HOA Larry Goes on the War Path. Was He Justified?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Matt, I sent you some audio. I told you, please, can
you edit it because there were somebad words in there? Yeah, and
I got to set this up.Okay, So are you are you familiar
with homeowners associations? I am.I've been a part of one in the
past. Really yeah, okay,So how did that work for you?
Because I've never been well, thiswas this was a unique situation because I

(00:24):
was living in a house, itwas out in the country, and basically
the HOA was just to pay tomaintain the roads, which when I moved
there, I thought, oh,man, that feels like kind of a
rip, But no, it wasnot. That was money well spent because
really the uh, just the amountof rain and the snow over that year,

(00:48):
there was a lot of road maintenanceon these little country roads that kind
of carved through to make this littlelittle mini neighborhood out in the country in
the city, whatever city you fellin jurisdiction of potentially, is they ever
going to come out there? Yeah? Yeah, okay, so so but
did you have to like abide bya certain lawn height, weeds? There

(01:11):
were no rules. The only rulewas that I couldn't have pigs, And
I was like no worries. Sothis was a very unique HOA situation,
Like apparently that was a problem.I think a previous a previous homeowner must
have had a few pigs. Peoplewere like, we don't like the smell

(01:33):
or something probably and all the squeaking, all the squeaking and the snort and
keeping people up all night. Yeah, wow, Well that's weird. Okay.
Well hoas are just weird from myoutsider's perspective. And if you have
an ho or you're in an hoa, or you're a part of an hoa,
like you can think about calling in. I'll get to that in second.

(01:56):
I want to play this first foryou. This is specifically a situation
that a young teenage kid fifteen sixteenyears old probably and his buddy make fishing
content on TikTok and they're fishing ona pond and you can see in the
video there are some rich looking housesaround and this is apparently in Tennessee,

(02:23):
like near Knoxville, Tennessee. Well, I'm guessing it's a private property.
Like I'm guessing it's like a littleenclosed area that's private property, and the
kids are sitting there at this littlepond in between like the pond is basically
everybody's backyard. Everybody kind of hastheir backyard facing the pond, and then

(02:47):
the street is in front of them. Right, does that make sense?
It doesn't seem like a lake communityas much as just a rich community or
a ritzy, you know, affluentcommunity that has a pond in the middle
of these houses. And the kidsare in the middle of all these houses
fishing on this pond. And yousee in this video, and this is
edited, right, we're not gonnaget troubled by the FCC. I took

(03:12):
I took the couple of words outand replaced them with with bleeps with bleeps.
Okay, So so here we're gonnaplay about a minute long video audio
of apparently the president of the ho A of this little affluent community in
Knoxville, Tennessee, and his interactionwith these two kids fishing on their allegedly

(03:34):
private pond. Take a listen.Don't touch my rock, touch my rosing
on private property. Don't threaten us. You're trespassing. Waiting for the police
to come here. We're gonna talkto me. We're gonna talk to them
our present. Do you want thatphone to go in the lake back way,

(03:58):
he walked, test me, backup, from me, back up,
from out of here, back up, and I take that phone and
put it in my leg. Yeah, now press charges what like a soul?
What for what a SOULO? Yeah, I'm not assaulting you. Get
out of here, he said.We're just gonna wait. We're not gonna
mess with here. You're fishing ina private lake. Get the hell out

(04:20):
of here. Now the cops arecoming. We're just waiting for them.
O geat good, wait for thatto prosecute. So your parents are gonna
be real proud of that. Allright. We're gonna prosecute you, and
you're gonna pay all kinds of moneybecause you're being a Sorry you're the one
yelling. You're gonna property man,I threatened us, and we walked up.
Get out of here, private property, Get out of here. We

(04:42):
just said we wanted to win here. Get out of here to me earlier,
all right. So as you cantell very juvenile situation with two actual
juveniles and one full blown adult,you can kind of hear a couple of
other adults that are hanging in thebackground yelling he's the the hoa is if
that means something to these kids.Now, I'm gonna take a break,

(05:04):
I'm gonna come back. We're gonnasift through that think about how you would
handle that situation. I want youto think from a few different angles.
We'll talk about the pond itself,because apparently there are some rules in Tennessee
about the zoning of a pond andthis pond specifically, and I'll tell you
about those rules, because the trespassingpart of this is a different a conversation.

