HOA Karen’s Son Parked in My Driveway—He Screamed When I Towed His $90K Car!

The tow truck driver gave me a friendly wave as the $90,000 Mercedes was dragged off my driveway with its tires locked, alarm screaming, and a designer gym bag tumbling out the open sunroof. Within seconds, Brandon Garrison came sprinting down the street in his expensive sneakers, yelling at the top of his lungs that this was illegal and that the car was a lease.

I sat in my lawn chair sipping my morning coffee and calmly reminded him that parking on my property without permission was also illegal. Three of my neighbors started applauding. One pulled out her phone to record the whole scene. HOA President Linda Garrison, Brandon’s mother, stood frozen on her lawn like she had just witnessed the world ending.

Her face went from pale white to bright red in about 2 seconds. And I knew this was just the beginning of what would become the most satisfying victory of my life. My name is David Palmer and I’m 38 years old. I had just moved to Maple Ridge Estates 6 months ago after selling my software consulting business. All I wanted was a quiet place to enjoy my early retirement, work on some home improvement projects, and maybe finally learn how to play golf.

I bought the corner house specifically because it had a large driveway that wrapped around the side, perfect for my workshop projects and the classic car I was restoring. Linda Garrison had been the HOA president for 13 years, ruling the neighborhood with an iron fist wrapped in passive aggressive newsletters and citations for grass that was half an inch too tall.

Her son Brandon was 26, unemployed, and somehow owned three luxury cars despite having no visible source of income. The math didn’t add up, but that wasn’t my problem until he decided my driveway was his personal parking garage. It started innocently enough about 3 months ago. I came home from the hardware store to find a white Mercedes parked halfway up my driveway.

I figured someone was visiting a neighbor and got confused, so I knocked on a few doors. Linda answered hers with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and said Brandon had just needed to park there for a few minutes while he moved his other cars around. She assured me it wouldn’t happen again, but it did happen again.

the very next day and the day after that. Within a week, Brandon was treating my driveway like his personal parking spot, leaving his car there for hours at a time. When I approached him directly, he just shrugged and said with a dismissive tone that it was just a driveway and I should chill out. He actually used the word chill, like we were college roommates arguing over fridge space.

Linda’s response was even more infuriating. She claimed my driveway fell under something she called community accessible surfaces according to HOA guidelines. She even pulled out a binder and pointed to what she called section 12.3, which supposedly gave the HOA authority over excessive private parking spaces. I asked for a copy of these bylaws, and she said she’d email them to me. That email never came.

I decided to take matters into my own hands. First, I painted private driveway N O parking in bright yellow letters across the entrance. Brandon parked right over it. The next morning, then I bought orange traffic cones and placed them strategically. Linda filed an HOA complaint against me for creating an isore that violated neighborhood harmony standards.

I kid you not, she actually wrote the phrase neighborhood harmony in the complaint. The situation escalated when Brandon started bringing friends over. Suddenly, I had two or three luxury cars in my driveway every weekend. They’d blast music, leave trash, and act like they owned the place. When I confronted them, Brandon said with a mocking tone that his mom ran the HOA, and I should be grateful they weren’t parking on my lawn.

One of his friends actually laughed and called me Gramps. I’m 38. That’s when I decided to stop playing nice. I spent an entire weekend researching. I read through the actual HOA bylaws that I had received when I bought the house. I studied city ordinances and state property laws. I even consulted with a lawyer friend who specialized in property disputes.

Turns out Linda had been making up rules as she went along and section 12.3 didn’t exist. I also discovered something interesting. According to the real HOA bylaws, any board member who used their position for personal gain or to harass other residents could be removed by a twothirds vote of the homeowners. Additionally, falsifying HOA documents was grounds for immediate removal and potential legal action.

I started documenting everything with photos and videos. The next phase of my plan involved installation. I had three large signs professionally made. The first read, “Private property unauthorized vehicles will be towed at owner expense.” The second said, “Violators will be prosecuted.” The third, which I placed directly where Brandon usually parked, simply said, “Yes, Brandon, this means you.

” I also installed security cameras that covered every angle of my driveway. Linda showed up at my door within an hour of the signs going up. She was furious, saying with a shrill voice that I was creating a hostile environment and that she would find me $500 per day until I removed them. I calmly informed her that I had checked with the city and my signs were completely legal on my private property.

