Gunfight over dog poo?

[SnakeCharmer]

If I were to have a lawn of my own, I would use a push mower (yes you can still buy them, they actually seem kind of neat). As it so happens, next time I move my place will have a lawn. I'd rather let it rot, but since it won't be mine, I'll pay someone a few bucks a week to keep it presentable if not boring.

Keep the blades sharp and in good condition and that push mower will be easier to use and manage than a regular power push mower on 'normal' sized yards.  Weighs less, makes a better cut, and the swickswickswickswickswick of the blades is oddly soothing.  Having a nice lawn is more of a vanity thing.  Sure, I enjoy the work that goes into it, but more than that it is about one upping your neighbor and in general just making the street look nice.  And it is about property values and all that sort of thing.

I don't get why you wouldn't want to have a nice looking yard in the same way I don't get how you wouldn't want to keep a clean car (not new or "nice", but just clean), or well maintained inside of your house, or even just dressed sharply and not looking like a bum.  I'm not saying putting in a multithousand dollar sprinkler system with top of the line sod and fresh flowers everywhere, but at least throw some lime, fertilzer, and seed down for your grass and plant some shrubs or whatnot to add some color.

Besides...What looks better?
This?

Or this?

Is it a projection of image?  Sure.  But it's also taking pride in what you have and how you look.

[Paelos]

Snake of all people I'd expect you to not give a crap and have a busted Camero in the front yard that you were working on painting crimson with a kickass tide logo on the front hood.

You redneck! 

[Lantyssa]

Pic 2.  There are trees.

[HaemishM]

So lawns? I fucking hate them. I firmly believe that if you spend more more than the cost of a new console video game for one cutting/treatment/whatever to keep them looking manicured and especially if you pay to keep them chemically treated to look unnaturally green, you are a goddamn fool who has too much money. You have invented ways to spend money on fuckall and epeen. You should have your gardeners fucking your wife while you're out, then shitting on your lawns and using that as fertilizer. I would rather gouge my own eyes out than work on a yard, especially to try to keep it perfectly manicured. I've got better things to do with my life.

However, I firmly realize I'm in the minority on this, especially in the suburbs, so I make every attempt to keep my dogs shit out of other people's yards.

When I was a kid, probably because we lived in more rural areas, we played everywhere, dog shit or not. Probably spent more time barefoot outside than we should have but you know, I survived. We let the dogs roam wherever they pleased for the most part. Now what pisses me off these days isn't dog shit on my yard, it's when some fuckhead lets his dog out without a leash to roam around the streets (and be in danger of being hit by the speeding shitheads who live in my neighborhood) and said fuckhead's dog rips open my garbage in my garage and leaves chicken bones and pieces all over the place. That gets my goat. I still wouldn't shoot person or dog over it, though.

[Samwise]

Is it okay if I hate lawns AND dog shit?

[SnakeCharmer]

Snake of all people I'd expect you to not give a crap and have a busted Camero in the front yard that you were working on painting crimson with a kickass tide logo on the front hood.

You redneck! 

It's my way of rebelling against my redneck upbringing! 

[Merusk]

If I were to have a lawn of my own, I would use a push mower (yes you can still buy them, they actually seem kind of neat). As it so happens, next time I move my place will have a lawn. I'd rather let it rot, but since it won't be mine, I'll pay someone a few bucks a week to keep it presentable if not boring.

Keep the blades sharp and in good condition and that push mower will be easier to use and manage than a regular power push mower on 'normal' sized yards.  Weighs less, makes a better cut, and the swickswickswickswickswick of the blades is oddly soothing. 

I'm willing to bet Strazos was thinking of this.

He should have been thinking of THIS

The added bonus for those of us with hearing problems due to years of headphone use is that you don't have to have noise cancelling headphones or blare the music in your ear as you cut your lawn.

[KallDrexx]

You can have a nice lawn without spending a shit ton of money on it or spending a ton of work on it.

I am currently working on getting our lawn into decent shape, not because I need to keep up with the neighbors, but because the lawn was neglected, and now whenever I mow I end up inhaling a shit-ton of dirt and leaves and shit that goes flying because the grass is sparse and not holding very well.  I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars and crap to do that, and you don't have to.

