Resident sues property owners association, fines reach $1,000

MONTGOMERY, Texas (FOX 26) - A Houston-area resident claims she is being so severely harassed by her homeowners association that she is taking it to court.   

For years, Dona Davis says home hasn't exactly been sweet. She says things soured shortly after she replaced weeds with flowers near her house. Now she's facing fines from the homeowners association for more than $1,000.

Her April Sound townhouse, overlooking Lake Conroe, was supposed to be a place of solace after her husband and her high school sweetheart, Leslie Davis, was sent to work in a war zone and never returned. He was a Halliburton contractor.  

“On December 21, four days before Christmas in 2004, he was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq,” explains Dona. She moved out of the home that she once shared with her husband. After a year in her new Montgomery County townhome, she says she requested and received permission from the April Sound Property Owners Association, Inc. to give the overgrown lot next door a bit of tender loving care.

”In the winter, I would put out pansies," describes Dona. "In the summer, I would put everything that bloomed and people used to walk by and all the time and say, 'Oh, you're the flower lady!,' It's never looked better and I got yard of the month, so I'm definitely thinking I'm not doing anything wrong,”  

After five years of flowers however, Dona says she was told to dig them up. 

“They said we've changed the policy on that," adds Dona. "No one can plant anything.” The flowers may no longer be growing near her home, but her unpaid bill to the property owners association certainly is.

”They keep fining me," says Dona. "Every month, they keep fining me until it got up to over $1,000.”  Now, Dona says she received penalties for two Crepe Myrtle trees which she says she didn't plant.

Since 2014, this dispute has been dragging out. She's had her permanent guest list privileges in the gated community taken away and so was her electronic gate key to get into her neighborhood. She can only enter through the guest gate.

”They're out of control with their power," says Dona. "Why would you do this to somebody?”            

Davis will be in court on Wednesday afternoon, facing off with her property owners association. She hopes the judge will drop the fines against her, which she says will be a victory not just for her, but for all homeowners.    

FOX 26 News contacted the April Sound Property Owners Association, Inc., but no calls have been returned.