When you own a home, your yard is your yard. It’s private property. You should stay off other people’s private property and expect them to do the same.

What would you do if your neighbor’s lawn guy kept mowing over the property line into your yard by several feet giving the illusion that the neighbor’s yard is bigger than it actually is? Would you let it go, complain about it, or get revenge?

In this story, one person tried to confront the neighbor about it, but that didn’t change anything. Then, they got another idea, but they’re not sure if it’s a good idea or a bad idea.

Let’s read the whole story to decide.

AITAH for wanting my neighbors to stop mowing my grass?

There are a few bullets to note.

1-My neighbor’s lawn guy tried to get my business a couple of times and I politely declined.

2-I do not live in a HOA. I live on a cul de sac with about 10 other houses. I’ve lived here for 13 years. I wouldn’t be able to pick any one of my neighbors out of a lineup. I’m certain it’s true of all of us. I’ve never seen any neighbors interact.

3-Just before lockdown, I had a new job that allowed me to WFH 2 days a week and I had to work far less hours, so I was home more often. Prior to that, I worked a lot outside of the home and my commute was 2-3 hours a day. I’m also a single parent. All this to say, I was in “make it to tomorrow” mode a lot.

Now we get to the point about mowing.

4-My lawn was never a jungle. At the worst, I may have been 3,4 days too long between mowing.

I noticed that my neighbor’s lawn guy was cutting 4-6 feet over the marked property line, cutting into my lawn, giving the appearance that this 4-6 feet was their property and not mine.

I’m not sure how long this was happening. It could have been happening for years and I just didn’t notice due to point 3 OR it may have started when I politely declined his services (that were not free).

OP has decided to be petty.

As I said, this was just before lockdown but there were already advisories to keep a distance from sick people and a general concern for the elderly.

My neighbors are elderly. So, I didn’t want to approach them in person about this. I left them a letter in their mailbox with my email address (due to the nature of my job, I like a paper trail) and explained what I observed and asked for the guy to respect property lines.

5 years later, this is still a problem. So, I started to do the same. I mow 4-6 feet onto their lawn.

1-AITAH for nicely asking them to respect property lines and stop mowing my grass? 2-Am I justified in my pettiness of mowing their lawn?

That neighbor’s lawn guy sounds really annoying. This would bother me too.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this post about a delivery driver whose complaint about driveways left neighbors in a rift.

Let’s see what Reddit suggests.

Here’s a suggestion on how to mark the border.

Here’s another suggestion.

This is what I would probably do.

One person points out why it’s so important not to let this go.

Adding a fence or creating a clear border of some sort would be the most effective way to stop this behavior. Maybe planting a hedge or some sort of decorative edging that would make the lawn guy have to turn around. How about lining the border with large rocks. That wouldn’t be too hard to do and would be pretty quick. It might work in the short term while figuring out another solution, like a privacy fence.

The neighbor may not actually be the problem here at all. It seems like it’s the lawn guy that’s the problem.