(05:26):
We definitely need to talk about theif you were the president of the
HOA and called by a couple ofhomeowners in your neighborhood that you're in charge
of the two homeowners that called theHOA president and apparently also the police,
and then if you are the parentsof the kids at the pond after this

(05:49):
all happens, we're gonna talk aboutevery conceivable angle of this and what to
make of it, because this isour society now. And we'll do that
next on news radio eleven to tenkfab. It's a grown man who have
a couple of people just hanging behindhim basically saying, you know something like
get off this property. It's aprivate lake. The guy's name apparently is

(06:11):
Matthew Webster or Matt Webster. He'saged sixty two, and he was yelling
at these kids basically, Okay,so here's my uh, here's where I'm
at on this right. Number one, let's think about it from the kid's
perspective. Now, the kid,one of the kids is making TikTok videos

(06:32):
about fishing, which is really cool, right, Like, let's be honest,
And I just got an email aboutthis. Most of the kids these
days, when we hear about themon their social media's or we hear about
them and what they want to do, it's staying inside, it's jumping on
the internet, it's doing little TikTokdances and all this stuff. And here

(06:53):
we actually have a couple of youngkids with fishing rods fishing. Okay,
that to me seems fairly harmless.But I totally understand the whole trespassing argument.
These kids. I wonder if therehad been something before this that they
had been on this property trying tofish in this specific lake, or if

(07:15):
they belonged to a community nearby andthey were like, let's just go to
this lake. I've done a littleresearch and it sounds like zoning laws in
Tennessee, or at least this partof Tennessee. The lake itself and the
shoreline around the lake is technically publicproperty. However, they had to get

(07:38):
through private property, like behind people'syards and through people's yards to get to
the spot. So is that trespassing. I have to lean on Tennessee law
for that sort of thing. Obviously, those people's backyards are their own property.
For the kids themselves, who wasn'ttrying to make it up a little

(08:00):
bit when they were six, fifteen, sixteen years old? I mean I
was a little bit. I wasn'tlike a troublemaker, and I didn't want
a lot of bad attention. Butsometimes I'd see how far I could get
away with something, you know,especially if I knew that that kind of
interaction could be following us around.I'm assuming this is not the first time
these two kids had been seen atthis lake or at this pond. My

(08:24):
second angle, the two people whoyou see off to the side of the
screen, you kind of heard themin the background. They're not yelling like
the one guy, the Matt Websterguy, was the Hoa President guy.
But the two people that called theHoa President, Matt what would you have
done if you were the homeowner andyou saw in your backyard a couple of

(08:45):
kids fishing on what you believed tobe a private pond behind your house,
right in your backyard. What wouldbe your initial reaction? And again,
these are older people in a veryaffluent community. I probably don't have a
lot of regular interactions with people thesedays because you know, they're so rich
or whatever. But what would beyour reaction? I would, well,

(09:09):
I would either just leave them beand let them enjoy their time, or
go out there and ask them ifthe fish are biting. I don't think
that this would really be a bigdeal to me. I would need to
know, you know, specifics.I mean, is this directly in my
backyard? You know, you wantto know. You know, there's one
thing if it's just a couple offriends out there just sitting in some chairs

(09:33):
or just sitting by the lake andjust you know, fishing pole into the
into the you know line into thelake and just enjoying their time. And
it's another thing if you know,a party develops or something like that.
It wouldn't think that that would happenin this circumstance, you know, not
a couple of people just you know, fishing. But I don't know.
I can't imagine that I would causea stink about it. Quite frankly,

(09:56):
I would not be I just knowing, would not be the one to report
this. How how okay? Sowhat if your neighbor said that they were
going to do something? Would you? Would you step in? Would you
say something too? I'd say you, you do you? But it's not
a big deal to me, andthat's okay. I would say, all
right, yeah, what how fardown the list would you have to get

(10:16):
to get to call the hoa presidenton that or the police. I just
hope they played Hail to the Chiefwhen he showed up. He's the president.
I loved how they were yelling inthe background he's the president, like
like that, that's a big deal, like the kids, Yeah, the
kids are he's the h president.Oh excuse me, sir, I'm so
sorry. Yeah, yeah, Idon't know. I uh, you know,

(10:41):
I wouldn't have handled this remotely thesame way I could. You know.
I understand that people don't want,you know, trespassers on their private
property, but everything about this seemspretty innocuous. Yeah, I kind of
am with you if it was botheringme and I wanted to protect my private
property. And I know there's alot of people out there that would do

(11:03):
that in that situation. And whoknows if it's good for fishing in that
pond, right, you know,whatever that's worth. I'm just going to
talk to the kids and ask himwhat's up, maybe, you know,
ask them what they're doing. ButI would do that myself. I wouldn't
feel like I need to call theHOA president to do that for me.

