Need some tacky lawn ideas - or help me irritate my neighbors...

In My Humble Opinion
61

Dear poysyn,

Ignore these rank amateurs. If you want to know how to annoy and insult, I’m your man. More snaps than a gingerbread house, I can rag a man to a sheen at 50 yards.

So, you want to just use your yard, and a minimal budget, eh? First, get your local council’s suburban provisos, so you don’t get the book thrown at you. Then I would start with a rusty can windchime. Looks terrible, and sounds it too. You’d be surprised how effective low-decibel noises can be as an irritation factor.

You could go the low route with lit pink flamingos, but let’s face it! It’s SO been done. I’d rather see 10 more faux-kitsch year-round nativity scenes, with part of baby-jesus played by a flood light, than see yet more laughable rookie annoyance mistakes.

If you’re just into the scavenging, you could make another carhenge – remember, that’s 11 rusted-out beaters, and you’ve got yourself a wonderfully tacky peice of art, that says, f.u. suburbia! Make it double as a fence and you can wave to your steamed neighbors through the sidedoor of a caddy.

But suppose you want a subtle, daily-use lawn that says neighbor, I am SO contemptuous of you and your small-minded yard rules. Bite. Me."

Step 1: Lay down a bed of astroturf, or bright green plastic grass and cover it with FAKE (don’t cheap out and go real) 7 foot sunflowers. You can make them yourselves out of old pillows, sheets and broomsticks. You’ll need about one hundred for maximum effect. You basically want a huge, phony field of clover effect.

Step 2Home-make a 9 foot tall paper-mache Christ the Redeemer laying a benediction on the flowers. It’s best if you don’t know how to do paper-mache, but try really hard, he’d want it that way. Use wire hangers and newspapers that have special signifigance, like “Man shoots neighbor over riding mower dispute.” Instant in-joke for your friends! Finally, what jesus wouldn’t be happy with a fake, plastic lawn. Give him a big smile.

Every morning, at sunrise, join your flowers (for some yoga say), and kneel down and yell “BLESS MY LAWN, JESUS! That’s the way to make my garden growwww!!” Now, you’ve got yourself some, fine, fine, art of religious signifigance.

Finally, offer the services of your miracle lawn-growing Jesus to your neighbors, saying it “Will clear up those unsightly brown spots and weeds, you’ve got there neighbor. PRAISE THE MIRACLE LAWN-GROWING JESUS, YOU SINNER!!!”

Best wishes,
Ace

62

Two words: Christmas lights.

The big fat blublike ones that get really really hot after being lit up for a while.

63

I’ve always wanted to put a bathroom sink filled on one side, a bathtub filled with flowers on the other side, and a toilet in the middle. The toilet would be a turned into a fountain with water shooting up out of the back, and into the bowl. Brightly painted of course.

64

Get some nice, imitation Greek statues (nudes, of course - but classic, not tacky)

Two weeks later, paint them in anatomically correct colors - this is to make them historically correct, of course, not to annoy the neighbors…

65

All these suggestions are excellent so I really have nothing more to add except maybe to…
WATER your lawn?
Water those weeds or whatever you plant there excessively (provided there’s no drought in your area with water restrictions, of course).
Buy the most elaborate sprinkler system you can afford.
Turn it on at full blast each and every time the offending neighbor steps out his door.

Or better yet, grab a huge watering can and water the lawn by hand, talking to it like some people talk to their houseplants.

“Oh, what a pretty lawn you are! Yes you are!”

I imagine that it will drive the neighbor nuts, not to mention he might be a little afraid of you after that too. :slight_smile:

66

It’s a “Contractor Pack!” I’d love to see the “contractor” that uses these in new home construction.

One more thing … know anything about your zoning? Find out about “accessory buildings.” As close to the property line as zoning allows, put up a “shed.” The shed, by the way, should be an old portable toilet.

67

It’s a “Contractor Pack!” I’d love to see the “contractor” that uses these in new home construction.

One more thing … know anything about your zoning? Find out about “accessory buildings.” As close to the property line as zoning allows, put up a “shed.” The shed, by the way, should be an old portable toilet.

You might also want to do an “Avenue of the Nations,” displaying several international flags in the spirit of world peace and brotherhood. I recommend the flags of North Korea, Iraq, France, and Soviet-era flags of Eastern European nations. You might also want to include the Confederate battle flag, the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, a black pride blag with a fist silhouette, and the flags of several well-respected corporations such as Enron, Worldcom and Kmart.

68

The same thing happened in my family my dad has a ligament in his kneee that is broken and my mom has a bad knee too , my sister and i arent trusted with the mower and my nazi asshole neighbors called the city. We also have some water rot and stuff like that,Our dog has started to chew on the back fence and there is a broken down dodge dynasty in our driveway ( but my dad can hardly walk and my mom is lucky to walk and my sister and i arent trusted to do anything. so my dad paid one of his friends to cut the grasss but we still have been ordered to get a new door and garage door and fence and move the car in a matter of days

69

By the way ld rusty cars up on blocks seem to piss people off just make sure you have tags for it or they can call the city again

70

Life-sized cardboard cutouts of Anna Nicole Smith, a few should cover most of the lawn.

