Brenda’s proposed shrub arrangement was on the other.
It made me laugh every time I changed a filter.
By November, Brenda escalated outside the HOA.
She filed a complaint with Hays County code enforcement claiming I was operating an unpermitted commercial water-distribution facility.
Mitchell Reeves arrived on a Tuesday morning.
I had already prepared a folder.
Original permits.
Later upgrades.
Inspection history.
Water tests.
Recorded easement.
Site plan.
Maintenance logs.
Mitchell walked through the pump house.
Checked the electrical system.
Reviewed the filtration setup.
Inspected the hatches.
Examined the security.
Then looked through my testing records.
He closed his clipboard.
“Mr. Reigns.”
“Yes?”
“This is one of the cleaner private systems I’ve inspected.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m marking the complaint unfounded.”
“I appreciate it.”
He hesitated.
Then lowered his voice.
“Between us, this is the third complaint Ms. Kesler has sent my office in six months.”
“About me?”
“Not all about you.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“She is, professionally speaking, exhausting.”
I filed his report.
The file dedicated to Brenda was getting thick.
When regulation failed, she shifted to politics.
She circulated a neighborhood petition.
The language described the pump house as a “blight upon the aesthetic integrity of Pinecrest Meadows” and asked the board to take formal action against “nonconforming adjacent infrastructure.”
She collected forty-one signatures.
That meant 101 households did not sign.
Brenda described forty-one out of 142 as “overwhelming community consensus.”
Arthur Pulk disagreed.
Arthur was seventy-one, retired, and had worked for decades as a municipal engineer.
He lived in phase two.
His house was one of the thirty-eight connected to the Reigns system.
He understood exactly what it did.
At the next HOA meeting, Brenda stood in front of the board wearing a cream Chanel blazer and presented her petition.
“We have a responsibility to protect property values.”
Arthur raised one hand.
“May I ask something?”
Brenda looked irritated.
“Briefly.”
Arthur held up the easement disclosure from his own closing documents.
“You understand this system helps maintain our water pressure during restrictions, correct?”
“It supplements pressure.”
“That’s what I said.”
“We now have municipal water.”
“Which is not the same as adequate municipal capacity during drought conditions.”
Brenda smiled.
“The subdivision has functioned beautifully.”
Arthur stared at her.
“Because the supplemental system has been functioning.”
She moved on.
The board voted four to one to spend up to $15,000 from reserves to obtain legal advice about modifying or terminating the easement.
Arthur cast the only opposing vote.
The HOA hired Craig Dunar from Dunar & Rose.
Craig sent Margaret a four-page demand asking that I voluntarily decommission the system.
Margaret called me laughing.
“He’s asking you to shut off the water system his own clients use.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know.”
“He absolutely does not know.”
Margaret responded with the recorded easement, subdivision documents, hydraulic information, and a short explanation of what would happen if the supplemental source disappeared during high-demand restrictions.
Craig reviewed the material.
Then called Brenda.
I was not present for the conversation, but later correspondence made the outcome obvious.
He advised against litigation.
The easement was valid.
The HOA lacked authority over my property.
An injunction asking a judge to force the destruction of infrastructure supporting thirty-eight member homes would be difficult to justify.
Brenda fired him.
Her email was later produced in discovery.
Your services are no longer required. You clearly do not understand what is at stake here.
What was at stake, as far as I could tell, was Brenda’s inability to tolerate seeing three yellow access hatches from certain parts of the subdivision.
She hired another attorney.
Vera Sandoval charged more.
Vera was also more willing to test an argument.
She filed a formal challenge asserting that the supplementary system was no longer necessary because municipal water had reached Pinecrest Meadows.