing at the next meeting. This costs five minutes and is skipped constantly.
Sofa $126, queen mattress $103, refrigerator $164 with EPA refrigerant recovery, washer $133, dryer $128. Carried from inside, so nothing ever reaches the lawn. Appliance removal.
$88 per cubic yard for clean organic material — the cheapest line we have. A trimming session is commonly a quarter truck at $241.
Chair $40, umbrella $53, lounge chair $82, table $120. A table plus four chairs totals $208, which matches the large-loose-pile rate and beats a quarter truck.
Charcoal grill $59, mower $65, smoker $65, propane grill $71, tire set $87. Detach propane tanks first.
Trampoline $116, swing set $143, disassembly included.
$162 per cubic yard — treated lumber, hardware and composite all price on the construction line, not the brush line. Renovation debris guide.
Half truck $431 typical, up to $732 full. Frequently resolves several notes in one visit.
$434, sectioned on site and carried out in pieces — the item no collection program in the metro accepts. Hot tub removal.
Paint, solvents, pesticides, fertilizers, pool chemicals and full propane tanks all route to household hazardous waste channels. Garages in these neighborhoods accumulate every one of them, so walk through before we arrive.
Spring letters go out in batches, which means your neighbors likely got one too. If two or three houses clear on the same visit, a shared truck usually beats three separate small jobs and three separate minimums — and a block that cures together stops being the block the board talks about. It's worth a text to the two houses either side of you before you book.
Covenant enforcement is strongest in the master-planned subdivisions on every side of the city: Circle C and South Austin's newer sections, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Leander and Pflugerville to the north, Buda, Kyle and Hutto on the outer ring, and Steiner Ranch, Lakeway and Georgetown to the west and north.
The central neighborhoods — Hyde Park, Crestview, East Austin — mostly don't have associations, and their equivalent pressure is city code rather than covenant. Different letterhead, similar clock. Curb rules in the city proper.
Clear before the drive-by, not after the letter. The spring inspection window is one of the few genuinely predictable things about living under covenants — it happens in roughly the same weeks every year, and it flags roughly the same eight things. A quarter truck at $241 in February is the same work as a quarter truck at $241 in April, except one of them comes with a deadline, a paper trail, and a conversation at the next board meeting. Walk your own street, price the list, and the letter never arrives.
Free photo quote — loaded from the side yard or garage, never the curb
Upload Photos & Get Quote →Three things line up. Winter damage becomes visible once the weather breaks — dead vegetation, a collapsed fence panel, patio furniture that didn't survive. Homeowners start their own projects, which produces brush piles and stacked materials in plain view. And associations tend to schedule inspections ahead of spring meetings and the start of the growing season, so the drive-by that generates letters happens in the same weeks. It's less a crackdown than a calendar collision.
It varies by association and by the specific covenant, and Texas property-code procedures apply to how notice must be given before an association can fine. A cure period of around 30 days is common, but the only number that matters is the one printed on your letter — read it, note the deadline, and if you can't meet it, say so in writing before it passes rather than after. Associations respond far better to a homeowner who communicates a date than to silence.
Whatever is visible from the street, which is a narrower list than people fear and a more specific one. In practice: bulk items staged at the curb, visible storage down the side yard, brush and debris piles, dead vegetation, a garage door left open on a packed garage, deteriorated patio furniture, stalled project materials, and trailers or boats parked where covenants don't allow. What's inside the house and behind a solid fence is generally not the issue.
That's the move that turns one problem into two in most of these subdivisions. Much of the Austin metro's master-planned housing sits outside Austin city limits or is served by contracted collection rather than the City of Austin's on-demand bulk program, so the free pickup people picture often isn't available at the address. Even where a collection date exists, staging material at the curb for days ahead of it is frequently the exact covenant violation you're trying to cure. Confirm your own collection terms with your HOA or provider before planning around them.
Brush and clean yard waste haul at $88 per cubic yard, the cheapest material we take. Individual items price on their own: patio chair $30, patio umbrella $53, charcoal grill $59, lawn mower $65, patio table $89, trampoline $116, swing set $143. A packed garage runs a half to a full truck at $431 to $732. Most spring lists land between the $75 minimum and a $241 quarter truck.
Yes, and in a covenant neighborhood that's the whole point. Everything is carried from the side yard, the back yard or inside the garage directly onto the truck, and the truck leaves with it. Nothing is ever staged where a neighbor or an inspector sees it, which means the cure happens without a second violation being created on the way.