Aitg - because I haven't had the common decency to snip my cat's vocal cords when I know they're constant and incessant meowing annoys my neighbor, Karen Mckarrenembaum. Meowing without warning...

Several years back my neighbor chopped down several huge pine trees that were along a shared fence. In their place the neighbor had a large swimming pool installed. We were rather bummed out as the pine trees provided a ton of shade in our backyard. Over the last couple years two evergreens grew out of nowhere on my side of the fence and have gotten to about fifteen feet tall. They have thankfully brought some shade back to our yard. The problem is they have began leaning over the fence more towards the neighbor's property and overhang part of their swimming pool. I had a "green thumb" friend come by who said cutting the trees back to the point they wouldn't be over the fence would most likely kill them. I've overheard the neighbors talking about the eyesore of the trees hanging over the pool. I had some guests over recently and asked them their thoughts regarding the trees situation and no one wanted to voice their opinion. AITG for keeping the trees? Should I do the neighborly thing and cut them down? Thanks for your time.

So no conflict yet, but I want to avoid one. And I want the tree.

There is a tree growing RIGHT next to the fence that the previous owner to my neighbor’s house raised. So, it belongs to my neighbor. This tree typically has a trunk that gets about 6in in diameter. The thing is, it is illegal to plant them in my town. It used to be legal and the city decided that there were too many. But this tree was deposited by bird waste and is growing naturally. RIGHT AGAINST THE FENCE.

So this means the leaves will fall into the neighbors lawn and it might press against the fence. I am considering trying to form it so that it bends a little bit away and won’t touch the fence, but it might not succeed.

In fairness the neighbor has planted raspberries along the fence that are spreading into my yard, but tbh I don’t mind.

So, AITG for leaving the tree there and waiting to see what happens rather than cutting it down or even directly asking in order to avoid being told that it is a problem (ask forgiveness rather than permission)?

Context: I share a room with two other female friends.

Story 1: One of my roommates bought flower seeds and planted them. The seeds sprouted, but none of the sprouts grew into plants. After a while, the spot where my roommate had placed the seeds, behind the main entrance door, became cluttered with soil. I cleaned up the area and disposed of the soil.

Story 2: Another roommate received a plant as a graduation gift. I noticed the plant was dying and asked her why she wasn't watering it. She replied that the pot only contained rocks and no soil, so she decided to neglect the plant. Since then, whenever I watered my colleague's plant (a plant sent by a coworker), I watered hers as well. Last week, when I brought a pot with soil inside (previously containing a cactus and a succulent, both of which died), I poured out the soil and mixed it with the rocks in her pot. I then replanted her plant in a soil-filled pot.

This morning, my roommate in the 2nd story told me she disliked my actions because I tampered with her belongings without asking. Am I a bad person?

Our neighbors planted fruit trees in one of the prime areas of our lots, a south facing, gentle slope that is effectively part of our mutual front lawns. They have lived here for at least a decade, we bought our home a couple years ago and have done a lot of planting since.

Their trees are however, RIGHT against the imaginary property line as per survey. Imagine the trunk as a circle that's just touching one side of the line. The trees are nicely pruned, but they overhang our lot by a decent amount. We have put in a couple rows so far spaced 15 feet apart and could fit one more row of maybe 8 trees except - and this is what I think might make us the grassholes - it would put our trees at maturity right next to where their trees overhang.

If their trees weren't there, I wouldn't hesitate to plant. At maturity, they would not overhang their lot. But with their trees...it could look a little malicious and ours might start to touch theirs as they grow. We have a cordial but fundamentally oppositional relationship due to their desire for a manicured lawn and mine for a more natural look and let's just say I've learned to avoid garden discussions with them.

I'm tempted to plant anyway and hope they'll see the need to prune back a little; I'm running out of sunny areas and have a few things I'd love to plant. WIBTG?

So, my family lives on the second floor; we renting. The people below us moved about a month ago; they also rented. I’m not sure when they started it, but they planted some vegetables in a small square in front of the house. A little garden. There’s new people downstairs now. I’m not sure if they want to resurrect the garden. But, my family, mostly my mom and brother, me not as much, wants to start it up again. Can we/should we do it?

