Man Secretly Builds Trail Connecting Two Neighborhoods—Without Owning the Land or Getting Permits
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Imagine buying a home in an HOA with a pond in your backyard and no neighbors directly behind you.
What would you do if one of your neighbors started acting like the pond and land around it, which is owned by the HOA and not by the homeowners, is his land? How would you stop him from making changes to this land that he does not own?
In this story, one homeowner is in this exact situation. The neighbor wants to create a trail, but he is creating a bigger problem by hacking away trees on land he doesn’t own and causing an erosion issue.
Yikes! I’d be furious if I lived in that neighborhood!
Keep reading for all the details and to see how one homeowner is trying to get this guy to stop!
Neighbor claiming HOA land
Back story: 40ish year old man, married with 3 kids. Has history of showing up randomly on other people’s properties at odd hours, like nighttime, uninvited.
Lived in the neighborhood over 10 years. Wakes up at noonish and starts his “expeditions” then normally comes back around 7 at bath and bed time to continue. Daily.
The land is behind our neighborhood retention pond which we border and is also restricted hoa land because of it being a watershed area. This spills into a creek which has been actively eroding for years.
Our land goes to the creek and is bordered by another neighborhood HOA land area on the other side of the creek.
Why does this guy think he has the right to modify land that’s not his?
Three years ago he decided he was going to build a super trail from our neighborhood to other neighborhoods because his 10 year old had a friend in one of the bordering neighborhoods about 3/4 mile away.
This put him directly behind our house raking and cutting down small trees which we told him to stop doing.
He didn’t listen putting him back there the next day and leading to verbal exchange between he and my husband that was not pleasant.
So he moved over to the land across the creek behind the retention pond, raking and cutting land that is not his or even close to his.
Yikes! This guy needs to stop!
This is year 3 of this “construction” and he has since been told the last 2 springs by the hoa to stay off the land and there were no trespassing signs put up.
He got around this by spending the majority of his time on the other neighborhoods hoa land.
Well this year we have a new hoa board and he has now made a bridge over the creek about 20 feet from our backyard property line.
Mainly the issue is that he has pick axed several feet into the side of the creek on each side and caused an even more severe erosion problem. This affects our real estate and safety due to falling trees so it is an issue.
The neighbor seems to have recruited other neighbors to help.
Secondary issue, is that we bought this land so that we do not have neighbors next to us doing whatever the hell they please.
But it gets better, he’s partnered with some other man or men possibly from other neighborhoods to make this trail and one has been over there hacking away at stuff too.
He maintains that this is “for the children” yet the only people I have seen back there are adult men in the last 3 years! And one was already arrested for trespassing in a neighbors yard.
Maybe he’ll finally stop.
I have 2 kids and this makes me extremely uncomfortable.
I have since notified the new HOA board and told him to stay the hell out of there, but given this is year 3 of him disregarding an disrespecting everyone, I am not hopeful that it sticks.
Since notifying the hoa he has not been back there that I know of so I’m hopeful they threatened him with a no trespassing order.
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Why is he using this land for his own boredom!?! Fix your own life and yard.
That guy needs to stay off land he doesn’t own!
Let’s see what Reddit suggests.
Here’s a suggestion.
If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a feud that starts between neighbors after one reports an illegal drainage issue and the other can’t let it go.
Here’s some more advice.
As strict as most HOAs are, I’m surprised this neighbor has been able to make as much progress as he has. I would’ve expected the project to get shut down immediately and for the neighbor to have to pay huge fines for damaging community land.
Hopefully the new HOA takes the issue seriously. This project should not be allowed to continue.
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