(11:24):
That just seems like such a horrificoverreaction. And maybe that, on top
of that is what this HOA guyis so mad about, is that he
was called from wherever he was andhe was probably relaxing or chilling, and
then was called by a couple ofangry homeowners and said, hey, we
got kids in our backyard. Canyou come help us? And then he
has to go over there, andhe has to and he's just angry,

(11:46):
and he's had a couple of drinks. I tell you what, there's there's
more angles to get to and I'llget to him as well. But if
you want to tell me from anyperspective here, from the kids perspective,
the kid's parents' perspective, from thethe HOA president's perspective, from anybody who
would be a homeowner in that situation, what your perspective would be in that
realm, maybe even the police.I'd love to hear from you. Call

(12:09):
us at four h two five fiveeight eleven ten and we'll get to your
thoughts as we roll along. Onnews radio eleven ten KFAB. Emrie Sunger
on news Radio eleven ten KFAB.You're talking about this HOA situation where an
HOA president was called by a coupleof homeowners in an affluent little housing development

(12:31):
in the Knoxville, Tennessee area,and the HOA president comes be rates to
teenagers who are fishing and they're filmingit for TikTok and just film him overreacting
to them being there. Well,I'm getting your thoughts on any of these
angles from these people, and I'llkeep going with what I think about this,
But first to the phones four ohtwo five five eight eleven ten,

(12:54):
and Rick is on the line.Hello, Rick, welcome to the show.
What are you thinking about? Hello, sir? Hey, First of
all, if that guy claims he'sthe HOA president or whatever, he should
know if that's a private lake ora community lake. Right, If it
was a private lake and I wasthe owner of that lake, I would

(13:18):
have to talk to the individual andsay, hey, I can't let you
fish here for live ability reasons.If you go swimming and drown, if
your folks are going to sue meor sue my insurance company on right,
And my folks raised me, Iraised me my brothers to always ask permissions.
And once you get permission, you'remore likely you could be able to

(13:41):
go back there and go fish itagain. Or they'll say, who's your
mom and dad? Who's your momand dad? Oh it's Ray and the
Brunell. Oh heck I know them. Go ahead, go fishing, have
fun. Yeah. I think that'sdefinitely a piece that was missing here as
well. The kids just kind ofsnuck into the lake area. Like I
said, my understanding is the lakeis public, even though they had to

(14:03):
walk through private property to get tothe lake. Because the lake is they're
usually of some sort Yeah, so, and I think that's probably I don't
want to act like I'm an experton that, but that's what I was
reading. But Rick, I thinkthe permission part of this probably resolves all
the issues ahead of time. Andthat's the one thing I definitely think the
kids could have done better. I'mgonna have one more thing for you,

(14:26):
please. Yeah, the other dayyou were talking about Biden and Trump,
and you have some real winners therecalling in. And I think the losing
the sight of something important, acheating that went on in twenty twenty is
not being looked at anymore very much. Everybody's look at who's going to be

(14:50):
Biden's replacement? Will it be Biden? Will it be this? Keep in
mind, no matter who it is, Ambla, the anti christ Newsom,
whoever it is, Biden was cheatedin, and those people can be cheated
in. Well, we got tokeep an eye. Yeah, we'll keep
an eye on it for sure.Rick. I appreciate you bringing that up.

(15:11):
Thanks so much for calling in.Man. All right, problem Eric
is on the phone line of fouroh two five eight eleven ten. Eric,
you got some thoughts on this?Yeah? Sure, I do.
Hang get after them, by theway, Yeah you too. Hey,
No, I'm an older I'm anolder yeah, And let's go back to
when I was that age, andyou know, we were taught to respect

(15:31):
elders. And but here's my thoughton that, if these adults told me
that, you know, this wastheir private property to pack up and get
out, I'd pack up and getout and not stand there and smart off
and argue with them, because oneof the fellas might just know my dad.
And if they picked and we didhave telephones back then, they picked

(15:52):
up that telephone and called my dad, I knew what would be waiting for
me when I got home. Andit wasn't a pat on the back of
the Ada boy. Yeah. Yeah, Well, he mentions that a couple
of times that he's going to callhis parents or press charges or prosecute or
whatever, and obviously that never cameto fruition. In fact, to spoil
the end of the story, thepolice do eventually show up and say the
only thing they can charge anybody withis the hoa guy for assault for the

(16:17):
way that he approached the kids,grabbed their property and broke it. He
broke one of the one of thefishing rods. But that would have been
my thing too, is man.My mom and dad would not have approved
of me doing what I did,and I would not have It would not
have gone well for me in anyscenario, no matter what the police would
have said in that like why areyou putting yourself in that situation would have

(16:41):
been the conversation. And why didn'tyou ask for permission ahead of time?
Yeah, I wouldn't have been sittingdown for about a week, no at
least. Yeah, Eric, appreciatethe call. It's great perspective. Better
Angelo is on the line, Angelo, I appreciate you calling in. What
are you thinking about? Hey,hey, I got a story. I

(17:03):
live on a lake property. Wegot sid not quite an hoa, but
it's private property all around the lake. Now, if you talk to Nebraska,
they own the water in the lake, and they say they own the
fish because the river could have floodedthe fish in there. But we've had
the same incident where kids would comefrom other neighborhoods and fish in the lake.