We're at the end of a dead-end street and it's in the back corner of the backyard. Nobody's said anything yet, but similar things have caused a flap in the expensive end of town. We don't have an HOA, but then, this is a question about neighbourly ethics, not regulations (he sneered).

Hey, what's up, everybody? So, I'm dealing with this total gnome situation in my garden, and I need your take on it. Picture this: my garden, nice and chill, with these cool gnomes adding some fun vibes. But now, it's like a battlefield for what I'm calling "The Great Gnome War."

Started with a few gnomes kickin' it in my flower beds, keeping an eye on the petunias, you know? But then, boom, disappearing act. I thought, okay, maybe some jokester's into gnome-napping or something. But it kept happening, and now, my gnome squad's vanishing.

Then, I wake up one morning, and there's this cryptic message carved in the dirt: "Gnomes roam where they're loved the most." Clever, right? But it's got me wondering if I missed the memo on gnome etiquette.

So here's the thing: beef up security or let these gnomes find new homes? My buddies are throwing around ideas—decoy gnomes, teeny cameras—but I'm stuck in gnome limbo. Am I being a jerk for not letting these gnomes spread their wings, or should I be the guardian of the gnome galaxy?

Any thoughts? Help a guy bring back peace to his garden and maybe put an end to this gnome drama once and for all. Appreciate the input, folks!

So I'm really passionate about farming. Have been my whole life. Unfortunately, due to lengthy circumstances, about a year ago, we had to move from our comfortable, rural life into a more suburban area.

We had to rent a house. A few months ago, I've been thinking about it, and I've really been missing that rural community, especially all of those fields of corn and towering stalks we'd pass by. I decided, why not try doing that myself?

I rented a rotatiller, and planted some good old fashioned corn in the front yard and they came up just as great as I thought they'd be. They're not ready yet, but they will be in about two weeks.

Unfortunately, the landlord came by the other day, and was very pissed about it. He says i've destroyed "his" front yard. He wants me to rip it all up and fix it back to the way it was before. Doing so would be destroying the corn before it's had a chance to finish, and then it would all be for nothing, and a waste of corn.

I am very distraught about this. AITG here?

Neighbor down the way's a renter. Years before we moved in to the neighborhood the yard in question was apparently well maintained with 6 conifers that had been planted 30+ years ago. Owner dies, an investor buys it, rents it out. The renter has taken no interest in the front yard at all. Renter enters the property via the alley, exclusively. So much so that flyers accumulate on the front door. The entire front yard is dirt now. The conifers dead. Last year, for what I can assume was a fire hazard, the owner removed the dried out dead trees. Leaving stumps. The front yard is now a haven for dandelions every spring. Some getting as tall as 18 inches.

The neighborhood I live in has two water sources for each property. One potable. The other untreated river water, delivered via a canal system to cisterns. We all call it Ag (Agricultural) water. Every property pays a monthly fee to maintain the canal system There's no meter for Ag water. Water your shit, much as you like. Several homeowners in the neighborhood, including myself, have knocked and talked to the renter asking if they need help turning on and running the Ag system that clearly has sprinklers poking up through the barren earth of a front yard. No interest is expressed and help is turned away. The point is that the neighbor in question has no financial reason NOT to water. The Ag water fee you pay monthly regardless of volume consumed. No water used? Same fee. Let run 24/7 like a grasshole? Same fee.

Would I Be The Grasshole, if I guerrilla seeded my neighbors barren yard just before winter with a cover crop seed mix of Fenugreek, Vetch, Flax, Cowpeas, Buckwheat, Forage Peas, Millet, Lentils, Crimson Clover, Sweet Yellow Clover, White Clover, and Medium Red Clover? I hoping to try and squeeze out a large portion of the dandelions come spring. I'm going for, no-maintenance, green appeal, that isn't grass. Maybe help the soil for whenever an interested steward takes over the yard again.

