HOA Ordered Me to Tear Down My Retaining Wall. So I Did

Because I genuinely thought she was joking.

“Is it permanent?” Vanessa asked again, pointing toward the wall.

I looked over my shoulder at thirty-five feet of railroad ties, steel anchors, drainage pipe, and twenty years of settled earth.

“Unless gravity changes its mind,” I said, “yeah.”

She smiled politely.

The kind of smile people wear when they’ve already decided they’re right.

“I see.”

At the time, I didn’t think much of it.