Lawn in Despair

We took care of the front yards ONLY unless requested by the owner. If you had a lock on your gate to the backyard we did NOT mow there. I would check if this is your HOa's policy.

Jason,

You ought to have a lawyer review your governing documents to be sure that the HOA has a legal obligation to maintain your back yard. If so, have the lawyer send them a certified letter urging them to fulfill their obligation. If you don't get any satisfaction, have a landscaper take care of the problem and then send the Association the bill. If they don't reimburse you, take them to small claims court.

Jason and all

My HOA consists of stand alone homes on deeded lots. The HOA is responsible for all landscaping with the exception of privacy fenced in, small backyards but let us set our backyards aside for this conversation.

One has to be realistic about landscaping and things like weather, weeds, etc. Often we are damned if we do and damned if we do not.

Each of our homes has a sprinkler system controlled by the homeowner. Some of our owners in order to save money, have turned off their sprinklers. We are getting complaints about some grass being brown but to top it all off, one owner has demanded we resod his lawn as it has died. When asked about how often he ran his sprinkler (we knew the answer), he replied: never, let nature take its course.

Some owners complain when the sprinklers are running on our common areas while it is raining. What are we to do? Monitor it? It costs more to monitor it (personnel) then to just let them run on a timer. One year people complained we were not running them enough.

Damned if you do, damned if you do not.

Back to Jason, the OP.

Even with my HOA being responsible, I think one often has to take control depending on ones unique situation. With multi homes, weather, sun, shade, etc. not one size lawn service fits all (nor does how much one runs their sprinkler apply) and from a commercial lawn service, one usually gets one size fits all.

Myself, I treat my lawn a bit better. Meaning I buy spray bottles (attaches to a garden hose) and treat my lawn in addition to the landscape company treatments. I find it less aggravating to buy some spray weed killer and do it myself ($15 and 20 minutes) then to fight it, even if I am right. I say lose battles but win wars. Be careful in purchasing the proper stuff. You do not want to kill the grass, just the weeds.

We had major issues here this year. Warm winter, early spring, wet late spring, now in a drought. Overall our landscaping does not look as good as usual. We had a recent meeting with the landscape company. Easy to call it a perfect storm all coming together:

1. We all agreed. Spastic weather.

2. I said they were professionals and were late in adapting.

3. They said spastic weather plus inability to hire seasonal workers.

4. I said that is because you base hiring on cheap labor and while I know not as much cheap labor is available now as it has been in past years, that is your issue not ours.

5. They said increased labor costs could result in higher priced contract.

6. We agreed to meet again in 2 months to talk again.

Well I have ranted enough. I need another drink.....LOL

For about $100 you can add a weather sensor to your sprinkler controller to have it suspend the watering cycle when it has been raining. This device will usually pay for itself in less than a year by saving water. It's also mindful of the environment and scarce resources.

If you are in the Declarant control period still, I would save your time and effort. Get permission from the HOA, I mean the developer, to hire a landscaper to fix your backyard. I know what the documents say, but in the declarant control period there are usually many exceptions granted to the Declarant and one of them is to unilaterally modify the documents if they so desire. An application of 2-4D and additional over-seeding is going to fairly cheap and not cause ulcers.