My new neighbors, Boris and Natasha, hadn’t mowed their lawn. Natasha had been out in the overgrown flower garden adjacent to the street, and made remarkable improvements, but the lawn remained unmowed; after a few weeks the brush extracted from the flower garden was still on the lawn near the street, and there are 6 or 8 huge plastic bags filled with yard waste languishing next to their car port. Anyways.
I went out Saturday and started removing the brush (I’ve got my swamp to throw yard waste into, Boris and Natasha have someone else’s yard in their back yard). I was just trying to help: this wasn’t some psycho suburban passive-aggressive bullshit. Really. As I’m removing the brush the neighbors on the other side saw me, and Mike (the smart-ass that he is) says “So, Winston, you’re doing their yard work now?”. Well, I told him what I just told you. Mork and Mindy (the other neighbors) chime in: “Do they even have a lawnmower?”. I don’t think Boris has a lawnmower, and I said I was thinking about dragging my mower over and leaving it where it’s easily accessible. (Mike: “That’s subtle”.) So that was Saturday. Fast forward to yesterday…
Mike pulled out his lawnmower and mowed Boris and Natasha’s God-Damned lawn. He seemed pretty pissed, too. I think he was watching the ball game, drinking beer, and managed to get himself all worked up. He said he was going to leave them a nasty note. I hope he didn’t, and it he did I hope he signed it so Boris and Natasha don’t think it was me. Next thing you know, Mike’s gonna be SCUBA diving in my swamp, I just know it.
Got any twisted tales of suburban life to share? I’d like to think I’m not alone.
I take it there’s no Homeowner’s Association there? If so, we’ve found them to be a valuable resource when new neighbors begin acting in a manner objectionable to everyone else. Sometimes, they just need to be let know of what’s expected and the HA is perfectly suited for that.
Your actions seem neighborly but Mike probably needs to pay more attention to his ballgame instead of getting pissed at people who’s complete situation he’s probably not privy to. Could he not have asked them first if they needed his help? I wasn’t there but his actions do seem a bit provacative. He shouldn’t trespass and implement his wishes and ideas without asking.
He (Mike) said next time he was just going to call the town fathers and complain. There’s no homeowners association, but there are ordinences in town to enforce that kind of thing. And I think you’re right on the money regarding acting without having a full picture of what’s going on. I’ve had a few conversations with Natasha, and I understand they’re quite strapped for cash since buying their home, and it’s entirely possible that they actually can’t afford a mower. I’ve got a spare that doesn’t run but all it needs is a tune up and it will be a great little mower. I’m thinking about investing the $25 and donating the mower to Boris’ cause.
Heh. Oddly enough, yes, I did just witness some suburban passive aggression last night.
I live in an attached condo. Lady-on-the-left is nice enough, despite her ill-trained barking furball. Guy(s)-on-the-right, I never see. I think they’re college kids, or a college kid living with divorced dad, or something.
They never pick up their paper. They leave their (two, giant) trashcans out for days. Much to the consternation of all the condo neighbors – who apparently have street meetings while dogwalking that are about nothing but “can you believe… !”
So, last night I come home, and notice that someone has moved Guy(s)-on-the-right’s trashcans. Which have been sitting out for four days. And which are now sitting in the middle of his driveway.
Sure enough, at ~10 pm, a car pulls up, idles for a while, there’s car-door slamming, cursing, trash cans being trundled around… and then lots of stompy-stompy for the next half-hour next door.
But: His trash cans were put away this morning.
Lazy jerk: 0. Passive-aggressive jerks: 1.
I can hardly wait 'till the next condo association meeting.
Our neighbors across the street are a single mom and three kind of tough looking teenagers. They don’t do it anymore, but when they first moved in they used to just leave their garbage pails on the curb all week and just fill them there. It was extremely nasty. One day, thanks to the wind and the crows, their yard was just filled with trash and it was starting to move around the neighborhood. So, my husband and I donned gloves and, while they were out, straightened things up. That didn’t really cure the problem, but finally the old lady next door to them started moving the pails so that they would block the driveway. Next thing I knew the mom started yelling at the kids every time the pails weren’t brought in on garbage day. Yes, she should have been doing that all along, but in her defense, she was in the reserves and not always around. Now that I think about it, that only defends the garbage thing, but opens up a whole unsupervised kids issue. Oh, well, thank goodness I’m perfect.
I don’t remember the number of times I’ve mowed neighbor’s yards… when they were in the hospital, late returning from vacation, etc. But we knew each other beforehand and it was done out of friendship, not frustration. Mike needs to remember they’ll be in close proximity for a long time and not get things off to a potentially rocky start. No biggie, but it’d be a shame if what he did was misinterpreted.
This thread is precisely why I live in an unincorporated “no neighbors” situation. My husband hasn’t stoked up the lawn mower yet and I don’t know how to get it up and running. You people would be having shit fits if you lived next door to me. My husband give absolutely NO SHITS about the yard. Any beautification and/or maintenance comes from me or it simply won’t happen.
I started a landscaping project as soon as the snow melted this spring. I work long hours and play long hours, so the project was going slowly. I finally faced the fact that I just didn’t have the time to do what I wanted to see done, so I talked with a pro landscaper. He made a bid and I accepted.
Anyway, he did a fantastic job with the front of my house. Excavation of the old turf, bringing in screened topsoil, planting trees/shrubs/plants, attractive mulch. It took 3 days, but the work was all done between 10 am and 4 pm each day. Nobody ever saw the workmen.
Now I just heard from a friend that my neighbors are impressed beyond belief.
Either I or one of the other neighbors mow the lawn of the elderly woman who lives next to me. I prefer it when the other neighbor does it because they have a better mower. I use a push-reel mower and if I let it gets too long it is tough to mow.
Well, what would be wrong with that is most of the posts aren’t by people “annoyed-by-the-shitty-lawnkeeping”, but by the people amused by the annoyed people.
You see, “you people” are providing “us people” entertainment by raising the hackles of “those people”.
But I wasn’t referring to “those people.” I was referring to “you people”. The ones who ARE annoyed by shitty lawnkeepers, i.e., ME. I’d kick my OWN ass if I lived in a neighborhood and had “you people” as neighbors. My yard is where all dandelions begin. I ship them out to the other “we people” knowing full well that this will be used to spread evil throughout the land.
YES! The dandelions! That’s exactly what got Mike all steamed. I forgot about that. He was bitching to Mork and Mindy that the goddamned dandelions were going to release their seeds and they’d float over to his lawn. Too bad, that. I thought perhaps Boris and Natasha were going to make dendelion wine or something.
Wait, Mike was afraid that Boris’ dandelions’s seeds would take to the air… so he went over and mowed them himself? I guess he didn’t have to wait for nature to take its course if he used his mower to scatter the seeds to the winds.
In a month you’ll be laughing at Mike fuming over all the dandelions that mysteriously sprouted up in the yards of everyone nearby. Good times.
