This just reminded me of something that happened around here recently.
Beware, future garden gnome-nappers!
These came from my local newspaper. I giggled myself silly… 
Syl
here’s hoping the links work right… ::fingers crossed::
“Spray paint the entire lawn purple or pink.”
I’d go with this idea. I LOVE the ones featuring gnomes, but since $$$ is an issue, try this cheap but effective stunt. PINK for sure!
Patty
Quoth Boscibo:
In all seriousness, my mom has turned her front yard into a wildflower garden. There’s a small initial investment of time to make sure that you genuinely have “wildflowers” rather than just weeds, but after that, it takes care of itself with almost no maintenance, and it really does look nice.
I saw the bowling ball idea in the front yard of a Victorian - era house in Cedarburg, WI. Stacked pyramid-style. Very funky. In my neck of the woods, we would consider an uncut lawn a “prairie restoration project”.
Speaking from experience, many ugly tacky lawn ornaments really drives one nuts!
Where I grew up, this woman put out TONS of lawn ornaments all over her yard! I have NO idea how the heck she mows the thing, but it looks TERRIBLE!
Someone did come by at one time and either destroyed or stole a majority of the ornaments (she hasn’t replaced too many).
I lived in the country and there were only two houses on our section of road (ours and theirs). We didn’t do it, so we can only assume that she annoyed passers by with that obnoxious display!!
Purchase Astroturf and cut it into 2 foot square pieces. Arrange the turf over your grass, using tent stakes or something similar to secure, to create a giant chess board. Each day add another gnome until you create a full chess set, then play chess. When the neighbors complain, pull out a giant wall-sized calendar and explain that there’s a long waiting list, but you can probably squeeze them in for a game the second weekend of December. When they continue to complain, reluctantly remove the squares of astroturf. Hopefully, enough time will have passed that the grass UNDER the turf has died leaving a chess board pattern of live and dead grass. Put black arm bands on the gnomes to indicate their state of mourning. When the neighbors complain yet again, politely explain that you have already met their demands and that you are not going to be bullied anymore.
You could let the grass/weeds grow real long, turn brown, and then braid them… and say you have a Rasta lawn.
Your lawn is your strength, mon.
There’s always the option of lawn flamingos with “FRONT - TOWARDS ENEMY” stenciled on the side…
Headstones…Headstones…**Headstones…**made w/ bags of readymix poured into homemade forms.
To really get their attn. put the neighbors names on them, first names only though.
Talk about a grave solution…
OK…there’s something I don’t get, here…
Since when neighbors have the right to tell you what you should grow in your garden? If I can grow flower or grass (the lawn) why a stranger should be allowed to tell me what kind of grass it should be? I assume that they’re unhappy because the weed can spread in their garden, but what if their lawn grass or flowers spread in your garden and you don’t want them there? Hopw could somebody tell me I shouldn’t grow weed if I want to have weed in my garden.
Even worse : how could someone told me how often I should mow my lawn? In what way is it any of their business if I want my lawn to be knee-high?
I especially don’t understand that there could be a local authority which could tell whether my lawn is properly mowed or not and issue “warnings”???
So, are these silly regulations common in the US, or is it some stupid local thing or some peculiar situation (house rented in a co-property, historical neighborhood,…)? I assume the latter, since seeing how american people usually held private property in high regard, and don’t like the government to mess up with their lives, I doubt they would accept neighbors denouncing them to the “governmental office for land mowing”, but I had to ask…
It’s more or less an unwritten rule of “Don’t make the neighborhood look bad” - more common in suburban subdivisions, and in some cases it’s actually written into subdivision “by-laws”. A classic local case involved playground equipment - this family was told to remove their playground because it “didn’t conform” with the rest of the area. Never mind that the family had lived there long before the subdivision was built and the land on which the subdivision was built was actually part of the original farm (the family lived in the original farmhouse). Here we get the occasional urban non-conformist who wants a front yard full of wildflowers and the neighbors - with their artifically perfect lawns - complain that the yard looks “ugly”, so the homeowner has to jump through a bunch of hoops to get permission to grow the lawn in the way that they want. I say, grow it the way you want it to grow, but make it look neat. It’s one thing to have a “wild” lawn, but for crying out loud, try not to make the place look abandoned.
By the way, I love all the ideas submitted so far. Sure are some mad geniuses out there…
clairobscur, what may be happening is:
(a) in certain developed areas (i.e. city or suburban neighborhood), some Americans hold their private property market value in higher regard than the private property concept itself. They then form associations that lobby the local authorities to pass zoning regulations that allow them to impose on other people’s private property about what does or does not make the neighborhood look rundown (and thus make their own property depreciate). Do a Board Search for “neighborhood associations”, or even better, the ever-popular “neighborhood association nazis” to see several threads about this.
(b) The city/county/district/whatever may have on their own established these zoning statutes, sometimes dating back a long time, to ease the health/sanitation authorities’ job by having them only inspect land which was NOT visibly being properly cultivated. Since the border between “properly cultivated” and “wild” can be a bit unclear, they go for the stricter interpretation.
© Opal may or may not live in one, but in many cases, even if the neighborhood is NOT historic, or specially zoned, you will have the subdivision of the original estate into residential lots be conditional on all purchasers maintaining certain conditions, which are then included in the deed of the property.
“community standards”
OK. I understand why neighbors would want your property to have a properly mowed lawn. I also understand that if you buy a property under certain conditions, you must respect them (though I don’t clearly understand the whole process resulting in such conditionnal purchases).
But I still don’t understand on what basis the local authorities can pass regulations stating what you should grow on your property (as long as it isn’t illegal or dangerous and as long as it wasn’t a condition when you bought it). As for mowing the lawn, it’s totally beyond me. So, what are the pretexts given by the authorities to pass a regulation stating that a given kind of grass is allowed (but not another one) and this only if it’s no more than 2 inches high? Wouldn’t it be unconstitutionnal, or something?
Well…legal questions aside:
I could be the kind of urban non-conformist you’re refering too. I dislike lawns. Also, whether or not the yard looks ugly is purely subjective. I really don’t get how a yard full of wildflowers could be considered ugly. And finally, even if I want it to look like it’s abandonned, it’s none of my neighbors business. So, I would be mightly pissed off if a local regulation was passed just because most of my neighbors have a peculiar idea about what is ugly or neat and assume that their aesthetic tastes (or lack thereof…are garden gnomes forbidden?) are a good enough reason to tell me what my backyard should look like.
You raise some good points and I don’t disagree at all. I guess the problems with the neighbors is the “You’re making us look bad” factor, and being a homeowner myself, I have to go with the flow regarding a neighborhood’s appearance. I don’t like to - I love wildflowers myself and would rather let both my lawns grow wild than mow it every few days - but I feel like I have this unwritten obligation to keep the place looking neat. Personally, I would rather see a place with high grass and tacky lawn decorations than these picture-perfect lawns that are totally weed-free and geometrically-shaped shrubs…blehhh. There ought to be a law against these Better Homes And Gardens kind of joints. Where’s the personality? Where’s the fun?
How about a Jesus statue with its arms outstretched. Drill holes and add tubing and a fountain pump. Have red water shooting from his outstretched hands/wrists (your choice). That would be fun 
How about a Jesus statue with its arms outstretched. Drill holes and add tubing and a fountain pump. Have red water shooting from his outstretched hands/wrists (your choice). That would be fun
If not to disturb the neighbors, it certainly would be like a bug zapper to “witnesses”. Sure would keep the doorbell quiet on Saturday mornings.