Heaven help you if your grass hits 2 inches or your car stays parked five minutes past visitor regulations. The trouble started when my new neighbors discovered they owned backyards.
Weekend barbecues, classic rock at volumes that could wake Gramps in his grave. Nothing criminal, just suburban folks being suburban folks.
But when you're trying to read at sunset and someone's channeling their inner rockstar 300 yards away, well, a man needs boundaries. So, I planned a fence.
six-foot cedar privacy barrier along my property line.
The posts were already cut. Smooth timber that smelled like Christmas morning.
Rough bark texture under my work gloves. Simple project, perfectly legal.
I'm setting the first post one Tuesday morning, boots crunching on gravel when I hear the cavalry approaching. Click, click, click across hot asphalt, sweet honeysuckle scent mixing with her overpowering perfume.
"Excuse me." Bethany marched toward me like I'd personally insulted her BMW.
"You cannot erect structures without HOA approval." I lean on my post hole digger, take in this woman wearing workout clothes that cost more than most people's monthly rent.
"Ma'am, this property isn't in your HOA." She laughed.
That special laugh reserved for people she considers mentally deficient.
"Everything in this area falls under our community standards. You need applications, review fees, board approval."
"Lady," I said, watching her stand there radiating entitlement, "this land belonged to my family before your HOA was even a twinkle in some developer's eye." Her plastic smile cracked.
Something ugly flickered underneath as she muttered about property values and undesirable elements before click-clicking back to her fortress. Next morning, official violation notice taped to my fence post.
$500 per day for unauthorized construction in violation of community standards.
I held that paper up to the sunlight streaming through my grandfather's oak trees, trees older than Bethany's entire subdivision, chuckled and filed it in my interesting documents folder, right behind 60 years of carefully preserved land records. If Queen Bethany wanted to play legal games, she'd picked the wrong property owner.
See, Gramps didn't just buy land in 1962. He bought something much more valuable, something Pinnacle's lawyers had apparently missed when they carved up available property for development.
But I wasn't about to spoil the surprise just yet. Sometimes you have to let folks dig their own holes before you show them how deep they've gone.
Bethany didn't waste time licking her wounds. 3 days after our fence chat, she called an emergency HOA board meeting.
Nothing says democracy like cramming five retirees into someone's living room to rubber stamp your personal vendetta. My neighbor Jim Patel knocked on my door that evening, shifting his weight like a man delivering bad news.
"Dutch, thought you should know. Bethany's got photos of your place, calling it a ramshackle eyesore threatening property values."
Photos of my cabin.
The one Gramps built with timber he milled himself. Still standing solid while half these new houses already need foundation repairs.
I could smell the rich earth from Jim's prize tomato garden mixing with evening air and hear kids playing in backyards that were well, that's where things got interesting. The board meeting lasted 12 minutes.