To beat the heat, an Arizona man offers free water. His HOA is fining him.
At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, David Martin took a water cooler and placed it on his driveway in front of his Goodyear, Ariz., home. He filled the cooler with water bottles and ice and told anyone who passed by to take one.
It was just a small gesture to help his neighbors during a hard time, Martin told The Washington Post. He decided to keep it going, and the cooler, with Martin’s offer of free chilled water, has sat outside his garage ever since. His neighbors have gratefully obliged. So have delivery drivers, dog walkers and passersby playing basketball at a park near his house, especially this summer as southern Arizona scorches under a record-breaking heat wave.
The only objection, Martin was stunned to discover, came from his homeowners association.
In April, Martin’s HOA began fining him and his wife for violating an association rule to store items out of view, according to Martin and letters Martin shared with The Post. It increased to hundreds of dollars in the following months. The group, whose complaints were first reported by AZFamily, threatens to continue fining Martin until he removes his water cooler, he said. He refuses to pay.
“I’m doing what I believe in to take care of the community, to show that my family is positive and that we are here if you need us,” Martin, 50, said. “It’s a simple thing. It’s a water cooler.”
The Canyon Trails Unit 4 West Community Association, Martin’s homeowners association, said in a statement that it did not object to Martin providing water but that “the community’s rules do not allow a resident to advertise water bottle distribution from a portable ice chest, located next to their garage that is visible from neighboring property.”
“The Board has diligently worked with the resident so as to allow him to continue making water bottles available, and has simply requested that the portable ice chest be screened from view,” the statement read. “Regrettably, the resident has declined to work with the Association to achieve a mutually agreeable resolution.”
Martin denied that the association had been cooperative in addressing the issue. A manager from FirstService Residential, the property management company used by the association, declined to speak with Martin in late August about the violation, arguing he wasn’t an owner of the home in emails shared with The Post. (Martin’s wife owns their house, according to Arizona property records.)
“As the community’s management partner we continue to work closely with the board to create solutions that will support all of our valued residents while also complying with established association guidelines,” a FirstService Residential spokesperson said in a statement.
The association’s attorney, Javier Delgado, and FirstService Residential did not comment on their correspondence with Martin.
When Martin began offering water outside his home as a neighborly gesture in the spring of 2020, as the pandemic raged, he also set out cleaning supplies and toiletries from grocery stores each morning. His neighbors came by to take what they needed.
“My garage was the local bodega,” Martin said.
The water cooler stayed. In the years since, Martin said he’s gotten to know his neighbors and the delivery drivers who stop by for refreshment. He stacked the cooler on a crate to make it easier for elderly neighbors to use and bought a used freezer from Walmart to freeze the water bottles so he didn’t have to keep buying ice.
In May 2022, Martin’s HOA first told him and his wife that the water cooler violated community rules, he said. He called to complain.
“I requested three things,” Martin said. “I would like a written apology, a public apology and a pallet of water.”
He got one of the three. Martin received a reply apologizing that the violation was sent to him in error, and he thought the case was resolved, he said.
Two years later, the HOA came calling again, with a fine.
The association issued warnings to Martin and his wife in February and March before starting to fine him in April and increasing the fine each month, Martin said. They have been fined $475 as of September, he said.
Martin did not appeal the fines but again contacted the homeowners association to make his case, he said. It did not budge. In August, a FirstService Residential manager told Martin the issue was closed and that fines would continue accruing until he removes the water cooler. The manager recommended Martin obtain legal counsel, according to emails shared with The Post.
The association’s insistence on punishing Martin and his wife for what they view as a harmless act is bewildering, Martin said, not least because of the recent weather. Temperatures in Phoenix hit 100 degrees for the hundredth day in a row on Tuesday, The Post reported. In one of his last exchanges with FirstService Residential, Martin emphasized the hellish conditions that Goodyear, which is about 20 miles from Phoenix, has sweltered under this summer.
“It is one of the reasons I’ve been fighting it as hard as I am,” Martin said to The Post. “ … It’s horrific.”
Martin said he does not plan on moving his water cooler or paying fines, though he is still paying his HOA’s dues. His cooler, still stocked with ice cold water bottles in his driveway, has a new message written on its front in marker: “Please grab a water! Even you HOA.”
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