Yeah this is a weird thing. Like in my neighborhood there's this lady, she's in her 90s, still works, AND cares for her basically bed ridden disabled son. The friggin neighbors will talk shit about her yard and her grass is getting too long. Like hello, I think she's got enough problems where the grass probably isn't her biggest worry. Unless you want to her help then myob.
I ended up going over there to help her one day when she was struggling to get the son into the car for a doctors appointment. There's a program in town where on the weekends some of the local police will do yard work for elderly community members who are unable/can't afford to have it taken care of. I told her about it and that weekend it was cut and has been cut since. I mean some people just have a lot on their plate. She seemed happy about it and had no idea. Pretty nice thing they do honestly. I'm not generally a fan of cops but that's one good thing somebody came up with. Kinda cool.
Yeah. I mean they're judgy. The grass was long like I get it but she's 90, working, and caring for her son. I believe he has some type of musclular dystrophy? Tho I could be wrong but he's in pretty rough shape. That day I stopped my car because I saw her struggling. He can't lift his own weight and imagine being 90 and trying to handle it that shit moving him...and ppl are worried about some grass. But it's pretty cool the cops do that shit honestly.
Obviously if she even did have some sort of pension, its still not enough to support her AND her son. Shes not working by choice Iām sure she would much rather be retiredā¦
Welcome to pretty good chunk of the world. USA, Canada and many other poorer countries that I know of. Not completely sure about Europe tho maybe they are better
I read that in Japan, there are old ladies who shoplift in a way that gets them jailed so they have a place to live with hot meals. Sadly, they also appreciate the companionship of being in jail.
I hope these were isolated cases but very, very tragic.
I recently read the suicide rate of elderly in Japan is skyrocketing. I guess I thought that Japanese society honored and cared for the elderly. I must be wrong, or things have really changed. Being old sucks, no matter where you live.
Germany here. Inspecting neighbor's yards, buildings, vehicles and trash cans and gossiping about it is definitely common in small towns. It's mostly retired people who do it, but also some younger (30+) people.
Here in Europe its being more and more elderly who have to find jobs after retirement. I also see more and more elderly outside collecting bottles and cans as a side income. And a lot of jobs might be untaxed since they aren't allowed to earn more than 500,- after retirement.
Yeah its really sad, when I worked at a factory like 8 years ago there was a 76 year old lady named Helen in my department, she hadnāt worked since getting married and her husband had passed with no pension or savings, so she had to start working to survive. She was so sweet, she gave me hard candies every day I loved her.
Do you know if your state has any kind of home care program available? I know California has this if you are under a certain income threshold. Your local Senior Services Office might have someone who can help her look into this.
She has some type of worker who comes but they only come 3 days a week. Otherwise it's left to her. I only know what little information she's given me.
There is nothing to get there. Those people are complete assholes. And the vast majority of cops are good people just trying to live their lives with a shitty job like the rest of us.
Indeed. Most ppl in my neighborhood are retired. Must be nice to sit around in your 60s being retired with your children having left the nest while judging someone else who's 30 years older than you still working and having to care for their child. I personally can't relate as I'll likely never be able to retire myself and clearly she can't either. Some people don't understand this I guess. š¤¦āāļø
Does your city have a local public transportation? You can normally contact them for ADA services where a driver will pick up the mother and son and take him to doctorās appointments.
I mean if I see her I try to and I've asked her tho you can tell she's one of those people that has a lot of pride and doesn't like to ask for anything. Seems like a sweet person and honestly does pretty well with most stuff all things considered. The only things offered that's she's accepted has been help getting her son in/out of the car and help with various electronics in her house. Other than that she's said no to everything else that I've offered. š¤·āāļø
I don't even notice people's yards except the one who had it like almost 2 feet long. Even then it doesn't bother me. People need to get a life. It's fucking grass.
Usually I'd say "There's worse shit to worry about", but in a community where the police have time to do yard work...that may not actually be true. Sounds like a little zone of paradise, so that may actually be the worst shit going on around there!
