When there is no clear separation between your yard and your neighbor’s yard, such as a fence, it’s noticeable when one person mows the yard and one person doesn’t.

In today’s story, both neighbors refuse to mow the grass that separates their properties but for entirely different reasons.

Let’s see what happens….

Claim a narrow strip of our property as your own? fine, it’s yours.

Years ago, when I lived at my mom’s, I’d mow the yard every week. It was a hill, too steep for a riding mower and very hard to mow with a push mower.

It was rough but I usually got it done.

Our next door neighbor was a jerk. He didn’t like us and we didn’t like him.

Long story short, he was the kind of guy to call the police if me and my friends were hanging out on the porch, talking at a normal volume, before 11 pm (the city’s noise ordinance time).

OP found a way to mow around the neighbor’s terrace.

He got his hillside terraced, and the bricks he used jutted into our yard a few inches.

When I mowed, I would just go straight down the hill from where the edge of his bricks were, and that was the edge of one side of the yard.

The terraces didn’t go all the way down the hill, so about halfway down I’d clear the bricks and it would be open.

OP and the neighbor both refused to mow one strip of yard.

Well, apparently, one day he decided that the property line DID matter, and he would flat out refuse to mow a strip adjacent to our yard.

The six inches or so that the brick terraces covered made my edge line slightly off, but my reasoning was that if he considered it part of his yard when he got the landscaping done, it was part of his yard when he wanted to mow.

He disagreed, and slowly a narrow strip of grass would grow, a green mohawk of pettiness dividing our yards.

The neighbor cared much more about the way the yard looked than OP did.

He was a meticulous gardener, often out on sunny days tending to his garden, keeping his grass in pristine green condition.

He cared very deeply about his yard, and therefore, assumed that anyone else would care about their yard almost as much.

But I didn’t care about the yard or its appearance. I literally only mowed because my mom told me to.

If the decision to mow was left up to me, it would’ve blossomed into a Costa Rican rainforest.

OP intentionally didn’t mow the grass strip between their properties.

With music blasting in my headphones, I’d mow right next to that Yardhawk every week, and it would have been absolutely no skin off my nose to move the mower over 6 inches and trim the ‘hawk.

But I didn’t, because that was extra work my lazy self didn’t want to do, and also, screw him.

OP thinks the neighbor thought he was being more defiant than he was by not mowing that grass.

So for at least a solid one and a half months one summer, he engaged me in a battle of wills, sometimes literally watching me go right past the Yardhawk, while refusing to mow it when he did his yard.

One time I caught him staring and waved.

He must have assumed that I had an iron will to refuse to bow to his silent demand that I mow that six inch wide, 50 foot long stretch of grass, when my motivations lay entirely in the realm of apathy, laziness, and pettiness.

Eventually, the neighbor couldn’t stand the yardhawk any longer.

And one day, one sweet day that I’ll always remember, I saw him using his full weight to body his mower over the now nearly two foot tall grass.

The Yardhawk popped up a few more times, but it never got that tall again. And I sure never mowed it.

Perhaps these neighbors should consider putting up a fence so the property line is clear.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted…

This reader suggests getting a lawyer.

Another reader has a mental image of the neighbor watching OP mow.

This person suggests an alternate ending.

Another reader wants to know if the neighbor waved.

I seriously think a fence is the answer in this situation.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.