Lawn gets mowed (stealthily) by mystery person 🥷

[Indigo Blue]

So ds was out of town for a week. His lawn needed to be mowed, but he hadn’t had time to do it. He just recently moved in less than a year ago. He knows a little about a few neighbors but has not met many of them. Maybe two, very briefly. 
 

While he was gone, Dh suggested that we go mow it so when ds came home, he wouldn’t have to worry about it. Ds also needs poison ivy sprayed so we thought we’d take care of it, too. 
 

I wanted to call Ds to let him know. Dh wanted to surprise him. I thought that not best, even though the intention is good. So I called.Turned out, ds did not want us to do that. He said we’d already done so much and that he wanted to mow it when he got back. 
 

Well, I knew it was going to rain continuously for days when he got back, and I really wanted to help him out. But….I just said ok. We won’t come to do that, then. 
 

He called last night, as he usually does to just chat. Then he asked, Mom, did you mow my grass? 😳

 

I said, no! Why? He said…well, someone did. 😮

What? Who? He said I don’t know!🤷‍♀️ 

Ok. Well, this is weird. 

And so…..someone just came and mowed his grass while he was at work. He has no idea who did it. 
 

He also can’t decide if they were just trying to be nice or if they were annoyed that Ds hadn’t mowed his lawn. 
 

 

Edited May 22 by Indigo Blue

[PeterPan]

I have a friend who does this for her neighbor and has neighbors who does this for her. She's single and life happens. 

I would assume they were being neighborly and maybe try to get to know them and thank them. They were probably just trying to be helpful. 🙂

[catz]

Oh well stuff like this happens in our neighborhood all the time.  Yards are relatively small and adjacent.  We have some older folks in closer blocks.  Or people chat about their upcoming travels and a neighbor might just push their lawn mower over their grass too..  Sounds like someone just trying to be a nice neighbor.  

[Indigo Blue]

5 minutes ago, catz said:

Oh well stuff like this happens in our neighborhood all the time.  Yards are relatively small and adjacent.  We have some older folks in closer blocks.  Or people chat about their upcoming travels and a neighbor might just push their lawn mower over their grass too..  Sounds like someone just trying to be a nice neighbor.  

This is likely. Ds has the same set up. Small yards, older neighbors. He told me if he finds out it is one if them, he’ll just pay them for it. He’d be glad to do that. It could be a win win for both an older neighbor who has the time and ds who is a younger guy running around like crazy.

[Spryte]

I would default to the nice neighbor idea, too. If he hasn’t met all of his neighbors yet, this might be a great opening! Or if he thinks it could be the ones he’s met, great opening to check in and chat a bit.

I would be tempted to put up a little yard sign with a “thank you to the mystery mower,” but that might be overkill and on the silly side.

[Indigo Blue]

I just think it’s kinda funny, given that we had a Big Grass Mowing Thing and then some unknown person else just comes along and mows it right after!

[Indigo Blue]

3 minutes ago, Spryte said:

I would default to the nice neighbor idea, too. If he hasn’t met all of his neighbors yet, this might be a great opening! Or if he thinks it could be the ones he’s met, great opening to check in and chat a bit.

I would be tempted to put up a little yard sign with a “thank you to the mystery mower,” but that might be overkill and on the silly side.

Ds is so introverted. He appreciates it very much. He would help out anyone anyway he could if asked. He’s a complete sweetie. But he is just not going to go out and meet neighbors. I am sure at some point, he’ll find out who did it, though. 

[Spryte]

FWIW, when DS was a little guy, maybe 2 - 4, we would always do the yard work for our older neighbor when we did ours. Leaves, snow, grass. We didn’t tell her, just popped over and did it. She figured it out eventually, but it was fun.

[SHP]

Years ago when I was a teen the city got a hair up their... because people were not mowing their lawns. Well, they couldn't because of the rain and jobs. When my mom saw the city person she jumped on her riding mower and mowed all the yards, starting with the area by the street making it impossible for the city to measure the grass. She finished everyone's front yards after the city left. She was annoyed that the city was being jerks.