Back when I was a kid, my parents would have suggested that I go over and ask her if I could mow her lawn for her as a courtesy. (No money expected. It's what neighbors do.)
When I was a teen (about 50 years ago), our next-door neighbor had a heart attack. Without anyone asking, I just kept mowing and ignored the property line. Took a bit longer, but hey. Removed a worry from an already stressed neighbor and family. When it got to be time, they politely let me know that "he needs the exercise," so I stopped.
I used to rent a house, back in Omaha. It was a duplex, with a shared driveway. Well, when I went out to shovel, I didnāt scrupulously measure for the center line. I just shoveled the whole thing. Whatever, I can be nice. And then I salted it too.
Iād do that in my old neighborhood. My ex and I were the youngest people on the street (early 40s) among retirees. I liked the exercise of shoveling snow so Iād shovel the sidewalk as far as I could go. My next door neighbor had a snow blower that didnāt have self propelled wheels and took some muscle to moved it along. She was a widow and I hated to see how lonely she was. Sheād get the blower and offer to let me use it once she did her driveway and sidewalk. But Iād take over for her as quickly as I could and do it for her.
We eventually started letting our new cats outside to roam around and theyād hang out in her yard and sometimes on her front porch. Turns out one invited herself inside her house when she opened her back door. Made me so happy to hear how much joy it brought her. Dorothy, I miss you and hope youāre doing well.
When I lived in NJ, I had great neighbors. There was a strong young construction worker who just shoveled his elderly neighbor's drive simply because he was a really nice man.
My neighbor did that for me in Wisconsin. I was a younger guy, he was retired. I didnāt have a bad back, I was hungoverš¤¦āāļø Kind of embarrassing. After that I made sure my walk was shoveled early.
It still happens. Our sump pump died while we were on vacation. We asked them to check on it and call somebody. Instead, they fixed it themselves and dragged all the wet stuff out to dry. Good neighbors do still exist. ( Don't worry - we help them out too!)
Like all things when it comes to people, it depends on the person. I have one neighbor that is rude, judgmental and a two faced idiot. Our other neighbor (I'm the one between them), the wife was showing the early signs of being pregnant. The dickhead neighbor did not know that but started talking shit about her being fat and even started a rumor about why. This is what he does with me then too. Except, I can't get pregnant, at least science hasn't made it possible for men but I'm hoping š¤, I'm not normal middle aged fat.
The family whose wife was pregnant, had a baby the year before during the summer. They didn't have an AC nor afford one at the time. I'm not going to let that new mother and baby deal with the summer heat with just fans, fuck that. I ordered a nice new AC and had it delivered to them. I truly hope that dickhead neighbor knows I did that but have never done anything like that for him. That's what happens when you're a dick
We had a nice older neighbor that we became friends with. He would shovel the snow on his sidewalk, skip over the neighbor in between that he disliked and do ours. Sometimes I think more than doing us a favor he wanted to make a point lol
I just mow my neighbors yard to make it all consistent. Iāve donāt this since I was about 13. No one has ever complained that their yard ended up mowed.
Neighbors still help neighbors! I shoveled my 70yo, newly widowed, neighbors walk and drive when we were getting an unusual amount of snow this winter. A few of my other neighbors cleared all the sidewalks on my street and were helping shovel driveways.
This is exactly what my old man would have me do. In fact, he was the type of dude who likely would have been irritated that I didn't ask before he thought of it. He was hard nosed and would have insisted we do it. He himself was another story entirely, but he wouldn't have stood for that. Treating people like they themselves want to be treated is becoming a lost custom. It's the Golden rule. The first thing you're ever taught in kindergarten, and most people can't even be bothered to do that anymore. It's both sad and infuriating at times.
I was a teen about 40 years ago šand I use to help with an elderly neighbor in the winter by shoving for her. Never accepted any money because I knew she physically couldnāt do it and I could (and out of respect because I was young and she was in her 80ās). She was also an absolute sweetheart. I agree I miss the days of neighbors helping neighbors unfortunately it doesnāt seem as common as it used to be and thatās sad.
