"The ones who don't what?" I asked. "Disappear into the subsurface water?"
"They find that living here becomes difficult." She smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile of a shark that had just spotted a seal with a limp.
"Monday, 8:00 a.m. Gate unlocked. Have a blessed day."
She turned on her heel and marched away, her sensible shoes clicking on the pavement. I watched her go, the rage simmering in my gut like a pot of chili left on the stove too long.
I looked at the letter again. $150 a day. That was over four grand a month. It was extortion. But it wasn't about the money. It was about the principle. It was about the fact that she wanted to be able to waltz into my backyard, probably to critique my lawn furniture or complain that my grass was a millimeter too high, and use drainage as the excuse.
I walked back into my house and slammed the front door. The sound echoed through the hallway. I went straight to the kitchen, poured the cold coffee down the sink, and pulled a beer out of the fridge. It was 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday. I didn't care.
I sat at the kitchen island and stared at my phone. I needed a plan. I couldn't fight the HOA on their own turf.
They had the lawyers, the bylaws, and the sheer boredom-fueled determination of retired people with nothing better to do. If I fought them in court, I'd go broke before they ran out of meetings. I needed a loophole. I needed something that superseded the HOA bylaws.
I scrolled through my contacts and found Dave, lawyer. Sort of. Dave was an old college buddy. He wasn't a property lawyer. He was a corporate contract guy, but he knew how to read the fine print better than anyone I knew. I hit dial.
"Mikey," Dave answered on the second ring. "To what do I owe the pleasure? Did you finally decide to sue that pizza place for putting pineapple on your order?"
"Worse," I said. "HOA."
"Oh, gross. Hang up. Sell the house. Move to a van down by the river. It's the only way."
"I'm serious, Dave. The president, this lady, Mrs. Higgins, she's claiming she needs unfettered access to my backyard for drainage inspections. She wants me to leave the gate unlocked all day, every day. She threatened to fine me $150 a day if I don't."
Dave let out a low whistle. "Drainage, huh? That's the classic catch-all. It's hard to disprove without hiring your own geological surveyor. What do the bylaws say?"
"She quoted some section about emergency maintenance and preventing blight."
"Yeah, standard boilerplate. Here's the thing, Mike. If you signed the CC&Rs, covenants, conditions, and restrictions, you technically gave them permission to enter for specific reasons. If you lock them out, you are technically in breach of contract."
"So, I'm screwed. I just have to let this lady wander around my yard while I'm trying to work."
"Not necessarily," Dave said. I could hear him typing on a keyboard in the background. "See, there's a difference between access and liability."
"If they demand access, they assume the liability for entering the property. But if there is a known hazard on the property and you have adequately warned them, the liability gets tricky. It shifts. If the property is deemed hazardous for entry due to, say, construction or security measures, they can't just waltz in without assuming the risk of bodily harm."
"Security measures?" I asked. "Like a dog?"
"A dog is good," Dave said. "But dogs are tricky. If a dog bites someone, even an intruder, depending on the state, you can be put down. I mean the dog, not you. And you could be sued. But if it's not a pet, if it's livestock or a security animal that isn't classified as a domestic companion..."
"Livestock." I looked out the window at my manicured suburban lawn. "Dave, I live in a subdivision. I can't have cows."
"Check your zoning," Dave said. "Not the HOA rules. The city zoning. Sometimes the city ordinances supersede the HOA restrictions, especially regarding sustainability or urban farming. A lot of places passed laws recently allowing chickens or other fowl to encourage self-sufficiency. If the city says you can have them, the HOA usually has a harder time banning them outright, especially if they aren't permanent structures."
"Fowl," I repeated. "Yeah. Chickens, ducks, geese."
"Geese."
"Geese are the ultimate security system, Mike. The Romans used them to guard the Capitol. They are territorial, loud, and mean as hell. And here's the kicker."
"In many jurisdictions, if you post warning signs and the person enters anyway, especially if they are not a police officer with a warrant, liability can shift. You told them it was dangerous. They entered. Their problem."
A slow smile spread across my face. It felt evil. It felt wonderful.
"Geese. Just check the zoning first," Dave warned. "And Mike, don't get the nice ones. If you're going to do this, you need the ones that woke up and chose violence."
I hung up the phone and immediately opened my laptop. I went to the city's municipal code website. I searched for residential poultry. There it was. Ordinance 44B. Residents in Zone R2 low-density residential are permitted to keep up to six fowl for the purpose of egg production or pest control provided they are contained within a fenced area and have access to adequate shelter.
I checked the HOA bylaws. I had a digital copy saved from when I bought the house. I Ctrl-F'd for poultry. Nothing. Livestock.
Nothing. Animals. Section 9.
Pets. Residents are limited to three. Three domestic dogs or cats. No exotic animals such as tigers, monkeys, or venomous snakes.
No mention of birds, no mention of fowl. They had forgotten to ban farm birds because who in their right mind would put farm birds in a half-million-dollar suburban home? Me. I was that person.
I grabbed my keys. I didn't even finish my beer. I had work to do. I drove about 45 minutes out of the city past the endless strip malls and gas stations until the roads turned from asphalt to gravel. I was looking for a place called Sunnyside Hatchery and Farm, which I had found on Craigslist. The ad simply said, "We sell birds, all kinds, cash only."
I pulled my SUV up to a dilapidated barn. A man in overalls and a hat that looked like it had been chewed on by a goat walked out to meet me. He was wiping his hands on a rag that was greasier than the engine block of a '72 Ford.
"Help you?" he grunted.
"I'm looking for geese," I said. "I need six of them."
He looked me up and down. I was wearing a polo shirt and boat shoes. I looked like exactly what I was, a suburbanite lost in the country.
"You want him for eating or eggs?"
"Guard duty," I said.