Having a beautiful garden to admire and relax in is usually a priority for most homeowners and renters.
That's why one tenant took to the r/AskUK subreddit for advice after their landlord failed to follow through with promised lawn maintenance.
In their post, the aggrieved tenant explained that they and some friends had recently moved into a property with an unfinished garden that consisted of just weeds and mud.
"When we went for the initial viewing, the lettings agent said the garden would be 'sorted' by the time we move in. That was about 6 months ago now, and the garden is yet to be sorted," they said.
The tenant said the landlord had sent at least five different gardeners to get quotes on planting grass. However, when the agent tried to contact the landlord for updates on the garden, they received no response. Despite the tenants' repeated attempts to resolve the issue, the agent's hands were tied.
"Is there anything else we can do? With the weather getting nicer and nicer, we'd really like to enjoy the outside space which we were 'promised,'" the hopeful tenant asked the community.
Unfortunately, this is hardly the first instance of landlords or homeowners associations giving residents a hard time. HOAs and property owners are well-known for giving people the runaround or blocking money-saving, eco-friendly upgrades that homeowners propose.
Landlords have been caught destroying tenants' flowers and spraying toxic herbicides in their gardens without permission. Others have stringent rules preventing residents from hanging clotheslines to dry laundry and installing solar panels or electric vehicle charging stations.
It's easy to feel hopeless when dealing with a problematic landlord or HOA, but you can work with them to change established rules to allow planet-friendly improvements.
"It's a standard scam with renting unfortunately. If something isn't sorted before you move in, it isn't going to get sorted when you're actually living there. They just promise to fix it so that you'll sign up and start paying," one commenter said, suggesting the tenant call a gardener themselves instead of waiting on the landlord.
"This is a lesson in getting things in writing. You should have got it in the contract that the garden would be turfed," another shared.
"You'll have to check the terms of your lease to see who's responsible for the garden - in many cases the tenant is responsible for garden maintenance, so you might not have much luck with the landlord unfortunately, if that's what your lease says too," someone else advised.
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