Criminally Maintained Lawns
It’s becoming increasingly apparent that if you skip out on yard work, you’ll probably end up in jail. Consider the plights of Betty Perry, Nicole Schandera, and David Burch.
Betty, Nicole, and David’s yards, respectively.
As the enforcement officer started writing her a ticket (for failure to water her lawn), she tried going back in her house. That’s when the officer tried to handcuff [the 70 year-old woman] . . . She tripped on the steps, scraping up her nose and elbows, leaving blood on her door, her porch and her clothes. Perry was handcuffed, fingerprinted and put in a jail cell, where she sat for more than an hour.
I mean there’s a little bit of stuff that needs to be done — the grass needs to be cut, we need to get a car out of the yard, . . [s]even months pregnant, (they) handcuffed her, hands behind her back put her in a patrol car with no A/C and the window down, and it was 90 degrees at 2:00 in the afternoon.”
The people who work at the court, at the jail, thought it was funny,” Burch said. “They said there had to be more. I said, ‘No, it’s just because I don’t have grass growing.’ They said, ‘You’re in here for that?’
Apparently, these three were all arrested for violation of various city ordinances requiring you to properly upkeep your yard for sake of surrounding property value - analogous to homeowners association covenants. The above is what happens when you attempt to implement, by force of law, what normal neighbors are capable of bargaining for between themselves.
If there is any compelling need to have people’s lawns be kept, in a free society the solution could be found in tort law. I, your disgruntled neighbor, can sue you for depreciation on my property. Of course, the best remedy I could hope to obtain is a money judgment, as forcing people to keep their property a certain way is disrespect for property rights in the highest order.
Of course, if hearing of Betty, Nicole, and David has motivated you to get out and water the lawn - not so fast. Consider Brian Ross, a man who was recently arrested FOR watering his lawn.
I went to sign the ticket and as I did he threw me against the car and handcuffed me, . . . I was never notified. I never got anything in the mail – nothing . . .
Woe be to those who do not care for their lawns to the satisfaction of the state.
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