Landscaping.
They are not designed around the possibility that the person enforcing the rules may be using the association to enrich herself.
The deeper I looked, the less I liked.
Several “board resolutions” Brenda had cited in past violations had never received the owner approval required to amend the governing standards they supposedly changed.
She had been treating ordinary board votes as if they could rewrite covenants.
Then the construction itself began bothering me.
At first it was instinct.
The house went up too fast.
I would stand at the side window and notice framing details in passing.
A header that looked light.
A long span supported strangely.
Truss spacing that seemed wider than expected.
I resisted getting involved.
This was where my professional role complicated everything.
I lived next door.
I was a damaged property owner.
I already had a dispute with the contractor.
If I used my government position personally, even correctly, Brenda could argue retaliation.
And she would.
So I did nothing official.
I observed from my own property.
Then came the day the crane swung a steel beam over my garage.
I was standing in the workshop with Owen.
We were building the frame for a small terrarium because he had decided the Texas spiny lizard population needed “better housing.”
A shadow moved across the garage windows.
I stepped outside.
A steel member hung from the crane cable above the corner of my roof.
Not beside the garage.
Over it.
I felt my entire professional brain switch on.
I walked to the operator.
“You need to stop the lift.”
He looked down.
“Why?”
“You are swinging a suspended load over an occupied structure outside your controlled site.”
“Shortest swing.”
“Shortest does not mean permitted.”
“Lady said we had clearance.”
“What engineered lift plan are you operating under?”
He hesitated.
“What?”
“Who is your competent person? Where is your designated signal person? What ground-bearing assumptions are you using for those outriggers?”
He stared.
I pointed at the beam.
“Put it down.”
“Who are you?”
“Right now? The owner of the occupied structure under your load.”
He set it down.
Smartest decision anyone on that project had made all week.
When the crane retracted, I stood at the garage and looked at Lot 93 carefully.
Really looked.
Then I retrieved binoculars.
What I saw changed the issue.
Several roof trusses appeared spaced more widely than I expected from the submitted style of construction.
Connections visible from my property lacked hardware I would normally expect under the applicable design.
Certain headers appeared inconsistent with the loads being carried.
One steel member’s end connection looked improvised.
The more I observed, the less the building resembled a project being executed from a coordinated engineered plan.
I photographed only what was visible from my property or public areas.
Never crossed the boundary.
Then I looked at the permit board.
WC-2024-04291.
I knew the format.
I photographed it from the sidewalk.
Back inside, I logged into the county system from my authorized work computer.
Then stopped.
Conflict.
I closed the file.
The fact that I could access internal information did not mean I should conduct my personal dispute through privileged channels.
The next morning, I went into the office.
My deputy, Robert Tran, was reviewing inspection assignments.
Robert had worked with me seven years.
Former field inspector.
Impossible to rush.
Impossible to impress with money.
A contractor once tried to take him to a Cowboys game during an active permit dispute.
Robert declined and documented the invitation in the file before the contractor finished leaving the voicemail.
I closed his office door.
“I need to disclose a potential complaint.”
He looked up.
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
“That bad?”
“Possibly.”