Pictures of the yard in question, reverse chronological order:

Before 2023 October

Before 2023 July

Before 2022 July

Before 2019 Sept

Before 2012 June

Before 2008 October

We moved into a new house and I want to put up a fence to contain my dogs. On one side, I have two neighbors and their fences are offset by about 4 feet. (My property line is straight and the local surveyor is out a few weeks for appointments.) Would I be a GH for not building a new fence on my property and leaving an inaccessible space inbetween?

Eta: If the surveyer says the other neighbour's fence is in the wrong spot, how do I bring that up and not be a GH?

Last year I got new neighbors. They're the type of people who make decent neighbors (the other neighbors seem to like them), but terrible NEXT-DOOR neighbors, if that makes sense. We're civil, nod to each other when we make eye contact, but we're not friendly. We've had a few conflicts in the past and don't go out of our way to interact.

We share a fence that has a 1-2 inch gap underneath. They kept dumping stuff, or stuff would get dumped over, on their side of the fence and it would leak onto the concrete sidewalk directly on my side of the fence. The first time this occurred it was some sort of paint I still haven't been able to lift. So recently, after the most recent spillage was some sort of oil, I picked up some small concrete bricks (2x6x2) and a sealant and constructed a barrier against my side of the fence from the yard line to my back/front fence (maybe about 20 feet). Keeps their liquids on their side, and my liquids on my side. Doesn't look too shabby, either, just like a little curb that doesn't intrude on the width of the sidewalk.

We had rain yesterday. Apparently, now that there is a barrier, it's causing their yard to flood a bit more (I've never been in their backyard, I have no idea what their slopes or drainage is like). My neighbor came over to complain this morning that their yard was flooding all of a sudden and they saw I'd erected my tiny wall against the fence. He says I need to take it down so the water in their yard has somewhere to go.

I told him their liquids getting into my yard was the reason I created my wall to begin with. I sympathetically apologized, but said I handled what I needed to on MY property and issues going on with HIS property were not my problem. He said I was being a "B-word," but I shrugged and said "Dunno what to tell you, man. My yard isn't flooding." and he stormed off.

To be fair, I never talked to them about the liquid spillage issue. Honestly, I didn't want to deal with them because they've been pretty unreasonably defensive about stuff in the past (like keeping their kids off my property). So I just dealt with it myself. AITG?

My neighbor owns 2 houses in our neighborhood. He doesn’t live in the one next to us anymore. His gardeners mow the grass but that’s the only maintenance they do.

A month ago, a baby fawn died in his fence. It got stuck and it took me about a week to realize where the smell was coming from.

About a week after that, I saw the neighbor and let him know about the deer. It’s still there. It still smells when it’s humid or hot. It’s August in the south. I’m thinking about doing the very nasty job of removing the rotting baby deer and putting it in a trash bag in the middle of his driveway. (I would leave it on the front porch but I don’t think he goes in his front door when he does go to that house. Would I be the grasshole?

This happened when I was around 14. My(16F) SIL(24 now 22 then) kept bragging about her garden for MONTHS and eventually she started saying me and my little sisters garden was worse than hers when our garden has been going for much longer that hers.

(This is when I think I am the grasshole) my dad asked her to take us to see it and we did, and when we saw it I said “it’s not that pretty, it’s actually quite ugly.” and now I realize I shouldn’t have said that to her but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and just started to berate me and my sister when she didn’t even do anything.

She kept saying mean things to her until she almost started crying and my dad took me and my sister home.

My dad told me that I was being petty and disrespectful but I don’t really think her reaction was valid.

Since then we have resolved the problem and we both have apologized but I just wanna know

AITG?

There is an 80' pine tree roughly two feet inside the property division line. This tree is dead and has been rotting for more than 8 months. I (34f) am worried it could fall and injure my chickens, ducks, and quail (not to mention their enclosures). Four days ago, I saw him taking pictures of a car for sale in his yard (the only flat place on his property), so I stopped and asked him if he wanted to cut it down or have me do it. He could pay us for the time and labor. He seemed annoyed and said he would check it out, but hasn't yet. AITGH.

ETA: I'll take into consideration the time frame and make sure to send a certified letter. I have taken lots of pictures of this tree because I've been trying to catch him at home for MONTHS. Also, I am frustrated because he hasn't come to look at the tree yet. This is in the back part of the woods separating out properties and there are lots of trees and bushes around, but there is also a thicket about 25' away where I keep the enclosures for my animals.