I also mentioned that I had been recording our conversation and would be happy to share it with the other HOA board members. The look on her face was priceless, but Brandon apparently didn’t get the message. The very next morning, his Mercedes was back in my driveway, positioned so that one of my signs was completely blocked.

He had even left a note on my door that said, “Nice try, old man.” That was the last straw. I called Premium Auto Recovery, a towing company that specialized in high-end vehicles and problem situations. The tow truck arrived in 15 minutes. The driver was a professional who had clearly dealt with entitled car owners before.

He took photos from every angle, documented the signs, and confirmed that everything was legal. As he was hooking up the Mercedes, Brandon came running out of his house wearing nothing but swim trunks and flip-flops. The meltdown was spectacular. Brandon screamed that his car was worth more than my house, which was demonstrably false.

He threatened to sue me, the towing company, and possibly the entire city. He even tried to physically block the tow truck, which the driver calmly informed him was a crime. When Brandon claimed with a panicked voice that he had borrowed the car from a friend, the driver just shrugged and said he could sort that out at the impound lot.

Linda arrived just as the Mercedes was being lifted onto the flatbed. She had her phone out recording everything while shouting that this was theft and assault and probably kidnapping somehow. She kept repeating that she was the HOA president as if that gave her some kind of sovereign immunity. When the tow truck drove away with Brandon chasing it for half a block, Linda turned to me with pure hatred in her eyes.

The next few days were a whirlwind of threats and attempted intimidation. Linda sent me 17 HOA violations in 48 hours, including one for traumatic visual disturbance and another for unauthorized use of yellow paint. Brandon left increasingly unhinged voicemails calling me every name in the book and some creative new ones. But I was ready for all of it.

I had been quietly talking to my neighbors. And it turned out I wasn’t the only one who had issues with Linda’s reign of terror. The Johnson’s had been fined for having their garbage cans visible from the street for 5 minutes. The received a citation for their daughter’s chalk drawings on their own driveway.

The Petersons were threatened with legal action because their dog barked twice during a barbecue. We organized a special HOA meeting to address concerns about board leadership. Linda tried to cancel it three times, but according to the bylaws, any gathering of 25% of homeowners could override a cancellation. We had 70%. The meeting was held at the community center, and Linda showed up with Brandon and what I can only assume was a lawyer she found on a bus bench advertisement.

The meeting was beautiful chaos. Neighbor after neighbor stood up to share their stories of Linda’s abuse of power. The treasurer revealed that Linda had used HOA funds to pay for Brandon’s car insurance, claiming it was a neighborhood security vehicle. Someone else pointed out that Brandon’s cars had received zero parking violations despite constantly violating the very rules Linda enforced on everyone else.

When it was my turn to speak, I simply presented the evidence. photos of Brandon’s cars in my driveway. The fake HOA bylaws Linda had cited recording of her threats. The security footage of Brandon and his friends treating my property like their personal hangout spot. The crowd was getting angrier with each revelation, and Linda’s face went from red to purple to a concerning shade of gray.

The vote to remove Linda from the HOA board was unanimous except for two votes, hers and Brandon’s, who wasn’t even supposed to be voting since he didn’t own property. But the real justice came when the city prosecutor, who happened to live three houses down from me and had his own stories about Linda, announced he was investigating her for fraud and embezzlement of HOA funds.

The investigation revealed that Linda had stolen over $40,000 from the HOA over 5 years, using it for Brandon’s cars, her personal shopping sprees, and even a vacation to Hawaii that she claimed was an HOA leadership conference. The forensic accountant found receipts for Brandon’s Mercedes lease hidden in the HOA expense reports as landscaping equipment.

Brandon’s situation got worse when the luxury car dealership discovered he had been lying on his lease applications, claiming to own a business that didn’t exist and using the HOA’s tax identification number. Three separate leasing companies came after him simultaneously. His Mercedes, which cost him $800 to get out of impound, plus another 400 in towing and storage fees, was repossessed a week later.

The criminal trial was swift and decisive. Linda was charged with embezzlement, fraud, and theft. Her lawyer tried to argue that she had been confused about which funds were personal and which were HOA related, but the prosecutor presented her own emails where she discussed hiding the expenses. The jury deliberated for less than 2 hours.

Linda was sentenced to 3 years in prison and ordered to pay back $73,000 in restitution, which included the stolen funds plus interest and penalties. When the judge read the sentence, she collapsed in her chair and had to be helped out of the courtroom by baiffs. Brandon, who was watching from the gallery, stood up and screamed that this was all my fault before being escorted out by