We maintain parts of three different neighbors yards. Possibly a 4th's, but I am not sure exactly where the property line is. We also help neighbors add flower beds. Why? Because it is the nice thing to do. 

[catz]

Snow is hilarious in our neighborhood.  Like everyone with a snowblower races to get up there and go up the block first.  🤣  Snowblowers are giant toys.  

[Indigo Blue]

1 minute ago, SHP said:

Years ago when I was a teen the city got a hair up their... because people were not mowing their lawns. Well, they couldn't because of the rain and jobs. When my mom saw the city person she jumped on her riding mower and mowed all the yards, starting with the area by the street making it impossible for the city to measure the grass. She finished everyone's front yards after the city left. She was annoyed that the city was being jerks.

We maintain parts of three different neighbors yards. Possibly a 4th's, but I am not sure exactly where the property line is. We also help neighbors add flower beds. Why? Because it is the nice thing to do. 

We’ve never lived in the city. I never thought about city workers being grass police. Good for your mom. Ds is in the city limits. 

[Indigo Blue]

I really hope no one was trying to give ds a hint. There is one pretty cantankerous (or so we’ve heard) man who owns the empty lot next door. He keeps it meticulously mowed. He may have mowed it. Who knows. 

[Indigo Blue]

We push mow a bit of our neighbor’s road bank and that neighbor runs his commercial, huge riding mower over our road bank. 

[Spryte]

How often does the grass in that area need mowing? Or DS’s particular yard? 

We have to mow weekly or every other week, or our grass is taller than our now defunct HOA allows (6”). The HOA stopped monitoring lawn height in 2020, which means some of our neighbors have very, very tall grass. I do find the idea of mowing their lawns while they aren’t home appealing sometimes, but our current neighborhood is not as friendly as our last, so have refrained. It’s very strange to miss the HOA, but sometimes I do!

Any chance there’s an HOA or a city standard for lawn height, and the neighbors are looking out for DS so he doesn’t get the dreaded hate mail from the HOA or city?

[HomeAgain]

We nearly did this for our neighbors.  They moved in a little over a year ago and we were a little concerned to see the grass not mowed for the past couple of weeks. They've taken a lot of pride in how it looks so we thought maybe something out of the ordinary was going on for them.  The other neighbors got to it first, lol.

It's just the way this street is. 

I'd tell your son to keep being a friendly face in the neighborhood.  Let whoever did it know that they were doing it for a nice person.

[Pawz4me]

My vote is that a trying-to-be-helpful neighbor did it for him. Likely they noticed he'd been gone, and with all the rain . . and they just decided to do it for him. I'd assume the best unless/until I found out otherwise.

[TechWife]

Another vote for a nice neighbor! I would encourage him not to stress about it. He may eventually figure out who did it, but I wouldn’t worry about reciprocating. At some point he will have an opportunity to do something helpful for one of his neighbors & he will remember this and follow through & be helpful. This is what living in community is about. 

[stephanier.1765]

Our front yards are small too, so it's not unusual if someone is mowing their yard and an adjacent or across the street yard needs mowing that they'll go ahead and mow that one too. It happens so often that no one even blinks an eye at it. It's also not unusual for them to edge, as well. My guess is that a friendly neighbor saw a yard needing a trim and decided they'd do it along with their own.

[SKL]

When we moved in here 30 years ago, we were slow to figure out lawn care, so a neigbhor did ours once or twice.  I assume it was because the street isn't as pretty if someone isn't mowing.  That was embarrassing, and it spurred us into hiring a service asap.  😛  I really wanted to go buy one of those old purely mechanical push mowers, but I couldn't find any during that time period.  (I'll bet Amazon.com has some now.  :P)

Now we have purchased another property and are fixing it up.  There isn't much lawn, and I was assuming the folks who are there working on the house would weed-whack or something, but then I heard our next-door neighbor has done it.  So we need to hire someone to do that asap.  Kuz once or twice is a nice, neighborly gesture, but more than that is likely to be annoying.  (Unless they already have a reciprocal arrangement.)