I (28nb) rent a house with two people, Isaac(30m) and Amanda (31f), who are a married couple. Names are fake for privacy. We've lived together for 3 years now, and I'm moving out at the end of July. We divide household duties evenly using a chore rota, and for the most part it works really well. Everyone does their weekly cleaning, no problem.

The issue is that since I moved in, Amanda always tries to get out of mowing the lawn. The first summer I moved in, she somehow managed to avoid mowing at all, and then the next summer she did mow some, but still less than Isaac and myself, with me doing the bulk of it. Note: our yard isn't that big, but it does take an hour or 2 to push a mower around the whole lawn. And we can get fined if we don't take care of the yard.

So this year I had enough of it, and I made a separate rotation for us to share the mowing equally, with someone mowing every 2 weeks (I prefer weekly but this was my compromise). Everyone in the house agreed to the system. The rotation goes: me, Isaac, Amanda, repeat. And we write down the date we mowed on a note on the fridge. The last time anyone mowed was Isaac on June 23. It's now July 17. The grass is ridiculous now.

I definitely feel justified in calling Amanda out on it, but I dislike conflict, and I don't know if doing so would make me a jerk. WIBTG? I'm amazed we haven't been fined by the city already, and if we do get fined, I refuse to pay for it.

The neighbors directly behind me have shruby trees (buckthorn and mulberry) growing directly under the power line that runs where the edge of our properties meet. It’s not a situation where they are barely touching or anything, they are fully tangled into the power lines. I know that our electric company will come and chop off the top free of charge. It’s a fire hazard and can cause power outages (which are not unusual in my area during the summer). I also … hate these trees because of how invasive they are, they drop so much seed. Buckthorn isn’t even allowed to be sold in the state anymore because of how invasive and damaging it is.

I haven’t talked to the neighbors about it because they just moved in and are busy. We moved here last year so I get it, I don’t want to add another task on their to do list. But should I just mind my business? Am I busing a busybody? I don’t want them to feel like they are being judged and reported on, and I don’t know if the electric company will say they got a call about it or that it’s routine. I feel like my desire to get rid of the buckthorn (at least on my side) might be clouding my judgement on this.

Edit / update: I called the electrical company and they said that since it is a “customer request” and not a part of their scheduled maintenance (which is one inspection/trim every 5 years) I had to give them permission to leave the brush on the property instead of hauling it away. I didn’t feel comfortable giving permission so I guess I have to wait and catch my neighbor in their yard and talk to them. I’m fine with talking to them but I just hate waiting on something that’s a safety issue - especially since half my house burned down in an electrical fire when I was in elementary school. Really disappointed in the company’s policy. They had no way of telling me how many years it had been since it was last trimmed either. Maybe I’m just being weird.

I live in an apartment building that backs onto a beautiful green space and ravine. My balcony is on the second floor facing the green space. I spend a lot of time on my balcony, which is low enough to comfortably have a conversation with someone in the yard below.

Some tenants (myself included) have dogs, and take their pets into the backyard to go poo/pee. Recently I have noticed that bags of dog poop (I'm talking 5 or 6 bags) have been collecting in a pile beside the patio door at the entrance/exit of the green space. My balcony is just above this door, and wafts of hot sh*t have been drifting into my smelling range. From the size of the poop bags, I could tell it was a large dog, so I narrowed down my list of suspects....

Then, one day, I saw a woman (who I did not recognize) walking a large dog (who I did recognize) in the backyard. The colour of the poop bags she was holding were the same colour as the ones piled up beside the patio door. I watched as she picked up her dog poop, walked up to the patio door, and thew the bag of sh*t on the ground.

I confronted her, asked if the bags of poop belonged to her dog, and asked her to pick them up. She admitted the bags were from her dog, and asked me what she should do with the dog poop. Bewildered by this question, I curtly told her to put it in the garbage. The woman then told me that she didn't know where the garbage was. At this point, I told her to take it to her apartment or out to the street, but do not leave it here because it's disgusting.

