Tenant vents frustration after landlord nearly destroys prized garden: 'I would show the landlord the damage and attempt to get compensation'

Herbicides strike again, and a gardener takes to Reddit to share how harmful chemicals sprayed near their plants caused heavy damage to their garden.

The spraying of herbicides has long been known to be an unhealthy practice that poses dangers to the lives of plants, animals, and humans in addition to the weeds they are meant to target.

The wanton release of these chemicals often garners the ire of the gardening community, especially when the spray comes from landlords who violate tenant consent or homeowners associations that dictate what can be done on someone else's property.

In a post on the subreddit r/vegetablegardening, one user lamented that this is exactly what happened to them.

While their landlord was spraying a nearby property with weed killer, the user's garden was caught in the crossfire. "It damn near killed all of the flowers on my blackberry bush and the rest of my plants look pretty awful," they said.

While the poster stated that their landlord didn't intend to spray their yard and even claimed to have waited for favorable winds, their carelessness and the destructiveness of the herbicides are part of a wider problem.

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Renters who maintain gardens and invest in making their spaces home to native plants are often troubled by indifferent or resistant landlords and HOAs. Whether they resist changes to properties or simply make thoughtless errors such as spraying gardens with weedkillers, they are preventing residents from engaging in more sustainable lifestyles.

Anyone who runs in to this common set of problems should review The Cool Down's guide on how to work with landlords and HOAs to make sustainable changes to your property while renting.