he can sue you for damaging his property, Get a service you slouch

We have a neighbor with a crap lawn. It's embarrassing. It looks absolutely terrible and out of keeping with the rest of us. None of us are perfect, but these people will go weeks without mowing. And yeah, we complained. It makes the whole street look like shit.

Anonymous wrote:

FBO wrote:Your lawn, your rules. Tell him to get lost and mind his own business.

HOA? Check the rules because you may be held to that standard.

OP here. No, definitely no HOA. Part of the reason we bought in this neighborhood!

I'd love to tell him to mind his own business, but we live next door, so I'm trying to do the 'right'/civil thing.

Best 'civil' thing I can think of would be to simply ignore him.

When he complains, I think you just need to start saying things like, "Yes, you mentioned that, Ed, " and go about your business.

Some people are not happy unless they are unhappy about something.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My lawn is pretty weedy but I mow it every week so it doesn't look too bad. I have lots of nice flower beds as well which gussy the place up. My mom is always telling me I should spray the weeds and keeps giving me round up, but I refuse to use it because I have 2 kids and 2 cats. I do my best to pull the weeds in the flower beds, mow often, and hack at the stuff that comes in from the neighbor's fences.

FYI, my son actually loves to mow the lawn with me (he has a mini mower he pushes) and likes to help me in the garden and weeding. So you can make it fun and get something done at the same time.

OP here-

We definitely keep the lawn mowed and try to keep the flower beds weeded (to some extent). And, the kids do like doing it. But, do people actually manually get out and weed the entire lawn? We've got those 'white' weeds that come up. No idea what they are, but they're pretty visible. And, the neighbor seems to really be upset by the crabgrass (I think that's what it is) because he's complaining that it makes it way over to his yard.

If the weeds are that visible, the white ones, it's something people in your neighborhood have the right to complain about. That looks terrible. Crab grass that blends in? Forget it. He can treat it on his end.

If the weeds are in your lawn, it's ok. If they are Dandilions or something that are spraying their seeds all over his lawn, I think that's something else. It isn't really fair if the weeds aren't contained and are blowing seeds into his lawn, making it that much harder for him to take care of his lawn, you know what I mean? Clover? Whatever. As long as you edge your grass, it stays on your side and he can suck it.

Anonymous wrote:My lawn is pretty weedy but I mow it every week so it doesn't look too bad. I have lots of nice flower beds as well which gussy the place up. My mom is always telling me I should spray the weeds and keeps giving me round up, but I refuse to use it because I have 2 kids and 2 cats. I do my best to pull the weeds in the flower beds, mow often, and hack at the stuff that comes in from the neighbor's fences.

FYI, my son actually loves to mow the lawn with me (he has a mini mower he pushes) and likes to help me in the garden and weeding. So you can make it fun and get something done at the same time.

OP here-

We definitely keep the lawn mowed and try to keep the flower beds weeded (to some extent). And, the kids do like doing it. But, do people actually manually get out and weed the entire lawn? We've got those 'white' weeds that come up. No idea what they are, but they're pretty visible. And, the neighbor seems to really be upset by the crabgrass (I think that's what it is) because he's complaining that it makes it way over to his yard.

FBO wrote:Your lawn, your rules. Tell him to get lost and mind his own business.

HOA? Check the rules because you may be held to that standard.

OP here. No, definitely no HOA. Part of the reason we bought in this neighborhood!

I'd love to tell him to mind his own business, but we live next door, so I'm trying to do the 'right'/civil thing.

My lawn is pretty weedy but I mow it every week so it doesn't look too bad. I have lots of nice flower beds as well which gussy the place up. My mom is always telling me I should spray the weeds and keeps giving me round up, but I refuse to use it because I have 2 kids and 2 cats. I do my best to pull the weeds in the flower beds, mow often, and hack at the stuff that comes in from the neighbor's fences.

FYI, my son actually loves to mow the lawn with me (he has a mini mower he pushes) and likes to help me in the garden and weeding. So you can make it fun and get something done at the same time.

Anonymous wrote: A weed-filled lawn would piss me off because it reflects poorly on the neighborhood.

How does it reflect poorly?

IMO, those flags warning people to stay off the lawn due to recent pesticide applications reflect poorly on a neighborhood. Why spray crap all over the lawn and then warn people that they can't play on it? WTF is the point of having a lawn then?

Your lawn, your rules. Tell him to get lost and mind his own business.

HOA? Check the rules because you may be held to that standard.

Anonymous wrote:You have to keep up your lawn. There's a thing called pride in ownership. Don't bring down the neighborhood because you don't want to do anything that's not fun with your kids on the weekends. A weed-filled lawn would piss me off because it reflects poorly on the neighborhood.

OP here. That's why I mentioned that we're in a solidly middle class neighborhood. This is most definitely NOT McLean/Potomac. We're not the only people with a bunch of weeds in the yard. Some lawns are perfectly manicured, but some are most definitely not.

Why are the weeds such a problem? The weeds are green and as long as the yard is mowed and edged, it looks neat enough. We do have pride in ownership, but yanking out weeds every weekend seems to me like a huge waste of time.

You have to keep up your lawn. There's a thing called pride in ownership. Don't bring down the neighborhood because you don't want to do anything that's not fun with your kids on the weekends. A weed-filled lawn would piss me off because it reflects poorly on the neighborhood.

Tell him to do it (in a non-toxic way).

We live in a solidly middle class neighborhood. (Houses less than $400K.) We don't use any pesticides/weed killer on our lawn because we have 3 young kids and a dog. I've read that some of that stuff can be really toxic to pets, and the weeds/ants don't really bug me. We do mow the lawn regularly, so it's not out of control. But, there are TONS of weeds.

Our neighbor constantly complains that our weeds are invading his lawn. He's an older man, FWIW and uses a lawn service.

There is no HOA, so there's nobody he can 'report' us too, but we'd like to be neighborly enough. Do I just have to go out there and pick each and every single weed? Tough to pull that off with the 3 kids and a full-time job. I spend my weekends doing fun stuff with the kids! Do I have to suck it up and spray?