A Villager allegedly hosed down neighbors she suspected of collecting evidence of possible deed compliance violations at her home.
The watery altercation occurred at about 10:30 a.m. Friday at Kathleen Lepsik’s residence at 1419 Turner Terrace in the Village of Hawkins.
The Village of Hawkins is located in Community Development District 13, which does not allow anonymous complaints in deed compliance cases. This policy essentially forces residents to put their names on complaints and gather their own evidence, which is exactly what Lepsik’s neighbors were doing.
According to an arrest report from the Wildwood Police Department, the neighbors were walking along the roadway taking photos of bird cages and other miscellaneous code violations at the Alaura Villas home, which Lepsik and her husband purchased in 2022 for $357,571.
While the neighbors snapped photos from the street, Lepsik was standing in her driveway talking to her husband, who was seated in a golf cart. As the amateur sleuths moved toward the property line to get a better angle, Lepsik walked to the side of her house.
Standing behind a row of thin, transparent bushes, the Ohio native raised a garden hose and unleashed two distinct bursts of water in a swift motion, intentionally soaking both neighbors. The neighbors told police Lepsik muttered a remark while doing so, but they could not make out the words because they were being sprayed while actively trying to photograph the attack.
The soaking-wet neighbors presented police with a photo showing Lepsik wearing a pink top and bottoms, aiming the hose directly at the camera with water bursting forward. A neighbor across the street also provided surveillance video backing up the victims’ watery tale, showing Lepsik specifically following the neighbors to the side of the house to spray them.
When questioned by police, Lepsik claimed she never saw the neighbors and was simply watering her vegetation. When presented with the photo of herself spraying the camera, Lepsik claimed the individual in the picture “does not look like her,” despite the fact that she was wearing the exact same pink outfit when the officer arrived at the scene.
A police database search revealed that this was not the first battle in an ongoing, three-year feud between the neighbors. In fact, a nearly identical incident occurred last year involving the exact same neighbors engaging in a mutual water-hose shootout, though waivers of prosecution were signed and no arrests were made at that time.
Lepsik was placed under arrest on a misdemeanor charge of battery. She was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center and released after posting $1,000 bond.