One new homeowner found out the hard way that lawns take intensive care to maintain — and their HOA didn't allow any room for error.
The homeowner posted in r/lawncare seeking urgent help with their yard. "Just moved into a home less than a month ago," they explained. "The previous owners neglected the lawn big time; thus, the lawn looks like s***. It is infested with weeds and crabgrass."
The new owner turned to professionals to try to get control of the situation. "I immediately hired a lawn care company who came out and sprayed weed killer," they said.
Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to turn a struggling yard into a manicured lawn, and the original poster was well aware their HOA would not be pleased. "I was told I need to start mowing once a week at 3-3.5 inches and water at least every other day if no rain," they said. "Should I be mowing when the yard is infested with weeds? Should I be pulling out weeds individually? Should I buy a new mower? … There are rocks in my lawn, do I need to rake these all out before mowing?"
This homeowner isn't the first to grapple with the question of how to maintain a lawn to an HOA's standards. Many demand freshly trimmed and bright green grass with no weeds — no matter how much wasted water, excess fertilizer, and unnecessary herbicide it takes to get there. That's bad for the environment because it makes water conservation harder and increases pollution.
A better solution would be rewilding the yard with native plants, which flourish in the local environment without any of those extras. But that would require changing the HOA bylaws to allow a native lawn.
Commenters were aghast at the original poster's situation.
"What exactly is the HOA on your case about?" one asked. "If you're mowing the lawn and not letting it grow high, I can't imagine what you'd be violating unless it's other non-lawn landscaping stuff. Do they regulate the percentage of weeds your lawn is or something crazy?"
"I see a future HOA president in the making," another user groused. "Ask them for their resident wizard who can grow grass over the winter. Or better yet, drop sod in … late October or November by the time you get them out there so it'll die in winter."
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