I then walked up to my front door and checked the angle of my smart doorbell cam. It had a perfect high-definition view of the entire street, the trapped truck, the sealed garage, and the two junkers. I adjusted the motion sensor settings so it would record any activity in that zone and sent an alert directly to my phone.
We went back inside, grabbed our suitcases, and called our ride to the airport. Our driver arrived, we loaded our bags into the trunk, and we drove away into the night, leaving the trap perfectly set.
We were sitting at our departure gate at the airport when my phone burst with a motion alert. I opened the app and watched the live feed. It was glorious. The video showed the HOA president walking out of the community center with two other board members. They were laughing and talking, and then the president looked towards my garage and stopped dead in his tracks.
He stared at the bright teal minivan. He stared at the peeling yellow sedan. He walked up to his truck and realized he was completely boxed in against my garage door. He kicked the tire of the yellow sedan, and he stomped up my walkway and started pounding on my front door. He pounded for a solid two minutes, demanding that I come out and move my cars.
When I didn’t answer, he peered through the front windows. Eventually, he pulled out his cell phone and made a call, and I knew exactly who he was calling.
About 20 minutes later, the same tow truck driver from before pulled up to the scene. The driver got out and looked at the situation. I watched through the camera as the HOA president gestured wildly at my two junkers, clearly ordering the driver to tow them away. The tow truck driver shook his head.
He pointed at the street, and then pointed at the license plates. I could hear snatches of the conversation. Basically, the driver was explaining that those cars were parked on a public municipal street, not HOA property, and were not blocking a garage or a driveway. He told the president that towing legally parked cars off a public street without police authorization was grand theft auto. The tow truck driver got back in his truck and drove away, leaving the president fuming on the sidewalk.
The president immediately dialed his phone again. This time, a police cruiser rolled up a while later. The officer stepped out and listened to the president vent his frustrations. The president pointed at my house, pointed at the cars, and demanded that they be cited and impounded.