When you’re just trying to help, it’s frustrating when someone nitpicks the smallest issue instead of appreciating your effort.

So, what do you do when someone complains about grass clippings after you’ve been keeping their neighbor’s lawn cut for free?

Do you ignore them?

Or do you stop mowing the lawn altogether?

In today’s story, one neighbor finds himself in this very predicament.

Here’s what he does.

Want to make petty demands while I’m solving our mutual problem? Okedoke.

This happened a while ago when we lived on a city block of semi-detached houses with tiny front yards.

At one point, the older guy who lived next door (there was an alley with sidewalks and grass separating our house from his, which had another house attached to it) passed away, and a flipper got hold of the house.

They basically did a cosmetic pass and sold it for tons more than they paid.

The new neighbor seemed nice but immediately began having tons of problems with the house.

A couple of years later, he had moved across the country and abandoned the property.

Tired of looking at an overgrown lawn, he called the owner to see if it was okay to mow it.

I had their number and called to ask if they minded me cutting the grass in front because it was really long.

They were super apologetic and explained they just couldn’t afford to keep up with the repairs and the mortgage; the house was going to be foreclosed on, and they even tried to pay me for cutting the grass, which I refused.

It only took about 5 minutes extra (these are city yards we’re talking about) and kept it from looking like there was a vacant house on the block.

One day, I had just finished cutting the grass and went back inside when there was some knocking at the door. I looked out, and it was the neighbor two houses down, with the vacant space between us attached to their house.

Not knowing the issue, he followed to see what happened.

They were sort of urgently/angrily demanding that I “come look at something.”

Thinking there was something consequential going on, I came out and walked with them to the front of their house.

Neighbor, looking at their yard in irritation: “Do you see what’s going on here?”

Me, looking around, did not have a clue: “Uhhhh….?”

It turns out that each time I cut the grass, I was inadvertently blowing grass clippings onto the neighbors’ landscape pavers, and they were really not pleased with this.

I tried to explain how I was just trying to help keep the block looking nice by cutting the grass and that as soon as a mild breeze came by, the grass clippings would vanish from the pavers.

Fine, he’ll make sure the clippings never end up there again.

Well, they weren’t too happy with that and demanded that I keep the clippings off their pavers or sweep them off whenever I cut the grass.

At that point, I was pretty annoyed but just said in my nicest neighbor’s voice, “No problem at all, I’ll take care of it. You won’t have any more issues”.

Went to get a push broom, swept their pavers off real nice, and then proceeded to comply with the request.

I made sure ZERO grass clippings got on their pavers by never cutting the grass in front of the abandoned house (attached to their house, remember) again.

It looked atrocious until it dawned on them it was now their responsibility, and they ended up having to pay someone to keep cutting it until the house went through foreclosure.

What a petty complaint!

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit relate to this story.

This person suggests using a leaf blower to just blow the clippings away each time.

Here’s someone with a very unreasonable neighbor.

This person doesn’t see the problem and thinks he’s in the wrong for blowing it toward the neighbor’s yard.

Great observation – very true!

No winners here.

On one hand, someone else is mowing the lawn, so the least you can do is sweep your pavers.

Yet, at the same time, sweeping the pavers is the right thing to do and only takes a few moments.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.