A heat wave is forecast for this weekend and next week. To mitigate the risk of fires, San Diego Gas and Electric Company will shut off power to the backcountry. This is routine during Santa Ana winds and was during the time we lived on the mountain. So common were power outages that many families purchased generators to heat their homes and run their refrigerators. Our first year on the mountain, we replaced the contents of our refrigerator three times. After that I stopped counting and seldom stocked the freezer with more than we could eat in a week. We kept candles in every room and flashlights by our bed. Since we’re retired, it was a minor inconvenience, to drive to the town library (which had emergency power) to work on the computer and charge our phones. Finally, we installed a swim spa, providing 1500 gallons of water and fire protection, and a workout for me when temperatures soared to 90s. I didn’t mind the outages so much, but I know others struggled.
We lived on North Peak, overlooking Lake Cuyamaca, in east San Diego County. We owned two plus acres, land that represented our nest egg. My husband and I spent over thirty years teaching high school science, but once we retired, we craved a new adventure which is how we ended up there. It was far enough off the beaten path that air rescue was the answer in an emergency. The nearest fire department was six miles away— winding back mountain roads that motor bikers used as their personal speed ways. It took thirty minutes travel for groceries, twenty minutes for last-minute staples, if the local market was open. Only five full-time families, including us, resided on NP. The rest were vacation homes or VRBOs. We shared the mountain with mountain lions, deer, turkey, squirrels, and chipmunks, and occasionally, bald eagles. We loved our new home.
This is advice for those considering life in the back country. It’s also a cautionary tale about getting to know neighbors and reading the fine print, especially SDGE missives. I have a good sense of people. Call it intuition, but something about some people gets my fur up. I don’t know what or why the triggers, but the sensations are real. Maybe it’s how they talk to me— what they say or how they say it. I am no psychologist, but in this case, there was something strange from the start.
On a snowy afternoon, a trailer pulled onto “our mountain.” The young couple who moved in next to our property planned to build on theirs. Having plans to build is not the same thing as having a building permit. I befriended them initially, but I should have trusted my instincts. Their trailer would be there for a short time, surely, I told myself, and then a home would stand in its place. My suggestion: Call the county building department. My mistake was that I didn’t.
Their proximity drove me to action. Wilderness surrounded us, except for the trailer mere feet outside our kitchen windows. Evenings, we could see whatever they were having for dinner. We looked out our kitchen directly into theirs and could watch what show they were watching, read codes typed on their computer. We could see many other things. Insert your imagination here. Instead of seeing the sunrise over the mountain, I saw the sun glare off their shiny trailer. I solved the problem by adding wooden blinds on our east facing windows. Still, I never called the county.
A few weeks later, the new neighbor, R., approached us to sign an agreement with the San Diego Gas and Electric Company. As he explained, our signing meant they could “break ground for their house” by summer, and they were eager to start construction. Daily, he checked to see if we received, signed, notarized, and returned the document. When it finally arrived in the mail (I imagine it took lawyers weeks to craft the deed), it literally took my breath away. SDGE asked us to give them a twelve-foot wide easement running the length between us. The letter included a map detailing the power poles on both properties. Power poles stood on their own lot. Why use ours? Why not use their own?
This easement, basically a dirt road, would provide SDGE with access to lines to the future build. Nothing could be planted in the easement, and according to the letter, it was our responsibility to remove vegetation and maintain the road. In addition, our signatures meant we were “giving” the road to SDGE for perpetuity, with no possibility of annulling the agreement. We would not be compensated for our property, but we would be “nice” neighbors. My heart sank knowing that power lines would bisect our beautiful view of the lake and devalue our home by almost $20,000.
Nowhere in the document did it state we could opt out or decline. Just instructions: “Please sign, notarize, and return…in the enclosed envelope.” Not even a pre-paid envelope! We called SDGE for clarification. The representative was cagey, carefully answering our questions as though coached by defense attorneys, and shared no additional information. Thankfully, my brother-in-law, Mike (I owe this man a lot) retired from SDGE, and explained the difference between public poles and private utility poles. The poles on both our properties were private. He said, “You don’t have to sign a thing—not a damn thing. This is not a public domain situation.”
When I explained to our neighbor R. that we would not sign away our rights or give SDGE an easement, R. replied that would cost them an additional $5000 to $6000 and delay construction. He was not pleased, but then neither was I. It makes me wonder how many people in the back country vacated their rights to the power company? That day I also learned our neighbors were not our friends and thus kickstarted the North Peak Wars.
