Chapter 1 — The HOA Dictator
At 2:00 a.m., my front door crashed open.
Trevor Ashworth walked into my house and started searching through my belongings.
I grabbed my phone and called 911.
He looked at me and said:
“My mom runs the HOA, so I can go wherever I want.”
Three months earlier, I had moved into Willowbrook Estates with my sixteen-year-old daughter, Zoe.
I was Marcus Rodriguez, an electrician and single father. I wanted nothing more than a quiet home after my divorce.
Instead, I met Vivian Ashworth.
Vivian had appointed herself the neighborhood's “standards coordinator,” although that position didn't exist in the HOA bylaws.
Three weeks after I moved in, she gave me my first violation notice.
My mailbox was the wrong color.
The bylaws said nothing about mailbox colors.
When I asked her to show me the rule, she hung up.
The next notice claimed I had an excessive number of garden decorations.
I had one garden gnome.
Then came complaints about my trash cans, garden hose, window screens, driveway, and weekend repairs.
Vivian drove past my house every morning, taking photographs.
My elderly neighbor Dolores eventually warned me that I wasn't the first person she had targeted.
“She drove the family before you out of this neighborhood,” Dolores told me.
I began documenting everything.
Then Vivian arrived at my house with Trevor.
She claimed she was conducting a property inspection.
I refused to let her enter.
“Show me the exact bylaw that gives you permission.”
She couldn't.
Trevor stepped forward.
“She runs this place.”
“No. She's a volunteer on the HOA committee.”
Trevor smiled.