The social layer was Theo's idea, and it was the one I initially resisted and then became deeply grateful for. Theo had been talking to neighbors—quietly, carefully. Theo is not the type to cause a scene, but systematically.
Turns out I wasn't the only person in Millbrook Pines who had a problem with Constance's board.
There was a couple on Birchwood Court who'd been fined repeatedly for having a service vehicle in their driveway.
There was an older woman on Maple Run who'd been denied a variance to add a wheelchair ramp to her front door—denied at first until she got an ADA attorney involved.
There was a retired schoolteacher named Winifred Polk who had been trying for two years to call a membership meeting to vote on the clubhouse renovation costs, and who kept finding that the required petition signatures were being "lost" by the management company.
Winifred, it turned out, was a force of nature in sensible shoes. She had her own file of meeting minutes, her own copies of the CC&Rs, and opinions about parliamentary procedure that could make a grown man sit down. She also had the phone numbers of about 60 homeowners and was very interested in what Shepherd had found about the 2018 loan.
We started meeting on Sunday evenings at Theo's house. Winifred brought a legal pad. Priya brought her laptop. I brought whatever Denise had baked that week, which was usually banana bread, because Denise bakes when she's stressed, and we'd all been pretty stressed. The coffee was bad, and the solidarity was excellent.
The berm was built, the letter was sent, the coalition was forming. All we needed now was rain.
Constance received Shepherd's letter on a Wednesday. We know this because Shepherd sent it certified mail, and the tracking showed delivery at 10:47 a.m. By 3:15 that same afternoon, she'd called an emergency board session.
By Thursday morning, I had a hand-delivered notice on my door—not via the U.S. mail, hand-delivered—informing me that I had violated three additional HOA covenants: my new berm allegedly violated the community's grading guidelines, exceeded a permitted slope angle for residential landscaping, and had been installed without HOA approval for modifications to the "community visual corridor," whatever that meant.
New fine: $900.
I photographed the notice and sent a photo to Shepherd.
Denise was next to me. Theo was two rows back, Cardinals cap on, arms folded, watching everything with the patience of a man who has been waiting a long time.