I have yet to see a no-grass lawn that I like the look of, so I'm not going to rip all the grass out.  Also, dog shit shows up more without grass.

[Paelos]

You could just just till the dirt, toss a bunch of wildflower seed on it, and call it a day!

Also, if anybody needs some Kudzu, I'm sure I can ship you some. Problem solved.

(Disclaimer - Kudzu may eat your house)

[KallDrexx]

Not really sure how feasible that is, since it's a really big yard (that wasn't why the house was bought, in fact that was a downside). 

[Lantyssa]

(Disclaimer - Kudzu may eat your house)

(And all your neighbors' houses, all your family members, your pets, and possibly everything in your city...)

[Bunk]

Grew up in a neighbourhood of big 1.5 acre lots. Front half of ours was lawn, back half was wild. Every lot around us was a forest. Was fucking awesome as a young teenager.

As for the lawn itself, I hated mowing it - took almost an hour on a riding mower, and honestly we really didn't use the lawn much. Most sports stuff we did in the back on the wild grass, because it held up better and it was more private.

I don't really miss a lawn that much - I'd rather have a big deck. Do miss natural trees though - really hurts driving through the old neighbourhood and being able to see clearly from one end of the subdivision to the other.

[Nerf]

I believe I can speak with some authority on the matter of lawns.

Fuck lawns.  The next step in lawn-science should to be genetically engineer asses for them, just so they can be fucked in their asses.

Also, fuck having the driveway in the back of the house via an alley.  Why am I sacrificing backyard space that my dog can play in for front yard that doesn't even get looked at except when checking the mail?

I'm just glad we don't have a HOA in the new place.  While I won't let the lawn go to hell, the last thing I want in life is a letter from some yard nazi telling me that my grass is .02" too long and must be cut immediately or they'll fine me and put a lien on my house.

I don't have an opinion on dog poo in the front yard, because we never, ever see it due to the aforementioned back-of-house driveway that we get to via an alley.  One day we went to check the mail and the front little garden/bush/whatever area was completely covered in 2-3' high spikey milk thistleweed things, and it was the first time we saw them.

I'd zeroscape if we could get away with it, but given the subdivision it would absolutely kill resale value and we're probably going to sell in a few years when I finish my undergrad and move on to opto school.

[Samwise]

Here's the current state of my front yard.  I'm still working on improving the wildflower-to-weed ratio but I think even with the odd patch of burr clover or nightshade or (shudder) grass it looks a hell of a lot nicer than a lawn.  Not needing water is a plus too.


A big front yard would be a wonderful problem to have.  I'd probably plant a bunch of trees so I could feel like I lived in a forest.

[Ingmar]

That's awesome.

[Mosesandstick]

Lawns seem to be a big issue in the US. Does anyone care about their backyard?

[Teleku]

A big front yard would be a wonderful problem to have.  I'd probably plant a bunch of trees so I could feel like I lived in a forest.

Yeah, I've always loved houses that did that.  A number of people with large front yards back home would just turn it into a small orchard or something.

[Sand]

Lawns seem to be a big issue in the US. Does anyone care about their backyard?

My back yard is a fucking ski slope. Im going to terrace it after putting french drains around the foundation to divert water away from the substructure.

There's a tiny wood near us, and it's gorgeous, a little slice of wild in the middle of a city, and it's ruined by having retarded dog owners letting their dogs shit on the paths and tracks. And there's loads of little bags of dog shit hanging from branches and in bushes. I mean ffs you've already picked it up and bagged it why not carry it 100 meters to the fucking DOG SHIT BINS the council puts at all entrances to the woods?

This is my favorite post thus far. We live on the park as well, and people let their dogs shit all over the running track and the trails. I would shoot such people if I could.
 

[Lantyssa]

Mine may eventually end up that way.  I'm taking out hard to maintain gardens and putting in grass for convenience (the former retiree owners had a lot of time to garden), but I'm encouraging fruit trees to grow.  The orange and grapefruit trees produce a ton of fruit already.  There is a young citrus, I think a lemon, in the back, and I'm letting a few of the loquat trees that started sprouting in optimal places grow.

Around the fish pond I'm going for a hodgepodge of southwest flora.  I'll probably get a few more sage bushes before I'm done.  They do well in high sun and without much water.

[Strazos]

Merusk, I was actually thinking more along the lines of the latter of your links.

Also, next place will Probably come with some sort of green splotch of ground. I'll be a lessee, so I don't really have to care about resale value. I'll simply have to maintain it, which is what the $20/month gardener will be for.

If it were up to me, I'd pave the whole thing over for more driveway space.

[Merusk]

Yes, that's exactly what the groundwater and storm systems need.  More paved land. 

[Sjofn]

Also, I come from drought land?     I grew up in the half of the state that provides water to the entire other half!

I moved to CA from NJ, all of California is doughty as far as I'm concerned! But if you are from somewhere with plenty of water, you should resent all the lawns in the rest of the state stealing it.

[Teleku]

Well yes, we do.  But we also begrudge sending it to them so they can bathe and drink, so the lawn is minor.  Get your own damn water!

[CaptainNapkin]

Lawns...


I'm with the lawn haters, but still clean up the crap if it's not your own place. Hell, 5 acres here and we still pick up the poop if it's in a pasture within 100 feet of the house. Horse shit don't stick to your boots, dog shit does. With 3 dogs that total over 200 lbs., that's a lot of mess. It's more about people that don't really give a shit about their dogs. We'd never let our dogs go run about wherever they want to (not that they'd want to) and we're in the country.

When I was in Jersey with a lawn I wished I could just pave the entire yard, here I can just let it grow like it wants to.

[Fordel]

I wonder if the poll split also matches the split in location?

[Paelos]

I wonder if the poll split also matches the split in location?

By state or by city/suburb/rural?

[Fordel]

By state I guess, but I mean more like by where people are in terms of weather, or the lack of weather with all those Californian folk.


Here in Southern Ontario, grass pretty much grows itself. Only have to water it yourself once in a while in the summer if the rain doesn't show for awhile.

[Sheepherder]

nightshade

Well, that solves the neighbours pets chewing on your shrubbery, but what do you do about them shitting?

[SurfD]

nightshade

Well, that solves the neighbours pets chewing on your shrubbery, but what do you do about them shitting?

Cultivate a colony of Fire Ants.  Fucking dogs wont shit on your lawn when the lawn may eat them.

[Teleku]

Create a front yard that consists entirely of thick growths of Poison Oak.  Hide bear traps in it for good measure.

[Bunk]

Here's a dog poo horror story to get this back on topic:

Last year our Strata president stood up during the AGM and had to advise everyone that it was not acceptable to hide dog poo bags underneath the elevator...

I'm not kidding. We had a service guy in to fix an issue with the elevator, and he found a mound of little plastic bags of poo at the bottom of the shaft. Apparently, someone couldn't be bothered to walk the extra distance to the garbage bins, and instead would stuff them through the crack at the front of the elevator.

[Paelos]

See that's really using 2/3's of your ass. You are willing to bag the shit (the tough part) but not walk it to a can. I'd rather you just leave it there than dump shit in the elevator shaft. You've taken a problem and went out of your way to make it worse.

[HaemishM]

If you are going to bother not dumping the shit in the trash, why the fuck would you take the effort to pick it up in the first place?

[Hawkbit]

Because it wasn't about laziness.  It's about making a big ass mess. 

It's like hiding a shrimp tail in your buddy's car seats, or behind his desk at work.  Which is all kinds of fun, let me tell you. 

[angry.bob]

There's a lot of rage in my neighborhood over this. The way Akron boomed at the turn of the century made for houses packed against each other for everyone but the ultrawealthy. Lots of people's back doors open into other people's front yards or back patio. I've had the problem with my neighbor's two norwegian elk hounds considering my front yard to be their territory.

That being said, only in America will people get enraged at the thought of an animal pooping and peeing outside. Seriously America, some things just really need to be put into perspective.