In short - stuff happens, and neighbors probably don't mind extending their lawn mowing into the next yard once or twice, but also, they could be annoyed if there isn't some communication in advance.

[Indigo Blue]

So I just called ds. He was in the middle of mowing his grass, lol. 

Edited May 22 by Indigo Blue

[Frances]

6 hours ago, catz said:

Oh well stuff like this happens in our neighborhood all the time.  Yards are relatively small and adjacent.  We have some older folks in closer blocks.  Or people chat about their upcoming travels and a neighbor might just push their lawn mower over their grass too..  Sounds like someone just trying to be a nice neighbor.  

Same here.

[Frances]

6 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

Ds is so introverted. He appreciates it very much. He would help out anyone anyway he could if asked. He’s a complete sweetie. But he is just not going to go out and meet neighbors. I am sure at some point, he’ll find out who did it, though. 

He needs a dog! Walking a dog in the neighborhood is a great, relaxed way to meet neighbors.

[Frances]

6 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

I really hope no one was trying to give ds a hint. There is one pretty cantankerous (or so we’ve heard) man who owns the empty lot next door. He keeps it meticulously mowed. He may have mowed it. Who knows. 

I wouldn’t worry even if that’s the case. It sounds like he is normally on top of it and this was a somewhat unusual circumstance with him being gone at the same time as fast growing weather.

[Just Kate]

I have the nicest neighbor in the world. He almost always mows our lawn for us. He is retired and has a riding mower (ours is a push mower). Dh works out of town and I work full time. He always tells us to pay it forward someday. We try to give him some money every now and then in the form of Home Depot gift cards (he always has a project going on). At least that pays for the gas!

[Indigo Blue]

1 hour ago, Frances said:

He needs a dog! Walking a dog in the neighborhood is a great, relaxed way to meet neighbors.

He can’t. He’d love to, but he’s not home all day. 

[ScoutTN]

My Dh once cut a power T, the symbol for our state flagship uni, into a neighbor’s yard. Neighbor, Buckeye Jim, is a rabid Ohio State fan and Tennessee was playing them later that afternoon. Buckeye Jim stopped to chat about the game prospects with Dh while Dh was mowing our yard. Neighbor got home from walking his dog to find his yard sporting the opponent’s symbol. Hilarious! 

🏈🏈🏈 Go Vols! 

Edited May 23 by ScoutTN

[Clemsondana]

We live on 3 acres, and cutting our grass on a riding mower still takes 2 hours.  When we know we'll be gone we pay somebody to do it.  We live semi-rurally so long grass isn't a problem - some people have fields that they don't mow because the have animals that eat it, some let grass go to seed in the spring to reseed, etc.  But, on one or 2 occasions, a neighbor has cut our grass when we didn't get to it.  When we figured out who it was, their SIL (several family members live on a plot) said that their FIL liked cutting grass and was a sometimes bored retiree.  We give all kinds of produce from our garden to the neighbors, so it seems to be all part of being friendly, even though we aren't friends since we are all at different life stages with different social circles.  

[Lecka]

My previous church has a mystery mower, and it turned out to be someone with a riding mower, who mowed for nearby apartments, and he just mowed this stretch on his way back, because he had seen people mowing with a push mower.  We all thought it was so nice!  He had been doing it for probably 2 months before someone met him.  

[alisoncooks]

I’m afraid to mow too close to the ditch with my riding mower because of the slope/angle, so I always have a strip of tall grass there. My neighbor has a push mower, and while I’ve never caught him, I’m pretty sure he occasionally mows my ditch bank for me. Not every time, but sometimes. I appreciate it. 

[katilac]

Does your husband have an alibi,lol? 

[Indigo Blue]

21 minutes ago, katilac said:

Does your husband have an alibi,lol? 

The thought crossed my mind for a brief second…..”did my dh go up there during the work day and mow ds grass?” (It’s an hour and a half drive).

He sure was persistent about wanting to go mow it, oddly. I was like….he DOES NOT want us to come do that! lol. 
 

 

Edited May 25 by Indigo Blue