A valley man believes his homeowners association is going after him because he has asked them to fix something in the neighborhood.
The fight for Todd Esposito and his wife is all over a tree. But this goes back two years when one his bushes in the front of his house died.
"So they (the HOA) sent me a letter telling me they were going to put lien on my house if I didn't replace the dead bush," said Esposito. "I replaced the dead bush, the issue, nothing ever arose from the issue."
Then about six months ago, another issue arose. The fence blocking off the edge of the neighborhood near his house was knocked down.
"I see people back there where the fence is broken doing all kinds of stuff and we don't know who they are," Esposito said.
He wrote to the HOA to let them know about the fence. But not long after that he got a letter saying he should have a bush, a tree, and another bush, as opposed to three bushes, in the front yard.
The plan they sent him shows the tree. But photographs he took show three bushes, and no tree. Esposito is frustrated because he said the HOA did not tell him all this when they complained about the dead bush in the first place and didn't say anything about it in the six years he's lived here.
"I'm angry, I'm mad," said Esposito. "I'm questioning the safety of the community. So now they're going to pick on me, telling me to plant a tree that was never even there when I bought the house six years ago."
We contacted Eugene Burger Management, who oversees the HOA. They didn't give us much, though. They said the board goes through the landscaping plans every year, but they could not tell us why they are just now telling Todd he needs to plant this tree.
As for the fence, they said work to fix it should start next week.
