The frantic cry still haunts Monica Meeker.

It punctured the darkness as she and her husband lay in bed at the end of a fun-filled day celebrating daughter Camilla’s third birthday last October.

She rushed to her daughter’s bedroom and found her hanging from a window, the cord from the blind wrapped tightly around Camilla’s neck.

“She was gasping for air and crying and coughing,” Meeker said. “She had purple ligature marks on her neck for a week.”

The couple took down the blinds that night, replacing them with curtains.

Within two weeks, a letter arrived from the property manager for their homeowners association. The gray curtains they’d put up violated the association’s standards.

And so began the Meekers’ foray into homes association hell — a drama that has played out in homes across the country. Outlandish rules — from the farcical to the frightening — are being enforced by other homes associations. Read more: