Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Recently, we drove by the Eagles Crossing property.

Had our eyes deceived us?

Parts of the lawn were as high as an elephant’s eye, and other parts were dried to a tumbleweed. Now that landlord has to pay for the water to keep the lawn green, this is what has happened.

Landlord required my husband to cut the grass TWICE A WEEK in the summer. Yet, here I am staring at a pasture that would take a flock of sheep a month to eat enough grass to be in compliance with the Hunters Creek Homeogres Association.

While we resided here, my husband, daughters and I spent hours weekly cutting the grass, pulling weeds, gathering fallen palm tree leaves, raking, etc., on top of manually watering the lawn with our hose. The lawn watering system didn’t work upon move-in 2007. Many, many, many months later, when it was replaced by landlord’s friend who was not proficient in doing such work, the system stopped working again, and landlord never had it repaired. Though we bought a sprinkler to move around the lawn to get it watered in all of the dry spots, often times my husband or I would be standing around with the hoses we purchased to water the lawn.

And here, parts of the lawn — dead in large pockets! While we resided here, he was tyrannical about HIS cost and forcing us to pay for his negligence on all levels. Landlord was relentless in using the water we paid to water the lawn, let leaky pipes go without repair, adding water every week to the green swamp of a pool he created, or he would just stand with a hose and let the water run against the house in more of his despicable ways.

In 2007, landlord/owner promised he would be back every quarter, at least three or four times a year, to do landscaping, take care of the gutters, etc. Except for one time around 2010, when he brought the woman he was currently living with to show off his “Florida estate,” he never did any of the tree maintenance, nor sent any lawn care maintenance from February 2007 through June 2011.

Over the years, we did the lawn care and tree maintenance, from climbing tall palm trees, to cutting down a tree that was struck by lightning; from my husband having to climb onto the roof to clean the gutters, to trimming dead trees that landlord planted because he liked the look of them in a shopping mall!

Landlord/owner does have an arsenal of excuses for not cutting his own lawn I am certain, though any excuse from us would have been completely unacceptable.