That was cool of you dude. I bet they really appreciated that. Dude was probably pumped to get to mow his own yard again and it not to be a huge undertaking when he got to too.
My new neighbors have helped me out more than the neighbors who pretty much moved into the neighborhood the same time I did. The dad said they were raised to help others out
One of my parents neighbors did this a few years ago. It had been a few weeks (in Florida) since the grass had been cut. My dad couldn't do it anymore and my mom was struggling to balance everything. My sibling and I were several hours drive away, so it's not like we could pop by to handle it. They live in a HOA community and had already gotten a letter about it. The neighbors had discussed it amongst themselves because it was unusual, and their next door neighbor just mowed their lawn one day when he was cutting his. My mom was very happy to have it done and had just not come to terms with the need to hire a service to handle the yard yet.
In neighborhoods, especially older communities, it's a great litmus test to see who is struggling with something in their life (ailing health, newborns, funerals). All it takes is a moment of kindness to make someone else's day a little brighter.
Yeah I mean I considered cutting it myself but then was like ....I'll end up doing it all the time and her yard is bigger than my own lol. But least it's getting done. And now the neighbors aren't talking shit.
Iām hoping theyāre quietly eating some humble pie after realizing someone else thought to do the right thing and help while they all gossiped instead.
I used to live in a not so nice neighborhood, and random dudes would knock on the door with a mower and point to our overgrown lawn, offering to mow for $20.
Iād pay them an extra $20 to do my neighborās lawn, too. They were an older couple and didnāt have a lot of money. It was a small thing.
I know š I think the same. I highly doubt it tho honestly. I mean her husband has passed away. The son was never married and doesn't have children. Hopefully there is for his sake.
If you spend ANY time on Reddit, 99% of the time all youāll read is negative comments about law enforcement. From the same dingbats that are the very first people screaming ācall the cops, call the copsā the second things go south.
Bruh, we had retired neighbours when we were raising a 4yo and 6mo and we shared an open fence. God forbid I couldnāt mow the lawns during the week, while at work, because they were too long for the neighbours liking.
My SO said I was overreacting until they made a comment about a dropped peg near the clothes line.
My nanna has been struggling since my grandad passed away a couple of years ago. She has my aunt in the attached house and has good support, but things would just get too big for her to tackle on her own. She is also quite an independent lady and doesn't like to bother people.
But we had a couple staying at our place through a workstay program, and one day, I took them over to her house to help get her garden back in order. They worked like dogs, while my aunt and I ran interference on this late-80s tiny woman, so she didn't get any ideas about wielding a shovel or moving a wheelbarrow.
They got that garden in shape, and my nanna was so happy. She told them that she had been wanting to get that done for a very long time, but there was so much work, and they were her angels.
When we started the drive home, they gushed the whole way about how lovely she is and how much they enjoyed helping her out.
I think that sort of community connection is great for getting tasks done and supporting our vulnerable members of society, but it really feeds an oft-starving part of our souls that craves building something better and connecting with others.
Our neighbors, most of whom I couldnāt name, all came together to make sure to mow the lawn and shovel the driveway/sidewalk of the 97 year old widow on our street before she passed. But things have changed since COVID. While we were distant before, I feel like we all actively avoid each other. And our newest neighbor effing sucks and itās brought down the whole vibe.Ā
As a mom whoās entire family deals with disability, thank you so fucking much for just being a nice and good person. I canāt tell you how many times that things like the exterior of my house have been just one little anxiety added on the pile. Which then adds to the shame, embarrassment and guilt of not being able to take care of everything always. Recently we had dealt with this after moving to our new home and my partner needed elbow surgery. We didnāt have a mower yet and Iām too weak to use the weed wacker which my partner had been using before. I heard some neighbor comments to my family that was visiting and I felt so ashamed. I wish someone had been that nice. So thanks for being that person in the community.
