Karen Proudly Called Wildlife Officers on My Fishing — Her Face Dropped When They Shook My Hand
Chapter 3
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That was my first mistake. I should have known she was just warming up.The letter came four days later. Ridgewater Commons letterhead, gold seal, sent certified. Two pages.The first page cited something called Ridgewater Community Enhancement Bylaw 11.3, which supposedly required all adjacent property owners to provide reasonable recreational access to shared natural water features. The second page listed consequences for non-compliance: daily fines of $300, restriction of community services, and referral to the county for code enforcement action.I read it twice at my kitchen table. Connie's table—the one she found at an estate sale in Maryville and refinished the summer before she got sick.Then I pulled out my property deed and the plat survey from 1958. My grandfather's handwriting was still in the margin notes: the lake, the creeks, the road, the fences—all deeded, all private, all recorded with the county register sixty-seven years ago. Ridgewater Commons had exactly zero jurisdiction over my land. Their HOA bylaws applied to their homeowners inside their subdivision, period. I wasn't a member. I never signed their covenants. My property predated their existence by six decades.I wrote a short letter back, attached a copy of the deed and the original plat survey, kept it professional:My property is not within the jurisdiction of the Ridgewater Commons Homeowners Association. No bylaw, covenant, or community resolution applies to my land. Please direct all future correspondence to my attorney.Mailed it certified. Paper trail works both ways.A week later, my neighbor to the south, a quiet cattle farmer named Roy Bledsoe who'd been on that road since before I was born, told me he saw Brenda open my letter in the HOA office, read it, crumple it into a ball, and throw it at her secretary. She said two words Roy could make out clearly through the window: "Watch me."I should have listened harder to that warning.The signs went up on a Tuesday. I was out checking fence on the north ridge when Roy called my cell: "Dale, you better come down here. There's a crew on your fence line."I drove down and found two day laborers bolting metal signs to my fence posts—my posts, on my side of the property line. Six signs in total, professionally printed green and white, spaced every hundred yards along the stretch of fence visible from the Ridgewater lots above. Each one read:No Fishing. Private HOA Water. Violators Will Be Prosecuted. Ridgewater Commons Authority.The workers looked uncomfortable when I pulled up. One of them, a young guy in a ball cap, said, "The lady told us this was HOA property. She paid cash.""It's not HOA property," I said. "You're standing on my land, bolting signs to my fence."He looked at his partner. His partner looked at the ground. They packed up their tools and left without argument.