That’s when I see it—this little smirk, like she’s done this dance before, like she thinks I’m just another mark. “These covenants are legally binding,” she says, and her overpowering lavender perfume clashes with the honest prairie smells. “We’ll file liens if necessary. Contact county commissioners. Make this very difficult for you.”
She hands me printed emails supposedly from the previous landowner, but something’s off. Weird formatting, sketchy timestamps, amateur hour forgery. “I need to see actual legal documents,” I tell her.
Suddenly she’s evasive. “They’re filed with the county. Look them up yourself.” Then she just walks away, heels clicking back to her mansion, leaving me with obvious fake paperwork.
But here’s what really got me—she threatened liens, legal action, county involvement on a guy she’d known for exactly three minutes. That’s not confused neighbor behavior. That’s predator behavior. See, I might just be a diesel mechanic from Montana, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I grew up where handshake deals still mean something and people don’t try to steal your land with fake paperwork. This woman, this self-appointed president of twelve houses, just declared war on the wrong guy.
That night, lying in bed with the taste of her threats still bitter in my mouth, it hits me. If she’s trying this on me, how many other rural landowners have her and Chadwick scammed? Time to do some homework. First stop, county courthouse. If there are real HOA documents, they’d be recorded there. If not, well, then I know exactly what I’m dealing with—a professional con artist couple who picked the wrong mark.
Thursday morning, I wake up to a certified letter on my kitchen table. Yeah, she hand-delivered it to my house forty miles away. I rip it open and it’s like Christmas morning for lawyers. Official letterhead, fancy legal language, the whole nine yards. Notice of Violation and Assessment in bold letters that smell like fresh printer toner and desperation. Fifteen thousand in back dues, plus penalties, plus interest, plus a $200 processing fee for this very letter. The balls on this woman.
