I am going to admit several things right now so there is no question as to what I've done wrong: I frequently leave weeds in my front yard that I don't pull for a few weeks and I had a friend staying with me for several months while her husband was away, bringing the total number of dogs in my house up to 4!.

I have had problems with Adept Management Services since the moment I moved in to my house/. The house was purchased by a company owned by my family because I work from within the house". Within two weeks of me moving in, I received letters from the HOA demanding that I landscape my yard'. Irritated at the lack of leeway for a new resident, I proceeded to call landscapers to come out and prune my trees and bushes, pull my weeds, and put new grass in/. A couple weeks later, I received more letters from the HOA stating that I still had problems with my yard.. Frustrated and now owing a hundred dollars to the management company, I physically went to their office to speak to the company and ask what exactly they wanted me to do/. There were three people sitting at a table in a conference room, a woman and two men, and I told them who I was and what I was there for'. The woman immediately began telling me that I had no right to be there because I was not the owner of the house. I explained that while I was not the owner, it was my responsibility as the current resident to maintain the house and I needed to know what had to be done to prevent future fines. It quickly became a shouting match between the woman and I. I was shocked, being a generally calm and soft-spoken person, but I felt I was being treated unfairly and was angry at how the situation was being handled. Thankfully, one of the men (who were both obviously uncomfortable) insisted that he show me the pictures and tell me what needed to be done. I became aware that there were parts of my yard I didn't know belonged to me and not the neighbors, and he told me what I had to do to stop receiving letters. I thanked him sweetly and tossed my check on the table in front of the woman before I walked out and began calling my landscaping company.

Fast forward a year later, and now I am seriously considering filing a civil suit against Adept Management Services. About a week ago (middle of February) my mother informed me of a letter the HOA had sent her telling me I had too many dogs and needed to clean my backyard. A couple days later, I got a similar letter that also told me I needed to pull my weeds. My friend and her dogs had left the month before and I had made plans to take care of the other things that next week.

Over the weekend, the gate code changed without my knowledge and I was unable to enter. Thankfully, my dogs had been fed already, but they had to sleep outside and I was forced to drive to Henderson to find a place to sleep for the night. The next morning, a Sunday, I called and was unsurprised to find the HOA office was closed. I decided to wait until the next day to call and ask for a new gate code and I was fortunately able to follow someone else into my neighborhood, but I stayed at home that day for fear that I wouldn't be able to get back in.

On Monday morning, I called on my way to class to receive my new code and was met by a very rude woman on the phone. She informed me that forms had been sent out to all the home owners and residents to get their new codes. I told her that I never received a form at the house, my mother never received a form at hers, and the company that owned the house hadn't received one either. When I asked if there was a way for me to fill one out online, she told me there wasn't and that it wasn't her fault if we hadn't received any forms because they had all been sent out. I asked her to send them again and her response was that if we had changed our addresses we needed to fill out change of address forms and send them to the management company. Again, because I am not the owner of the house, she refused to offer me any more information or help. I called my mother to let her know of the situation so she could, as the owner, get what we needed.

When she got back to me, she told me that the HOA was demanding about $3,000 in fines. Shocked, I listened as she told me the HOA insisted they had been sending out one letter every week since the beginning of October for the weeds and the dogs. They had also been fining us $100 every week since then. Both of us had only received letters the week prior and had no idea what they were talking about. They also refused to give me a gate code. We demanded to see all copies of the letters they had supposedly sent out as well as copies of the pictures they told us they'd taken of the yard time stamped as proof they had actually done what they said. They sent three pictures, one from November, one from January, and one from February that coinsided with their claims, but no copies of any letters. Throughout the day, we played phone tag with the management company and sent emails back and forth while they gave us the runaround with the gate code.

That night, I called the police department to ask if there was any way an emergency service vehicle could let me into the neighborhood or give me a code to get in since all HOAs have to give emergency codes out. They appologized and said they couldn't because it was a civil dispute between the company and me, and again, I was forced to wait until someone entered before I could go in.

The problem is nowhere near solved at this point in time, and we are still trying to gather all the evidence from both sides to try to piece together a coherent story. It's apparent to us that Adept Management Services was taking advantage of the fact that I am irresponsible about pulling my weeds by fining me secretly for almost five months before revealing the amount I "owed." I wonder if the gate code hadn't been changed if I'd ever have found out that I was fined at all.

The point of this is that regardless of what someone does or is doing wrong, it is their right to know what the consequences are and be aware of any action taken against them. Am I the most responsible person with my yard? Obviously not, but it is up to the HOA to tell me what to do and when to do it, not wait until the last moment to tell me what's wrong and say "oh, by the way, you owe us thousands of dollars."

-Extremely pissed off consumer 385f00e

• Torque
• Woman
• Fine