Gracious! The St. Petersburg Times ran a story about a man who can’t afford to resod his lawn and got tossed in jail. His home owner’s association is mad that his lawn is brown. The man had an adjustable rate mortgage on his home and had to pay an extra $600 a month just to keep his house. His car got repossessed because he is so broke. He’s so broke that he can’t afford to manicure his lawn. Now, he’s doing time in the slammer for his negligence. Brown lawns are not allowed by his HOA.
Do you live in a community with a home owner’s association? What do you think about the article? Do you think it’s wrong that this man is in jail for having a bad lawn? Do you think it’s his fault for having a bad mortgage that he couldn’t afford?
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
My HOA has relaxed a lot of the rules. So many people are barely able to make their house payments let alone the monthly HOA fee. It’s not worth going to jail over.
Yeah, that has to be totally nuts – I mean for crying out loud, it’s FLORIDA. You can’t have a green lawn all the time with the seed that people keep using. It’s not an indigenous grass for the region.
That’s a dang on shame. That man does not deserve jail time. The mortgage industry overall is taking a hit and HOA should be a tadbit more relaxed on the fees during this time. Even if they did it on a case by case basis that would be understandable versus it ending this way.
I live in a community where I pay an HOA fee, but you can best believe if times got ruff that would definitely be an expense I’d have to hold out on.
That’s ridiculous. I hope his neighbors did everything they could to help him before jailing him. This probably isn’t just about grass. They clearly just don’t like this dude.
no HOA. I avoid Nazi communes when possible
Something’s missing from this story. The HOA might have rules about lawns, but the HOA isn’t the law. The could fine, or even sue him over it but they couldn’t have him tossed in jail. Is there an actual law somewhere about lawns? Seems any judge in his right mind would toss this case out.
It sounds as if it is about more than just brown grass…BUT…if you want green grass and the natural refuses to cooperate, buy some dye and a sprayer and *spray your grass green*. It can be done any time the grass browns and is a cheap fix until you can nurse the lawn back to health. The sprayer is a one-time expense. This dying your lawn green (choose a realistic color!) works anywhere (not covered with snow) in any season. You’d be amazed at how much it improves your landscape and curb appeal. You will be the person in the HOA with the “perfectly green lawn” at all times! Tucson, AZ was spraying medians along streets over winter with nothing but brown grass 40 years ago, and I recently saw this again on an HGTV show about getting your house staged and ready to sell. IT WORKS!