He Contracted a Weekly Lawn Crew for His Elderly Mother’s Property—Then Caught His Neighbor Screaming at the Landscapers Every Tuesday
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What do you look for when you’re finding a place to live?
For most of us, the first consideration is budget. Whether you’re renting or buying, finding a place that you can afford is clearly the top priority for many, and for good reason. But the secondary consideration is generally location.
Whether that means finding a place close to work or school, nearby your loved ones or within a desirable neighbourhood, location is important to most folk – hence the prices in more popular neighbourhoods, affluent areas or places with excellent schools and top-class amenities tend to shoot well out of the average person’s budget.
However, many folk will tell you that there are lovely homes at cheaper prices to find in less desirable neighbourhoods, where you could get a lot more for your money, and maybe even have a nicer life there too.
Third is obviously the home itself. Does it meet your needs? Does it have enough bedrooms and bathrooms? Is there plenty of living space – and outdoor areas if you are so inclined? Finding a home that ticks all your boxes can be hard, but when you find it you’ll be over the mooon.
But one often overlooked factor is the neighbours. Because sure, you might ask the question, but until you’re living in a place it can be hard to ascertain what kinds of characters you’ll have living nearby. And as the homeowner in this story showed, living near difficult people can make your home life so much more difficult as a result.
Read on to find out what happened here.
Neighbor will stand outside every week to pester my landscapers
My neighbor, let’s refer to him as Tod, is uptight about his lawn, but the exterior of his house looks awful. His front porch is falling apart, the siding is chipping, and mold is growing on the backside of his garage – but all he cares about is his grass.
If you step on his property, he throws a fit and will come out yelling at you. Yet Tod can walk over other people’s property.
When he found out that when my grandmother stopped driving, he even started parking his car in her driveway. I guess he asked to park one of his cars in the driveway during the winter, and it turned into an ongoing issue, even in the summer.
When I moved into the home, not even a full month in, after I was done mowing, he came banging on my door and demanded that I blow the cut grass out of his driveway. No pieces of grass or dirt got into his driveway from me.
It’s clear that Tod’s obsession with his lawn is quite a problem.
Tod has a second wife that he spends a lot of time outside with; her name is Ryobi. Tod and Ryobi will walk up and down his driveway, sidewalk, and all around the house, blowing away invisible leaves and blades of grass.
They’ll do this multiple times a day, too. It’s much worse during the fall season.
When I used to mow my own lawn, Tod would be right out there with Ryobi, blowing at my lawn, his driveway, and sidewalk.
Then, a few years ago, I didn’t have the time or energy to mow anymore, so I hired a professional lawn care company to do it. They’re great. I warned the owner about my neighbor, and no problems until this year.
Let’s see where the issues with Tod and the landscapers began.
Tod bought a new car, and every time the landscapers came by, he or his son would move the car down the block, then drive it back when the mowers were gone.
Now, Tod doesn’t move the car; instead, he stands in the driveway and watches the landscapers.
He’ll sweep away any tiny pieces of grass with his hand and continue to glare at the guys. Some days he’ll bring out a snack to watch them, or a pile of recycling to break down.
I don’t know what Tod’s problem is. I do know he’s retired and has zero hobbies, so he’s probably losing his mind.
But recently, things have got even worse.
Today was the day I had to tell Tod to back off. While the workers were out, he demanded that one of the workers with the leaf blower clear out his driveway. I saw and heard the guy say that there was nothing to blow, and I saw Tod get mad at the guy.
This was one of those moments where I just bolted outside. I scolded Tod to leave the men alone and to stop harassing them. I don’t know why; I felt weird saying this, but I kept repeating myself to Tod, “They work for me! Not for you!”
I’m not going to stand by and let that **** boss my workers around and then bully them.
Tod’s reason? “I wanted them to put the driveway back to the way it was.”
Let’s see how they responded to Tod’s request.
WHAT? His driveway looks just as bad as his house. It’s old concrete, cracked in many areas = how in the hell are you going to notice one little blade of grass on it?
At that point, I didn’t care if people labeled me as a crazy person. I checked on the workers to see if they were okay. They’re aware of Tod’s craziness; even one of the workers stated that Tod is “not right”.
The sad part is, I know Tod will be outside next week and watching the workers like a hawk again.
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This is a crazy situation, and one that it sucks the landscapers have to be subjected to every week.
Tod clearly has some issues that he needs to deal with, but instead he’s making them everyone else’s problem.
And what really sucks is that if this continues, the poor homeowner is likely to end up losing the landscaping company that are doing such a great job.
Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.
This person thought the person was quite right to stand up for themselves and their workers.
While others encouraged them to keep it up.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a neighbor who wants their shed gone, and won’t listen to any arguments.
Meanwhile, this Redditor had a great plot for some petty revenge.
The truth is, neighbours like Tod can make an otherwise lovely living situation into a nightmare. Knowing that you can’t do any work in your own garden – or even hire professionals to do it for you – without being watched and berated would make anyone feel uncomfortable. But the sheer pettiness of what Tod is complaining about – a single blade of grass here and there – is beyond ridiculous and bordering on harrassment.
It’s clear that Tod has some problems that he’s not dealing with. Maybe he’s bored, or maybe there’s something more serious going on, but his retirement clearly isn’t a happy one if he’s so obsessed with blades of grass not making their way onto his beat up driveway. And this isn’t a new thing, this issues that the homeowner’s grandmother previously had with the neighbour shows that this man isn’t just set in his ways, he’s downright rude about it.
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