"We like to keep things a certain way around here. You'll find the standards handbook very thorough."
She walked around my house, not inside, around, taking notes on my fence height, trash can placement, and the color of my garage-door trim. I stood on my own porch watching this woman inspect my property like a health inspector grading a taco stand.
I'd evaluated 200 subdivisions across Texas in my career. I knew a power trip the second I smelled one.
Lily started to settle in. She made a friend, Maya Henderson, three doors down.
They rode bikes after school while I rebuilt the workshop and pretended the quiet didn't still catch me off guard. Katherine's absence had a sound, a kitchen timer going off with nobody calling out to check it.
Two weeks after we moved in, the grid backed me up. A summer surge knocked out half of Collin County for 14 hours straight.
ERCOT buckled under the load. Every house on our street went dark at 2:00 in the afternoon when the heat index hit 106.
Lily's insulin pump beeped a low battery warning by hour three. By hour six, the refrigerator had gone warm and her backup insulin pen was sitting in a fridge that read 78 degrees.
I drove 40 minutes to the nearest CVS at 2:00 in the morning, bought a replacement vial, and drove back with the AC on full blast and a cooler bag wedged between the seats. That night I ordered a Generac 22 kW standby generator and filed for a 200 amp panel upgrade with Collin County.
The inspector came out, signed off on every connection, clean, legal, documented. The kind of install I used to approve when I carried a PUC badge.
72 hours after the Generac hummed to life, I found a letter in my mailbox. HOA violation notice.
Outdoor mechanical equipment in violation of section 4.7, community aesthetic standards. Removal required within 30 days.
Fine, $250 per day. I looked at the signature, Tammy Pritchard, president, Pecan Hollow Estates HOA.
nine years in the chair. I folded the letter, slid it into a file folder, and wrote the date on the tab.
Old habits from the PUC. You never know when a paper trail is going to save your life.
I responded the way I would have responded at the PUC, with paperwork. I sent a certified letter to the HOA board, return receipt requested.
I attached my Collin County electrical permit, the signed inspection report, and a highlighted copy of Texas Property Code Section 209.009, which prohibits HOAs from banning safety devices that have been approved by a governmental entity. I kept the language polite, professional.
The kind of letter that says, I've done this before, without having to spell it out. Tammy didn't respond to the letter.
She responded to the idea that someone had the nerve to send one. The fines started running.
$250 a day. By the end of the first week, the ledger showed $1,750.
By the end of the second, it doubled. I didn't pay a dime.
I knew those fines were built on a violation that didn't exist, and I knew that under Texas law an HOA can't enforce a fine that contradicts a county-issued permit. But knowing the law and proving it are two different games.
And Tammy was betting I wouldn't bother playing the second one. I attended the next board meeting, first Tuesday of the month, 7:00 in the Pecan Hollow clubhouse, a converted pool house that smelled like Maxwell House coffee and carpet cleaner.
The air conditioning was cranked to 64 degrees, which felt like a meat locker after the 102 degrees outside. Tammy sat at the head of a folding table flanked by three board members who looked like hostages at a press conference.
Brenda Kay, the secretary, sat beside her with a laptop ready to transcribe whatever version of reality Tammy preferred. I stood up during open comment period and presented my case.