(17:27):
And the problem is with that.You know, people around there had
had their garages broken into and everythingelse, and there's a lot of older
people there really afraid of They haveno idea. You know, these kids,
they're kids, but you know,when they're six foot tall, seventeen
year olds or whatever, they don'tknow if it's a man or who it

(17:48):
is also the people on that lakepay for the fish in the lake to
have it stopped, right, Sowe had that issue. So what did
how did you handle it? Wouldbe the quest. I went over and
talked to the kid because they wereI could see my neighbor they were fishing

(18:08):
on her property and there she wastrying to tell them, Hey, what
are you doing here? And theywere yelling all kinds of cuss words at
her. So I went over thereto talk to him, and they tried
to tell me that nobody lives there. It was one of the lots that
were for sale, so it wasstill private property, right And they crossed
her off to get there, andI tried to be nice and tell them

(18:30):
to get out, and uh,you know, I was received a bunch
of cussing and bowl language. WhereI was. I was getting ready to
drag them off the property, andthey said, well, I'm gonna call
the police to lay a hand onme. You know what, I don't
care if they call the police.They don't need to be on the property.

(18:51):
This has happened multiple times with thesame kids. Firstus one kid,
then he brings three or four friendswith him and next thing, you know,
there's a party down there, Solet's go tell you what happened.
Yeah, okay, I was goingto say what happens after that, Well,
nothing happened. We talked to hisI guess it was his uncle or
something that lives up in the neighborhood, and he told him not to come

(19:14):
down there. And it's fine ifsomebody gives them permission, but you just
don't walk around behind people's houses toget to the lake and be fishing there
without permission. The thing, whenI was a kid, I would go,
you know, we would walk toget to the river and go fishing
in a river or something. Andwe were like sixteen seventeen and we were

(19:37):
walking through a field to get toa river and it was I can't remember
if it was a cornfield of what, but it was you couldn't really see.
We're walking through weeds. Next thing, you know, there's a guy
standing there with a shotgun in ourface, and it was you could tell
he had been drinking. He wasgetting ready to shoot us. And what
it turned out, evidently hunters hadbeen on his property and they had fired

(19:59):
their gun and his wife was sittingin one of those metal rock and cheers
and the shell or whatever they usehit the back of the chair. Luckily
it didn't go through, but itpissed him off so much he almost shot
us. Well you know see,but so so yeah, I mean,
and you can talk about generational differencesright like now nowadays, these kids are

(20:21):
filming the whole thing, right,so you have that incredible story, But
these these kids are just like,hey, we got this guy on film,
so we're just gonna play dumb aboutthis. And I'm not saying that
they're angels in this whole thing,but the guy has to know. Both
kids have their phones out and he'sthreatening them. He's threatening to throw the
phones in the lake. He lookslike the biggest, you know, villain
of the entire of the entire thingbecause of the way that he approached this.

(20:42):
And I, like you said,Angelo, and I really appreciate your
story there the kids themselves, it'sit's probably a good idea to tell them
what the situation is or if youdon't want them to be there. But
I think probably there needed to bea different approach to that before or you
know, because these kids weren't necessarilymouthing off to these adults. They were

(21:03):
basically just you know, this angryold guy came at him and grabbed a
rod and snapped it half right infront of him, and that escalated everything
right there. I appreciate the call. This is great, man, thanks
so much for Yeah. I didn'thear that first part of that story.
Yeah, no, it's okay.Find it on the podcast though, Angelo
Emery Songer at the free iHeart radioapp it played played part of the video

(21:25):
and you can find it on socialmedia, by the way. You can
just search Hoa, Tennessee. Yeah, we did call the police on one
of the times, and they triedto say somebody gave permission, and of
course you go to the house andnobody's there, right or find out later
they didn't have permission. So thesekids we dealt with were just flying right.
Hey man, I appreciate it.Thank you. Ye, thanks,

(21:47):
Angelo, appreciate it. We'll getto more phone calls coming up next on
news Radio eleven ten kfab