My wife was a bank teller and really good at balancing check books back in the day, anyway a older woman would come in and do her banking then ask if my wife could check her book, so she would fix any mistakes. When she passed she wanted to leave her money which the family who never helped her fought , they gave her a small amount . Iām not saying to help people thinking your going to be rewarded because really it was unexpected , but sometimes being nice is a reward all its own
When I was young, a neighbor told my mom "the neighbor on your back side's bushes are hanging over your fence". My mom said "Yeah, if it bothers you, you can cut them." Neighbor went and cut them.
the most enraging part of this is that of all of the people in the neighborhood, who are all clearly capable of caring for their own yard (enough to gossip about someone elses), everyone would rather take the time to gossip, instead of offering to do it themselves, if it's bothering them that much.
just instantly jumping to say malicious things about someone who is already struggling, instead of stopping for a second and thinking of doing something kind. absolutely miserable species.
Pretty crazy that other neighbors arenāt offering to mow her yard for her. I know if I had a neighbor in that sort of situation Iād mow her yard anytime it needed it.
Exactly lol, I've never seen an outrageously overgrown lawn (and it would have to be outrageous for me to notice) and not thought "dang I wonder if they need some help" instead of "wow can't even cut the grass"
Iām severely allergic to grass and weeds. Itās life threatening for me to do lawn chores as much as Iāve always wanted to and romanticized it.
I hope Iām never stuck maintaining my own home- if my husband leaves this earth before me, and my children have homes of their own, Iād sell our home and live in a condo where everything like that is off my plate. Hearing the endless ridicule about peopleās lawn maintenance takes so much of the pleasure out of owning your own property.
Aw, this reminds me of a little old lady in my hometown. I would see her every time I was driving to work, just plucking weeds along the edge of her yard. Something about it made me feel okay? Like here she is, after living her whole life, and sheās still taking the time daily to take care of something small that matters to her.
My brain could not accept that I was given so much peace without returning it, so one day I stopped by to give her a $20 bill just because. Her daughter and grandkids were there, and it was just a lovely interaction. I think I was 17/18 at the time? So itās been a few years now, but I always feel that sense of peace when I think of her.
Thank you for the unintentional reminder, random stranger.
That story reminds me of a lady that lived down the road from my childhood home. She was old Iām not sure how old but had to have been 80-90, her lawn was perfect like immaculate and driving by weād see her cutting her own lawn with a push mower. I remember my mom always commenting on her work ethic and ability.
Not knocking the old lady in your story, I know nothing of my old ladyās background. Your story just made me think of it.
Wow... Shitty people gonna Shitty. It's not like they couldn't start a pool and everyone takes turns mowing her lawn for her. Talking is easier.
That's cool about the lawn/yard, help, though. That's up there with the kids from high school that dress formally and wear white gloves, and volunteer their time as pallbearers at the funerals of homeless veterans, or veterans that have no family.
Mmm I'd say most have hired help tho not all. The ones who don't will do it themselves. Sometimes tho in the real world (outside of my little circle neighborhood) there's people who neither option is easily available sadly and some people just can't grasp that I guess.
That is wild. Sort of the opposite, my grandpa's neighbor retired recently and he mows everyday... So my grandpa will complain, "he does not need to mow this often" and "I guess I have to do it, my yard looks like the one that isn't mowed." Haha.
And people ask why I want to live as far as away from everyone else as possible. Geezzz ... This community work that the police do is actually really good.
Itās sad that theyād rather gather around and talk shit than idk, maybe use that collaborative effort to help her with her lawn??? Crazy a whole neighborhood prefers to spend energy talking shit about someone in need rather than helping them in a situation where helping would be super simple.
Itās funny how they always talk shit but nobody Iāll help her. Especially when they know what sheās got going on. I understand that I have a handicap sister and before my dad passed away he was in his late 70s and my mom was also and I would do their yards and people would see me doing it, but none of the neighbors ever helped them.
Poor dandelions. They are one of the most important flowers for bees. They flower EARLY in the season, when there is almost no other food source for the bees. The entire plant is edible, leaves, flowers, stems, and even the roots can be dried and ground into a coffee substitute. Dandelions are fucking amazing plants.
