“I have the payment records,” she said.
“But there’s something else you need to see.”
She invited me over after her shift.
Nora had lived in the neighborhood three years, and her teenage daughter, Priya, played violin in the local youth orchestra.
Their home smelled of cardamom tea and furniture polish.
A calendar on the refrigerator showed long hospital shifts, college visits, and a dental appointment crossed out twice.
Nora unfolded a letter Brenda had delivered in person the previous month.
The letter threatened a compliance review if Nora did not provide documentation of her daughter’s residency status and school enrollment.
“She said renters without verified household profiles could lose guest privileges,” Nora explained.
“I told her she had no reason to ask for my daughter’s personal records.”
Brenda had then claimed that the HOA needed the documents to plan security access for the forthcoming gate.
“She knew about Priya’s schedule,” Nora said.
“She described the days my daughter got home after dark, and I couldn’t work out who had told her.”
I felt a fresh kind of anger.
Brenda wasn’t simply charging fees she could not justify.
She was collecting personal information from households under the pretense of controlling access to a road that had been public for decades.
“Please don’t send her anything else,” I said.
“I’ll ask the attorney how we can document what she’s already obtained.”
Nora tapped one paragraph of the letter.
It said that refusal to participate could affect the resident’s good standing with the property owner.
The sentence was followed by Martin Sykes’s company logo.
“I knew you were the landlord only after your letter arrived today,” Nora said.
“Martin told us the ownership was being reorganized, and the neighborhood committee now spoke for the new owners.”
My mouth went dry.
Martin had been representing himself as more than a manager.
I had given him authority to arrange repairs, collect rent, renew ordinary leases with approval, and respond to maintenance requests.
I had never authorized him to alter property rights or delegate tenant supervision to Brenda.
The distinction would become the central fight of the next several weeks.
At home, I opened our management contract and read every paragraph again.
The authority clause allowed routine operations but required written approval for any new charge or agreement extending beyond a lease term.
No such approval existed in my records.
I emailed Martin a formal demand for account access and a halt to any collections associated with Maple Ridge.
