"You tampered with my car," she snapped without so much as a good morning.
One of the board members, a guy named Leonard who always wore sandals with socks, stepped forward nervously and said, "We just want to talk about what happened last night."
I told them to wait and stepped inside. I came back with a folder. Inside were printouts of every recorded instance Karen had used my power port without permission, with timestamps and video stills included. I handed it to Leonard, who blinked at the growing pile of paper like I just handed him a lawsuit, which wasn't too far from reality.
Karen snatched one of the papers and held it up. "This doesn't prove anything. It was outside. No lock, no sign until recently."
I gestured toward the video camera mounted over the driveway and said, "There's audio, too. In case you forgot, last night you said, and I quote, 'I figured I'd save a few bucks.'"
Leonard's face fell slightly, and the second board member, Diane, looked downright uncomfortable. Karen's confidence cracked, but she wasn't the type to retreat. She doubled down. "I'm filing an HOA complaint for sabotage. You damaged my property," she said.
I shrugged. "Your unauthorized use tripped a surge on a decoy port. That's not my problem. It's documented. You ignored the warnings. You trespassed. And if you want to talk damage, let's talk about what your charging did to my battery bank."
She didn't care. She was already turning back to her car, calling someone on speaker, and telling them to prepare a formal incident response.
That same afternoon, I received a hand-delivered letter, another violation notice from the HOA. This time for installing dangerous electrical equipment without board approval. I laughed so hard I almost dropped it in the recycling bin. Instead, I kept it, knowing it would look fantastic stapled to the counter-complaint I was preparing. I dealt with technical disputes my whole career, but I never imagined I'd be documenting an energy theft case for neighborhood drama.