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As you may (or may not) know, I do not live in a homes association. Therefore, when your yard excedes the typically acceptable 1 5/8" height by as much as a millimeter there is not a lawn posse that comes in to beat you senseless with a weedwacker. Which is good for us, as we are on the lax side of lawn maintenance. Our front yard usually stays under ankle-length, though there have been a few times (consistant rain, etc) where it gets pretty scruffy. Our back yard... has gotten pretty bad at times, I admit, with seed stalks shooting up to near knee high (on me). But no one can really see into our backyard, so it's only an eyesore for us.
And while we do not have an HOA, we do live in a city (albiet a lax one) and there are ordinances. I always wondered what it would take, given some of the lawns I've seen around our neighborhood, to get the city involved. Yesterday, we found out.
Our next door neighbor has not mowed at all this year, though I do understand why (more on that in a minute). And, finally, the City came by yesterday and left a notice. Here's a crappy picture I snapped this morning:
If you can't tell (it is a bad picture, it wasn't quite light when I left) the dandelions are easily knee-high and some of the seed stalks for the grass easily reach my waist (yes, yes, that's not that tall, ha ha).
Now, I do feel bad for the lady. Her husband died a few years ago, and she cannot take care of her house. Yes, she is older (though younger than the other old lady down the street who is always out working in her yard) but mostly she is really overweight. And, yes, again, I know I am as well, but I can walk out to my mail box. I'm not sure she could, honestly, do even that.
The year after her husband died, her son mowed the lawn. Last year, they had a lawn service. I'm not even sure she'll see the notice, because she lives in a split level and I don't know how well she can get from the garage to the level with the front door. Packages stay on her stoop for weeks.
Part of me feels like I should be nice and just mow her damn lawn, but the much larger (and lazy) part of me says I have enough to deal with in my own house (oh, we need new garage doors and openers, there's another ~$2K). Does it make me a bad person that I just don't want to be bothered? On the other hand, despite the fact that her yard is seeding mine with dandelions, I did not call the city on her, and probably wouldn't have unless rabid badgers moved into the undergrowth. And even then, I'd just have called animal control.
And while we do not have an HOA, we do live in a city (albiet a lax one) and there are ordinances. I always wondered what it would take, given some of the lawns I've seen around our neighborhood, to get the city involved. Yesterday, we found out.
Our next door neighbor has not mowed at all this year, though I do understand why (more on that in a minute). And, finally, the City came by yesterday and left a notice. Here's a crappy picture I snapped this morning:
If you can't tell (it is a bad picture, it wasn't quite light when I left) the dandelions are easily knee-high and some of the seed stalks for the grass easily reach my waist (yes, yes, that's not that tall, ha ha).
Now, I do feel bad for the lady. Her husband died a few years ago, and she cannot take care of her house. Yes, she is older (though younger than the other old lady down the street who is always out working in her yard) but mostly she is really overweight. And, yes, again, I know I am as well, but I can walk out to my mail box. I'm not sure she could, honestly, do even that.
The year after her husband died, her son mowed the lawn. Last year, they had a lawn service. I'm not even sure she'll see the notice, because she lives in a split level and I don't know how well she can get from the garage to the level with the front door. Packages stay on her stoop for weeks.
Part of me feels like I should be nice and just mow her damn lawn, but the much larger (and lazy) part of me says I have enough to deal with in my own house (oh, we need new garage doors and openers, there's another ~$2K). Does it make me a bad person that I just don't want to be bothered? On the other hand, despite the fact that her yard is seeding mine with dandelions, I did not call the city on her, and probably wouldn't have unless rabid badgers moved into the undergrowth. And even then, I'd just have called animal control.
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I do love the idea of a garden press gang. I need a tidying-up press gang. They'd have their work cut out with me!
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I need a 'pick crap up and put it away after you use it' press-gang. It's be completely neat if I could just do that, but I'm too lazy...
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is she a nice old lady? or a mean old lady?
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I don't really know, I've never really talked to her. She keeps to herself, probably because she can't really move much. The one time I did talk to her, shortly after we moved in, she was sitting in a chair in her garage and she never got up. I mean, she even closes the garage door before she gets out of her car, so there's no opportunity at all to even say hi.
Besides, dandelions are pretty