I also checked the notice requirements. Colorado Revised Statutes section 38-33.3-209.5 requires that any HOA enforcement action affecting a homeowner's property rights must be preceded by written notice sent to the owner's last known address and any alternative address on file.
I had filed a deployment notification with the HOA before I left, including my APO address at Camp Arifjan. The notification was in my records. Brenda's letter of notice had been sent to 14C Pinecrest Ridge Drive—my house. The house I was not in. The house she knew I was not in, because the entire basis of her action was that I was not in it. She sent the eviction notice to the person she was evicting at the address she was evicting them from.
That's not notice. That's a paper trail designed to look like notice while guaranteeing the recipient never sees it.
Her perfume had been on the board minutes envelope: something floral and thick, the kind of scent that tries to smell expensive and lands somewhere around aggressive. The creased leather of her handbag had left a mark on the second page where she'd carried it folded.
I sat at my kitchen table—Nate's kitchen table, actually, since mine was still locked behind Brenda's brass deadbolts—and I opened a new document on my laptop. I titled it Hayworth Evidence Index. Intelligence analysts build cases the way bricklayers build walls: one fact at a time. Verified, cross-referenced, dated. Every document gets a number. Every number tells a story. And the story was becoming very clear.
I filed a police report the next morning at the Colorado Springs Police Department's Sand Creek division. The officer was professional. He typed everything I said. He nodded in the right places.
Then he closed the laptop. "Sergeant Winslow, I hear you. This sounds like an HOA civil dispute. Lock changes on a property where the HOA claims authority—that's going to be a courtroom thing, not a squad car thing. I can document it, but I can't arrest anyone today."
I expected that. Local law enforcement almost always punts HOA disputes to civil court. The officer wasn't wrong about his jurisdiction; he was wrong about mine. I thanked him, took my case number, and left.
Three days later, Brenda counterattacked. A certified letter arrived at Nate's house; she'd apparently figured out where I was staying. Inside were two documents:
The first was a violation notice for yard deterioration during extended absence, citing dead patches in my front lawn. The fine: $150 per day, retroactive to day 60 of my deployment. Seven months of daily fines: total $31,500. She'd rounded it down to $13,500, which I suppose she considered generous.
The second document was an invoice for property management services rendered by the Pinecrest Ridge HOA during the owner's absence: $4,200 for the privilege of having my locks changed and my house rented to strangers without my knowledge.
Stapled to the invoice was a notice of lien. Brenda had filed a lien against my property for the combined amount: $17,700 against a house I owned free and clear except for my VA mortgage—a house I had purchased with money I earned while wearing the uniform of the United States Army.
I set the papers on Nate's kitchen counter. He read them standing up, the way he probably read situation reports for 24 years. When he finished, he folded his reading glasses and put them in his shirt pocket.