Really?

I find myself irritated.

I came home from work today to find a notice from the city taped to my door. It states that we have exceeded the height limit for weeds/grass on our property and we need to cut the weeds/lawn so that they are at an appropriate height. Now let me say that I am not against lawn maintenance. I see no problem with keeping my yard at an appropriate level of cleanliness. I also try to be a good neighbor, which means I do not spend my time tattling on neighbors for barking dogs, visible trash cans, or overgrown yards. I am friendly when I see people, I don't make a lot of noise and I mind my own business. This is all I ask of the people who live around me. This is why we don't live in a condo or a place with an association. I don't like to be told what to do. I am assuming this notice has come as the result of a complaint logged by one of my neighbors - most likely the people next door who are trying to rent out their house. There is something sneaky feeling about these types of complaints because I will never know who has the issue with my yard, and now I feel like they'll be watching me do yard work and think I'm doing it because I've been reprimanded. I suppose it's possible that the city just has inspectors that drive around making sure people are compliant with these ordinances, but I doubt it. I would rather that my neighbor just come to me and say, "Hey, the weeds along our fence line are a little tall. Could you please cut them?" I like to think that I'm a reasonable person who would be perfectly willing to accomodate their request.

A little back story - our yard is a little different. The previous owners of our house, my grandparents, were very in to trees. As a result, we have lots of shade and very little grass. In the front yard the grass became so thin that my grandparents completely replaced it with ivy instead. The ivy looks great and keeps weeds out when it's healthy and full. A couple years ago, we had planned to sell the house and move. This resulted in some remodeling and, against our knowledge and wishes, some re-landscaping. Our "landscaper" decided to kill the ivy, which we had expressly forbidden them to touch, I'm assuming to replace it with grass, which of course will not grow in our yard. Luckily, the ivy survived. However, it was very thin and fighting for life and this allowed weeds and tree sprouts to grow in the empty spaces. This required a whole weekend of hand weeding, which was accomplished thanks to the help of my parents. While all this ivy drama was going on the backyard was being completely neglected. We have the same issues in the back yard - not much grass, lots of Creeping Jenny. Things in back got so out of hand that we had to go through with a weed whacker before we could mow. The yard sat like this for at least six months while we were living elsewhere - no notices from the city.

We are back in the house now and though we are not manual labor people we have gotten things pretty under control. The ivy is coming back nicely, still some weeds but not nearly as many and we're working on it. We mow the back yard regularly. There are some vines and things along the fence and the side of the house and we are working at those little by little, but the weather has been terrible and we have been very busy.

So that is why I am annoyed, that just when I feel like we are really starting to get things under control I get a notice saying our yard is a problem for the people around us. Especially since our neighbors across the street have not mowed their lawn yet this year. No note taped to their door.

Ok--deep breath--moving on.