The woman apologized, and took her 6 to 8 bags of sh*t inside. It wasn't until after this confrontation that I realized she was probably babysitting the dog, and didn't know where the garbage chute was in the building. I don't think that I was overly harsh during our conversation, but I'm left thinking... AITG for telling my neighbour's guest to pick up their dog poop?

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Ok, that title could be a little misleading, but my situation is pretty simple. When I walk my dog I keep him on the sidewalk and only let him sniff in the easement (grassy area between the sidewalk and the street). This is owned by the city but homeowners are required to upkeep. If my dog has to do his business, 1 or 2, that’s where it happens. If he poops I do pick it up immediately and take it with us. But one of my neighbors down the street asked us to avoid her easement (although she said her yard, but I never let him venture into the other side of the sidewalk), because her kids love to play out front and she thinks it’s gross that some of the poop residue could be left behind even after it’s picked up. I will do my best to hurry my dog past her house to avoid conflict, and she was nice about it, but it made me wonder - AITGH?

I live in a neighborhood of detached houses. In short, I want my yard to grow food instead of nothing but grass. I'm too lazy to maintain a vegetable garden, so I've been planting fruit trees in the yard.

I just put some berry bushes against the fence I share with my neighbor, and plan to put in a couple of pawpaw trees as well, one of which will be close to the property line. The majority of the yard is already taken up with apples so there isn't room for the pawpaws farther from the neighbor's yard.

I did ask the neighbor and he said he didn't care, but regardless, am I the grasshole for putting potentially messy fruit near his yard?

I live in Arizona. I used to have a large palm tree in my backyard but hated it. First off palm trees attract scorpions. Second they are very messy. The fronds dry up and fall to the ground. I was paying my landscaper to trim it every other year until I had enough and had him cut it down. The problem is my neighbor who shares my back wall. The family are nice enough people who are renting the house. Their property has three large palm trees and the landlord hasn't paid for them to be trimmed in at least 6 years. Throughout the year thier trees dump palm fronds into my neatly landscaped back yard. I usually toss them back to their yard. So I ask, does that make me the grasshole?

ETA: My community only picks up bulk trash once a month. The palm fronds are between 4-6 feet in length. They don't fit in a trash can. I pay a landscaper to take care of my desert landscaping once a month. When a landscaper cleans these up they take them directly to the town dump.

Adding links to photos.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YXo9soiNGkbsdrgpl4euNM1i5Trvv_tf/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YNfuBeeQccOq9XAU0IW84gRdVgKsmfsf/view?usp=drivesdk

I like to go for runs outside when the weather is nice. There are some nice neighborhood paths I can go through, but I live on a main street that has no sidewalk. I have to run the first half mile or so before I get to smaller neighborhood roads I can run on. Normally what I do is run in the street, against the flow of traffic, until a car is coming. At that point, I move over into the grass on the side of the road until the car passes, then move back out to the street. Note, where I live the first few feet of yards nearest the street are owned by the municipality, but are required to be maintained by the homeowners to keep taxes lower.

The other day, I was out for a run, and there were five cars coming. They weren't directly behind each other, but maybe about five to six seconds between each passing me. I moved over to the grass and kept going, and stayed in the grass while all five cars passed. While this was happening, someone started yelling at me to get off their lawn, that they had just planted seeds and I was ruining them. I just kept running, since I was already almost off their lawn, and didn't respond to them. About thirty minutes later I was on my back in from my run, and passing that house they were out and yelled again while I passed their house on the other side of the street saying things like I'm an asshole, fuck you, don't ignore me... Again, I kept running and didn't respond, since it was only a few seconds until I was further down.

I know I'm legally in the right, since I stay in the first few feet that's owned by the municipality, and there's no sidewalk to run on. But I also know that being legally in the right and not being an asshole are not mutually exclusive. AITG?

So the basic update is that the city closed the complaint against me finding the accusations "unfounded." They didn't write much, but did say that "all plants over 8" were determined to be cultivated gardens." So, win there.

