Your house will continue to move up and down and you will have to shim doors and windows and patch cracked sheet rock, etc for the life of ownership.

They need this so when they come back to honor the warranty, they know where to find the piers so they can add shims.

Screw 1/2 inch rock up there into the joists and you won't have a problem, if there is not much settlement, and if so, use wood shims to level it out.Don't forget all your trim will have to be redone and get extensions for your door jams as your walls will be thicker.

Evidently the "Do Not Enter" sign with "We will shoot" written beneath it wasn't a bluff.

It's not unlike a property with a title issue - if you don't clearly own the land and/or it's mineral rights, you shouldn't expect to take anything from it.I'd say your example about weaving a basket isn't necessarily a fair comparison, because the product that you're creating wouldn't have been generated from the dirt beneath your feet (i.e. - your basket isn't growing out of the ground - which is HOA property), whereas the produce of the garden would be.

The last recommendation (quick hack), if you search the address in Zillow, and click on facts and features, then look beneath property details, on the right, you will see the "Lot" header.

When roof shingles get about half life, it's a good idea to seal the shingles with a clear roofing sealant to preserve them and the wood beneath. 

Second, this toilet likely has been a problem for awhile (it was and rotted the floor beneath).

As @Joe Splitrock mentioned, this is odd, but this kind of oddity is almost a standard feature of real estate -- the unexpected happens and you have to be ready for the earth beneath you to shift at any time, prepared for the unlikely, braced for the impossible.

Because it has a basement with easy access it'll be a piece of cake to jack it and shim it if I decide to.