Before that, I built a fence.
Five thousand dollars.
Surveyed line.
Steel posts.
High-tensile field wire where terrain allowed.
Clearly marked private property.
Forty-eight hours later, almost eighty feet had been cut.
Not unclipped.
Cut.
Multiple places.
I photographed everything.
Called the sheriff.
Sheriff Dean Hollis arrived almost three hours later.
He looked around.
“Any camera?”
“Not on this section.”
“Witnesses?”
“No.”
“Then I can file property damage.”
“Someone came from Oakhaven.”
“Probably.”
“Probably isn’t evidence.”
I pointed toward freshly trampled grass leading directly toward their beach.
Dean sighed.
“Jack.”
“Try not to let this become a feud.”
“It already is.”
“You could save yourself trouble by working out access.”
“So if someone vandalizes my fence, I should reward them?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You almost did.”
Dean looked irritated.
“Be a good neighbor.”
That sentence made me hate him for about six months.
Later, I learned his campaign committee had received donations from several Oakhaven residents and companies associated with Pendleton contractors.
Nothing illegal by itself.
Still ugly.
The HOA letters began in July.
First:
PEELING PAINT — BOATHOUSE EXTERIOR.
FINE: $500.
I laughed.
My property was not in Oakhaven.
Second:
VISIBLE AGRICULTURAL EQUIPMENT — 1984 FORD TRACTOR.
FINE: $1,000.
I framed that one.
Third:
WOOD-SMOKE NUISANCE.
Fourth:
UNAPPROVED SHORELINE STRUCTURE.
That referred to a dock Grandpa built in 1978.
Margaret claimed my property fell inside an “aesthetic impact corridor.”
I wrote one response.
I AM NOT A MEMBER OF YOUR ASSOCIATION.
NO COVENANT ENCUMBERS MY DEED.
DO NOT CONTACT ME WITH FURTHER HOA VIOLATION NOTICES.
The letters continued.
Then Arthur sued.
Pendleton Holdings and the Oakhaven Property Owners Association filed together.
The complaint was ninety-eight pages.
They sought declaratory rights to lake access.
An easement theory.
Claims concerning historical use during construction.
Claims that the water should be treated as functionally shared.
Claims that denying residents access damaged property values created in reliance upon the reservoir.
They also alleged my fence interfered with previously established access routes.
And, somehow, the peeling boathouse became evidence that I was maintaining a nuisance.
I needed a lawyer.
My grandfather’s old attorney was Peter Sullivan.
Peter was sixty-eight and looked perpetually annoyed by modern technology.
His office still smelled like paper.
He read the complaint.
Then said:
“This is aggressive.”
“Can they win?”
“They can make winning expensive.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Peter removed his glasses.
“The easement arguments are weak if the title history says what you say.”
“But courts do strange things.”
“And they have money.”
“How much money?”
“Enough to make you tired.”
That turned out to be accurate.