Some people love keeping their lawn looking immaculate, and others don’t mind a few weeds here and there.

What would you do if your neighbors complained that you had a few dandelions and other weeds in your yard to the point that they called the enforcement police about it (even though nothing was in violation)?

That is what happened to the person in this story, so he gave in to the demand of his neighbors, who said to get rid of his dandelions. To do this, he picked the dandelions and blew the seeds directly into his neighbor’s lawn.

Sure, it was a bit immature, but it was very funny. Read the full story below and see if you think he did the right thing.

GET RID OF THOSE  DANDELIONS!!!!

When I was 24, I got first place on my own.

Renting a townhouse can be a great way to live.

I’d rented a townhouse (this was back in the late 80s even when poor people could rent entire houses) and was putting myself through college. Not a lot of money to spare, but I was getting by.

The townhouse was not detached, and I had 2 neighbours whose homes were directly attached to my own. I got along fine with my southern-most neighbour (aka we said “hi” when we saw each other and that was about it) but the other neighbour, he had a chip on his shoulder.

It is hard to scrape by when you are young.

He was generally rude if we bumped into each other, I’d say “hi” or “good morning”, he’d ignore me, scowl, turn away, etc. Whatever, no big deal, I just took it in stride.

Being a struggling college student, I didn’t have a lot of money for non-essentials.

Not everyone likes weed killers.

Most of the people in the neighbourhood poured weedkillers on their lawns every spring. I didn’t do this, for several reasons. Most important, I think it’s a shame to poison the local water table, and while I love a nice lawn, I don’t think you have to cater to grass.

I prefer a more natural look. Back then, that meant regular grass, but with some crabgrass and dandelions.

As long as the lawn is cut properly, it is none of Bob’s business.

One day Bob starts berating me over my dandelions. “It doesn’t fit the neighbourhood! Don’t you have any self respect? You bring down the tone of the neighbourhood!”

Every time he’d see me, he’d tell me I need to pour poison on my lawn (which I explained I couldn’t afford and didn’t want to do).

Trying to maintain a good relationship with neighbors is important.

At first I was polite as I wanted to be on good terms with my neighbours, but Bob started getting angrier and angrier, and more and more unreasonable, started calling me “poor white trash”.

One day I’m coming home, parking in my driveway with some friends from school in my car. As we’re getting out, Bob comes outside and shouts, at the top of his lungs, “GET RID OF THOSE DANDELIONS!!!”

Things are starting to escalate.

He looks over and now spots my friends getting out of the car, and he’s clearly embarrassed, but he doubled down and started talking directly to my friends.

“Did you know your friend is an embarrassment to the neighbourhood? How’s it feel to be friends with white trash?” I had just about had enough of his anger by then, and I snapped back, told him to mind his own business.

His neighbor is lying about it.

Several days later I get a knock on my front door. Open up the door, and it’s a bylaw enforcement officer. Says he’s responding to complaints of “noxious weeds” in my backyard, and asks to come take a look for himself (being a middle unit, the only access to my backyard was through the house).

I invite him in, offer him a drink of water (which he gratefully accepts; hot day!) and take him through to the backyard. Lots of lovely white and yellow dandelions peppered over the yard.

I hope the neighbor gets in trouble for this.

He takes one look, and gives a deep sigh. There were no “noxious weeds”, which I knew full well, as I had long ago taken the precaution of checking with the city to see what was and what was not acceptable in the weed department. And I knew I was well, very comfortably, within compliance.

The bylaw cop apologized for wasting my time, said my yard was “Nowhere near” a problem. He left, and went next door to chastise my neighbour for wasting his time.

Maybe it isn’t the mature move, but this sure is funny.

I stood at my front door and listened, it was glorious listening to Bob sputtering and angry, trying to defend himself and vilify me, all to no avail. “My wife and I can’t even sit out and enjoy our back yard, because of all those stupid dandelions!” Bylaw cop told him to stop harassing his neighbours and left.

But listening in gave me an idea. I knew Bob liked to sit out on his back deck in the afternoons, so I waited. As soon as I spotted him out there, I walked out into my backyard, ignoring Bob as I gathered up a nice bouquet of white-topped dandelions, seeds ready to disperse to the wind.

We had a 4-foot high chain link fence between our properties, so the view between yards was pretty much unobstructed.

Even though they won’t grow there, I’m sure he was very upset.

I stood at the fence, locked eyes with Bob, and started blowing thousands of dandelion seeds into his yard. The wind was at my back so the seeds were traveling quite far into his yard. He grew red-faced and started yelling at me.

“What’s the matter Bob? I’m just doing what you asked, and getting rid of my dandelions.”

Well, that bridge has been burned.

He yelled more, and I just ignored him. After depositing several dandelions worth of seeds he went back inside.

From that day forward, for the next several weeks, every single time I saw him out on his deck, I’d go out and send more dandelion seeds into his yard.

Bob isn’t likely to change.

Eventually dandelion flowering season ended. I wanted to think that Bob learned a lesson about bullying.

But I’m sure he didn’t.

Antagonizing neighbors or escalating problems is almost never a good idea, but in cases like this, it sure can be satisfying.

Check out what the top commenters have to say about this story.

Many people love white clover lawns.

This commenter makes a good point.

Now those sound beautiful.

There is nothing this neighbor can really say.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a man who stopped salting his neighbors’ driveways when they wouldn’t stop driving through his yard.

This commenter says the neighbor got what he deserved.

Complaining about a few dandelions is just ridiculous. The neighbor deserved what he got, even though it wasn’t the mature thing to do.

Hopefully, the neighbor will back off and realize that he won’t have a perfect yard to look at anymore.