An 83-year-old Villager has been arrested in an apparent parking dispute at her villa community.
Rita Jane Hoover was arrested on a charge of criminal mischief on Monday at her home in the Greenwood Villas in the Village of Calumet Grove.
The Ohio native lives at the end of Broughton Place and has a small area intended for overflow parking next to her home.
Another resident of the Greenwood Villas had family coming to visit and on March 7 parked her car with a Florida license plate in the overflow parking area next to Hoover’s courtyard villa, according to an arrest report from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. The woman wanted to free up the driveway of her villa for her family, who was visiting from out of state.
The woman went back to the overflow parking area the next day and was horrified to discover that feces had been smeared all over her vehicle. She called law enforcement and turned over photos of the feces which had been smeared on the windows, door handles and front windshield of her vehicle.
A neighbor’s security camera captured footage of Hoover carrying a grocery bag which appeared to be “weighted,” according to the arrest report. She could be seen smearing something on the vehicle. The Villager with the surveillance video recognized the woman captured in the footage as Hoover, who is his neighbor. He said Hoover “has had several issues with most of (the) neighbors in the past.”
When the deputy questioned Hoover, she said she had been walking her dog and “is allowed to freely walk where she wants to because that ‘overflow’ area belongs to her,” the report said.
Hoover complained of past parking grievances and claimed that the sheriff’s office “has not done anything.”
The deputy noted in the report that Hoover “was very standoffish.”
A warrant was obtained for Hoover’s arrest. After she was booked at the Marion County Jail, she was released on her own recognizance.