71

You know, a nice wildlife habitat area would accomplish several goals:
1.You wouldn’t have to mow. In fact, you’d need to add some brush piles and maybe a few piles of rocks.
2. Signs: You’d need several small but prominent signs announcing the Official Wildlife Habitat status of your yard.
3. You’d make lots of little furry, feathered, cuddly, creatures happy. Think of the contribution to the environment.
4. YOU could complain about THEM, every time they spray nasty pesticides or make too much noise or send pollution into your OWH. Plus you could leave them lots of “How to establish an OWH” literature on their doorstep a couple of times each week, just in case they’re interested.

Sounds like fun, no matter what you do!

72

It’s fun to make theoretical plans, but in reality, you bought the house and it is your responsibility to keep the property up. I have to agree with <B>DMark</b>. If you can’t afford a mower, did you think about asking someone (a neighbor or a family member) if you could borrow theirs? Maybe you could make a deal with a neighbor to mow their lawn if they let you borrow their mower. You have the extra time if you’re not working and you both win.

StG

73

I haven’t read the whole thread but I doubt anyone has come up w/ this yet.

Used to people would take a tree (like a cedar) and cut the limbs off close to the trunk and stand it in the front yard. They would then stick colored bottles on the protruding sticks. Mostly the cobalt blue MofM bottles, but amber and green beer bottles as well. A really cheap and tacky yard decoration that has a bit of history as well.

Hows that for an eyesore? Anybody remember these?:eek:

74

You could probably just set a couple of posts in the yard at the corners and then drive nails from top to bottom all the way around. Then just start your bottle collection. A night light would be an excellent touch. Shine a couple of floods on the bottle trees at night to really jazz up the place.
(Maybe instead string some twinkle lights inside the bottles)
Almost like a year round christmas tree!
Really cheap, tacky, and temporary.:wink:

75

Just to clarify -
We are mowing the lawn, we are not intending to leave the lawn the way it is, seeing how it is irritating the neighbors.

My point is simply this - they complained once, the city inspector came out, looked and responded to them, “It’s not bad. It’s certainly not worth writing up an official notice.”

Next, they went over his head and complained again ( a few more times, apparently that much more irritating when there are at least two neighbors with waist high weeds in their yards and my neighbors who is apprently running a garage out of his, complete with old snowmobiles and motorcycles).

This is what irritates me. If my lawn is bothering you that much, why don’t you either stroll on over for a friendly chat, or even leave a nice note yourself? I am not an ogre. We only moved in a month and a half ago and are still getting all of our crap together. My point it, if you’ve ever just bought a house and found things getting away from you a little, have a little sympathy.

This thread was merely a way to see how many creative ways to “get back” at the complainers the Dopers could come up with. Do I intend to turn my yard in to a wildlife preserve, or stack old chevys in my overgrown weeds?

Of course not, I just thought it might be good for a laugh.

I’m sorry if some of you didn’t take it that way.

76

http://www.knology.net/~carlos/redneck.htm
maybe this will help u out a little…
and as always tires planted halfway into the ground painted white as decorative ornaments are always a good choice.

77

If the neighbors are complaining about the grass, get rid of it!

Three friends of mine in collage lived in a house together and had to park one of their cars on the grass in the side yard. When the city ticketed them for parking on the lawn, they plowed the entire front lawn up and threw a few bags of gravel down to make the whole thing a parking lot and parked all there cars on the lawn.

Just tell your neighbors you are re-landscaping, leave you lawn a pile of dirt and when you get around to it (and you are through tormenting your neighbors) you can put down fresh sod and start fresh.

You could also do this with NurseCarmen’s clover idea.

78

I have an idea for something that would be both very inexpensive, and legal, as far as I know. Unfortunately, I got the idea from one of the houses I pass every day on the way to work. Argh.

Get a full-sized fake deer target. If you haven’t seen one, they’re big, foam and plastic deer with targets painted on either side. You can hack the hell out of it and plant it in the yard for however long you feel like it. A bonus would be putting the hole with the bullet sides -away- from your neighbor’s house, so it looks like you’d be aiming right into, say, their bedroom.

If you have any trees in the yard, hang aluminum plates from the branches. Supposedly it scares off birds, so you could plead a legitimate reason for the legion of saucepans clinking in the breeze. :slight_smile:

79

I like the deer target idea. Perhaps an arrow-thru-the-head a la Steve Martin might be a nice touch.

And a ugly necktie as well. Shoes and socks would put it over the top. Be sure everything fails to not clash.

80

for my 18th birthday last year, my friend put about 20 of those plastic flamingos on my lawn. this was shortly before my big graduation party, so a lot of people got to see how tacky the lawn looked. my next-door neighbor, who was selling her house, worried that the flamingos might give potential buyers the impression that the neighbors are all weird.

growing pumpkins in the front yard or by a sidewalk is also great. we did for around 2 years, and not only did our yard look funky, we got pumpkins out of it!

you could also cut weird patterns into the lawn like those cornfields. or just abandon the lawn and grow wildflowers!