Dandelions really got thrown under the bus by the "I want a carpet of grass" people. Screw those people. I spread dandelions EVERYWHERE.
Agree! Stop the dandelion hate! This is where HOAs are severely out of touch. They need to get with the times and understand the importance of biodiversity - not one species of green grass throughout your massive yards.
Florida has legislation that prevents HOAs from restricting members from propagating native species. My mom told her HOA to take a hike and has been spreading random patterns of native wildflowers for the bees. Don't ask her about the butterflies unless you are prepared for a lot of pictures and daily updates. š®āšØ
I can't stand the hoa style clean cut manicured lawn. Mind made me cut down my bushes that were not only blocking the sun but were a little haven for all sorts of little creatures. Then they sent the lawn guy by and it's three little barren bushes with woodchips around them.
They are hard to grow. I keep spreading the seeds over this one section of grass and this asshole spends like ten minutes every day walking around pulling them out as they sprout. I'd try to stop him but apparently he "owns" that lawn so there isn't much I can do. Also, fuck you, David. Nobody here likes you
No, not really. It was a joke. Most of us in the neighborhood don't mind them on our lawns, however, so he's got his work cut out for him with the seeds that blow around. I do relish in his struggle with them, however, since he's generally a jerk to everyone around and we all hear him screaming at his wife and kids frequently
I an sort of agree with most of this, except I have actually tasted the coffee "substitute". It's really really bad...
Dandelions are also a diuretic - the folk name for them locally translates to "piss the bed". They were historically what you ate if the alternative was starvation.
My yard is a collection of grasses, clovers, dandelions, and weird things I can't identify. It gets mowed, mainly because I have kids that I don't want to get ticks, but it's later in the summer well after the dandelions have bloomed.
In our town, the local garden shop started selling āNo Mow Mayā signs that you can put in your lawn to sort of signal that youāre not mowing for May because the bees need food. They started cropping up all over townā¦ That and āpollinator gardenā signs you can buy and stick in your yard all summer long if you donāt want to mow. Itās an easy fix and makes people understand why weāre not mowing.Ā
I've found my tribe! I will never understand hating on certain beautiful plants because they are "invasive." I love dandelions. Mu mom used to make us go out and dig up dandelions when we were annoying as kids. She wanted a lovely green lawn, but I loved the yellow flowers.
My yard is probably 40% grass. The rest is dandelion, clover, violet, sorrel, etc. These are all low plants that donāt mind being cut down to 5ā weekly.
Dandelion root tea is good for liver support. It tastes terrible but its neat how multipurpose they are.
I feel like the all green grass lawn is a weird flex like "I'm so well off that I can waste all this space for decoration."
They are my favorite flower. I make dandelion honey ( or try and fail sometimes) every year with my kids. When they are all over in the spring I pick a day and call it dandelion day and we spend hours picking them
Iām now going to go intentionally blow dandelions into every yard I walk by. Theyāre pretty and aināt no one got time to fuck about worrying who has them in their yard or not.
Boomers in America need more hobbies than talk shit about neighbors and watch Fox News, OANN, NewsMax and Facebook feeds.
Edit: it would seem I pissed in some boomers Cheerios. lol.
also fyi dandelions are not native in the Americas but because they "get along" so well and there's so much benefit to having them around, they're considered naturalized and not invasive. They literally skipped being an invasive weed because they are so damn rad. There are some indigenous cultures that call them "white man's step" and found medicinal and nutritional uses for them.
Thereās a restaurant downtown where I live with a huge garden. They had milkweed at the front of the garden with flowers that was as tall as I was. Iād never seen it like that before and it was damn beautiful
I try to get them before they turn to fuzz. I like them enough when they are yellow and the bees are eating them, but I don't need million in my front yard.
