“You Can’t Evict Her Now”: Man Steps In to Save Elderly Neighbor After Cruel Code Enforcement Complaints
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Taking care of your yard is important, but as you get older, it can become increasingly difficult.
What would you do if you had a nice old lady as a neighbor, but she just couldn’t care for her lawn anymore? And, to make it worse, you had another neighbor who kept filing complaints against her to try to get her evicted because of it?
That is the situation that the guy in this story was in, so he started taking care of her lawn, but in the most annoying ways allowed by the letter of the law. He flooded her flower beds with dandelions, mowed the lawn with an extremely loud mower, and did other annoying things.
The neighbors hated it, but the old lady was very appreciative.
While this was better than doing nothing, I think he should have just done things right. It wouldn’t be any more work, but it would have avoided conflict in the neighborhood. Read the full story below and see if you agree.
Helping old neighbor with her lawn (wholesome)
My older neighbor, who we’ll call May, was too old to mow.
Getting older comes with many challenges.
She had a riding mower, but she wasn’t strong enough to turn the steering wheel. Her son was “Done with her” and had completely stopped mowing her grass.
He stopped because he wanted a pay of almost 400$ a week to cut the grass and occasionally weed the flower bed. She refused.
What a horrible situation.
So here she was, a 73 year old woman unable to cut the grass with our old jerk neighbors looming over her shoulder. (Context: They reported anything. Uncut grass, ratty plants, even not filling the flower beds would get a report to the people who privately ran the neighborhood.)
She called out for help with flyers, but that idea quickly fell apart when someone robbed her garden shed while doing the work. So she was screwed. The threat of eviction loomed over her head.
Wait, why would he put dandelions in her flower bed?
I witnessed the whole thing. I never really talked to her, so I helped her. She had a list of things to be done.
Filling the flower bed? I filled it with dandelions, which quickly took over the whole neighborhood. Every lawn was a sea of yellow.
Oh, I see. He is helping her ‘comply’ with the rules while still making other people angry.
Hiding the garbage cans? Put up a fence with about 6 inches between each board. Technically the cans were behind a fence, but still plainly visible.
Mowing the grass? This was the best part. I took the muffler off her lawnmower and ran that thing well past 6 or 7 in the afternoon.
I suppose he got the job done.
I did this for 3 years, every summer before she eventually passed. It was so out of the blue, when I went to her house and she was gone, and the house was empty.
She left me what she had left, 200$ for everything. The neighbors ended up moving out because of me.
While what he did was better than nothing, I really don’t see why he would intentionally annoy the rest of the neighbors. He could have mowed properly and put in simple flowers that don’t take extra work and accomplished the same thing. As the saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right.
Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say.
I agree with this commenter.
This commenter thinks he did the right thing.
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Here is someone who loves dandelions.
Wow, this commenter has a great service.
If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a woman who refuses to confine her dog for days on end because building management can’t schedule a more exact inspection time.
This person loves what he did.
He technically did the right thing, but in the wrong way. This is certainly better than not helping at all, but ideally, he should have just helped properly to avoid antagonizing the neighbors.
It has become trendy to try to escalate conflict rather than defuse it, which is not healthy.
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