JUPITER, Fla. — A woman in northern Palm Beach County spent more than $12,000 for a new backyard tiki hut, but she fears a mistake in the hut's placement may force her to pay thousands more to move it.
Rachel Glickman loves to show off her backyard tiki hut, which is complete with a bar, furniture and shade from the afternoon sun.
She hired a company called Palm Beach Tiki to build and install the structure a little more than a year ago.
"I built it as a reward," Glickman said. "As a place to have fun times with family and friends."
But Glickman said the fun was tempered when she wanted to build a fence around her property, and the RB Brennan surveying company of Jupiter wrote that "her newly installed tiki hut was over the property line."
She said Palm Beach Tiki turned down her request to move the hut, so she filed suit against the company.
"It's a problem because I can't do anything with my house," Glickman said. "I can't sell it. I can't rent it. I can't put up a fence."
WPTV tried to track down Palm Beach Tiki's owner.
The listed address is a mailbox at a West Palm Beach postal store.
A second address listed was a business park in Royal Palm Beach. A worker there put us on the phone with Palm Beach Tiki's owner, who referred us to his lawyer.
"I just want the tiki hut moved to the right spot," Glickman, who says the company no longer returns her calls, said.
WPTV asked Palm Beach Tiki's lawyer to respond to the allegations in Glickman's lawsuit and asked if the company would bring a crew to move the hut to get it off county property.
"While I have no doubt Ms. Glickman will continue to pursue alternate routes to make her dissatisfaction known, Palm Beach Tiki has chosen to respect the judicial system and its process," attorney James Popa said in a statement emailed to WPTV.
Palm Beach Tiki's lawyer also asked the court to dismiss the Glickman lawsuit, arguing her claims, "serve no purpose but to inflame the senses of its readers and prospective jurors."
"It's been a year and three months now that I've been trying to get this resolved," countered Glickman.
She's already spent more than $12,000 on the tiki hut and another $3,000 in legal fees.
"We just want it moved," Glickman added. "If I have to do it on my own, it would be about $20,000."
She fears being fined because her hut is on county property.
"It's a beautiful structure. It's great to spend space and time in," Glickman said. "It's just in the wrong space."