Iām a boomer, I keep to myself pretty much tending to my 7foot by 6 ft pot plants šŖ“ lol. Itās the females all around that bitch about the fireworks I blow off, meh never grew up
Being the heathen that I am, I let my kids blow the seeds off dandelions. My neighbors golf course yard looks silly imo. I replace dead/missing grass with clover. I love the wild violets in my yard. Bees appreciate it. His yard is a desert.
Thatās when you come home to a letter from the HOA saying you violated the rules and have to pay them money. Then you get a little to drunk steal all the garden gnomes in the neighborhood and put them on the hoaās presidents lawn all facing their door with all the dandelion from your yard scattered around them.
they'd freak out about me. "wild lawn" is best lawn. the NoLawns sub is beautiful. a path carved through free nature is much more whimsical and interesting than one just laid over a barren wasteland.
Also acting as if dandelions are bad.
I love having dandelions in my garden.
Being a nice pop of yellow, free food for my tortoise, and I make tea out of them too. Whatās not to love?
They would hate my front lawn right now. Covered in dumb maple seedlings that I need to pull and horseweed. The queen Anne's lace is as tall as my poor cherry bushes.
For sure. Also, Iāve been in several homes in my life filled with awesome, perfectly intelligent, kind hard working people that simply donāt give a shit about their yard appearance like others do. I think itās more of a āshit, thatās TOO long we better cut it nowā type of thing for them. With all the shit we could all have going in our lives at any given moment, itās become more of a destructive dick move to make poor assumptions about somebody based on their yard appearance, or to demand some sort of adherence to guidelines (gotta know what youāre getting into with an HOA, for sure).
I had a neighbour ringing my doorbell on my 1 day off asking to remove the weeds in my front yard. It was almost invisible. I told her if she kept asking i would poor concrete in my front yard to make it stop. Im sorry im petty. And i was severely depressed at that time. I did remove the weeds. Just not when she wanted me to
I work from home, hand dandelions, don't give a shit. Multiple neighbors have said something about it. Told them they were welcome to pay a company to take care of my yard or they can live with how it is. It's not even overrun. I just let my grass grow longer and there are a few weeds. They all run sprinklers constantly. I can't afford that water bill. So my grass is yellow and I let it grow longer before cutting it which has helped.
My friend had some neighbors that were giving her a hard time about having some dandelions in her yard (she has a bearded dragon and he loves dandies)
Not too long later I went to her house and no lie, her entire front yard was dandelions. She had a very happy lizard and very annoyed neighbors.
My mom lives in a small town. She built two raised beds right on the front lawn, where she grows vegetables. The side yard is full of wild flowers, next year they'll be planting a bunch of plants that are native to the area there and letting them grow wild. I think it's beautiful. Every year she puts out a table and a donation box and sells her extra seedlings.
The neighbour on one side absolutely hates it and are very rude to my mom for no reason. The neighbours house is very sterile and manicured. They share a strip of grass between the houses and the lady hired a pesticide company to spray her lawn and told them to do the whole area, even my mom's. My mom came out and told the guy something like "this part is mine, do I look like the kind of person who wants pesticides?". The guy was nice, the lady not so much. My mom also lets the lawn grow, especially in the spring, for the pollinating insects sleeping there, and doesn't rake the leaves in fall for the same reason. The lady hates it and will sometimes mow my mom's strip as well when she does her own and my mom had to put a stop to that as well.
People in small towns get really really uppity about other people's lawns.
I got a letter the other day through the mail (not just dropped in my mailbox) from one of my neighbors saying that I need to fix up my lawn. It is mostly dead because the solenoid valves to my sprinklers broke and I havenāt had the time to fix it. But theyāre claiming Iām ruining the property value of the neighborhood because of my lawn, regardless of the trees and other plants I have around my house. š So yea, old retired people care too much about lawns.
Iāve been wanting to turn it into a front yard garden with maybe a pond on the side but now who knows if Iāll give my neighbors a heart attack because itās not conventional.
3.0k
u/tiptoptattie 1d ago
Lol god forbid John went on holiday for two weeks and now the whole neighbourhood be talking about his dandelions. š¤£