Riverview — Brian O’Kevin is fed up with his neighbour’s neglectful nature when it comes to lawn care, and he’s fighting back with gnomes, flamingos and other terrible-looking ornaments.
“I’m going to make my yard the ugliest thing he’s ever seen,” commented O’Kevin. “That’ll show him. He’s not going to mow his lawn? I’ll take it a few steps further by ruining my own lawn and making this place en eyesore for every time he looks over here.”
O’Kevin has been concerned about his property’s resale value declining because of his neighbour’s unkempt yard.
“No one is ever going to want to buy my house next to his disgusting lawn,” O’Kevin ranted. “So I’m going to make sure no one wants to buy his house either, even if it’s decreasing my own value — which is the very thing I wanted to avoid in the first place.”
Our reporter visited O’Kevin’s property to see what he’s added so far to make his lawn unappealing: an old rusted-out car; some really creepy-looking garden gnomes; plastic pink flamingos; dead potted plants; several piles of dog poop and no dogs to be found; chunks of grass dug out from the yard; one of those tacky silhouette cutout things; and even some Christmas decorations.
Jimmy Holson, the offending neighbour, told us that he has no intention of cutting his grass or doing any additional maintenance to his yard — and also that he’s enjoying O’Kevin’s new landscape.
“I think it looks great!” he chimed. “The car, the gnomes, all of it is fantastic — and that Grinch decoration is the icing on the cake for me. I mean, that’s all well and fine for his yard, but I prefer to take a more organic approach and just let nature run its course. To each his own.”
When our reporter told O’Kevin that his neighbour actually enjoys the newly ugly yard, he immediately began coming up with more elaborate ways to make his yard even worse.
“I’ve got it!” he proclaimed. “I’m going to have kids — that’ll drive him nuts. And I’ll make sure they’re miserable little neighbourhood kids, too. Like, they’ll roam around the streets and knock on his door at dinnertime and just be jerks non-stop.
“And maybe I’ll put on a bunch of weight and start barbecuing in just my underwear and sunbathing on my deck — that’ll teach him for letting his grass grow longer than I like it to be.”