Now, Delores Hartwell, she moved into Cedar Brook Estates 2 years after me. Big colonial on the cul-de-sac, three-car garage. A lawn service that came every Thursday. She volunteered for the HOA board almost immediately, and within 18 months, she'd maneuvered herself into the president seat after the previous president, a quiet retired school teacher named Margaret, stepped down after Delores made her life miserable over a wind chime. Yes, a wind chime.
Delores was somewhere in her mid-50s, sharp-dressed, the kind of woman who sends certified letters about dandelions. She had a way of smiling while she was twisting the knife that I can only describe as deeply impressive in a reptilian sort of way. She held HOA board meetings at her house instead of the community center, which meant only people she liked actually showed up. She issued fines the way some people issue opinions, constantly, confidently, and often without basis. Her first unfair act against me came about 8 months after she took the president chair.
I'd added a small workshop lean-to on the back of my garage. Nothing fancy, a corrugated metal roof, pressure-treated posts, a concrete pad. It was behind my fence line, not visible from the street, and I'd pulled the county permit before breaking ground. By the book, completely. Delores sent me a notice anyway.
Unapproved structure, $150 fine, removal required within 30 days. I wrote back with a copy of my county permit and a polite note explaining that the HOA's own CC&Rs—that's the covenants, conditions, and restrictions, the governing document every HOA runs on. Specifically exempted structures not visible from the street and under 200 square feet. My lean-to was 180. I measured it three times.
She fined me again, $200 this time. Failure to comply with board directive. I appealed. The appeal board, which consisted of Delores and two of her friends from her Tuesday morning book club, denied it in 11 minutes. So, I paid a real estate attorney $300 for a 1-hour consult, sent Delores a demand letter on actual letterhead, and watched her rescind the fine inside 48 hours without a single word of acknowledgement.
The smell of victory there was faint. Just a whiff of printer ink and stale conference room air, but I noted something important. Delores backed down when faced with a credible legal threat. She was a bully who'd built her kingdom on people not fighting back. I filed that away.
The next 2 years were a low-grade cold war. She'd cite me for something. I'd document everything and respond in writing. She'd back off. My neighbor Theo called it bureaucratic judo.
That's exactly what it was. The problem with cold wars, though, is that they can always go hot. And hot came on a Wednesday morning in early March when Delores's son Preston backed her Jeep out of their driveway at what the skid marks later measured as approximately 34 mph in a residential zone and drove it straight into my retaining wall. The sound was something between a gunshot and a thunderclap. I was in my kitchen, back to the window, when the whole house seemed to flinch.