But wait, it gets better. A few weeks ago, I noticed some people at the house of who I'm almost certain complained that were not the owners. They're having guests, I guess? Right? Then the poop storm!

Maybe 2 weeks ago, I was working from home when I heard a lot of yelling and looked out to see what was going on. The female owner I'd seen before was GOING AT a professionally dressed man who was looking at their back door. Then the male owner came around with another guy, and even more yelling commenced. I couldn't hear what they were saying because my neighbor's damn freight train of an A/C was running. A few days after that, multiple moving trucks were at the home and there seemed to be a weird scramble of people moving out.

I ran into our hyper-local (she represents 2000 people, so she knows ALL the dirt!) representative a couple days later, and asked if she knew what was up with that. APPARENTLY, their renovation failed multiple inspections, so rather than fix it, and not willing to move into a structurally dangerous home themselves, they RENTED IT OUT. Obviously without a license because they failed a bunch of inspections, so the home didn't have a certificate of occupancy. The yelling was at city inspectors who had been tipped off by someone (it truly wasn't me! I didn't know about any of this until maybe a week ago!) about the situation. The city forced the owners to relocate the tenants immediately, and slapped a condemnation order on the home that can only be lifted when they fix whatever issues were found in the inspections. I do know that they removed two structural walls in the renovation, so my guess is that they didn't properly brace for those removals. The city site that contains most of this kind of information doesn't even have the condemnation order on it yet, just the failed inspections, but without any details about what exactly failed (I know it was structural and mechanical edit: building and electrical, but that's the extent of what I know).

People who (refuse to?) live in glass houses, and all THOSE stones!

A partial screen grab to prove I'm not even making this up! https://imgur.com/a/kY8mTW5

No, I don't mean marijuana. I literally mean weeds. My husband is growing a creeper vine that's often considered a weed because they really grow quickly. But some people grow it to wrap around railings and fences. Well, his are growing wrapped around on my flowering bushes and possibly strangling them. I yanked a bunch of them away from my rose bush, my herbs, and my baby tree. I didn't kill the entire plant, it's still rooted and still growing on our fence. But it now looks more naked than it used to because I cut off the "rogue" (according to me) creepers. Husband is not happy about it because he thinks I disrupted the weed's natural growth. He thought the cheeper creeping on my plants looked cool. So AITG?

So basically, we both have grassy fairly long front yards and apparently when he invited guests over to his house, he hated it when they parked on his lawn. So, for whatever reason he decided to plant some of those ugly bush-like plants (the ones with the alien roots that just never stop growing?) on his front lawn. Now when he has company over, they have no choice but to park on our lawn and especially when it is wet it just causes the grass to go all muddy and I then need to spend more money replanting it. I ended up talking to him about this but he said he “would rather them mess up our lawn instead of his”. I told him that is ridiculous and selfish and he thinks I just need to grow up. So, am I the grasshole?

I (40F) have become an avid (obsessive?) gardener since we moved into our rental with tons of gardening space. It is fenced on all sides. There is a scrubby area on the outside of the fence which borders a dirt road, across which is an apartment complex. I’ve been slowly naturalizing some wildflowers and such in that area, which also has a mature forsythia. I have had issues before with the wild children of the complex climbing up on the fence to pull torch lily flowers, they’ve picked tiny seedlings from pots hanging on the fence, etc so perhaps I’m being sensitive when my initial reaction was anger early this morning when I came out to do some work in the veg beds and an older lady (at least mid-60s) from the complex was on her hands and knees with a trowel digging up a California poppy in bloom! Now, I see why people think it’s public property, as it’s on the outside of the fence. But our landlord was very clear when we moved in that the strip between the road and the fence is part of the property. We have slowly been spreading CA poppy, red clover, etc basically anything that will grow there. There are lots of dandelions and such too but we mostly let it grow wild and occasionally scatter seeds in bare patches each year. We have placed large-ish rocks along the road to keep cars from parking and doing drug deals there (it has mostly worked!) and have planted some small prickly barberry bushes a couple feet back from the road to keep the kids away once the bushes grow. My momma raised me right so I did not get visibly upset with her. My dogs barked madly at her but she persisted until the flower was in her possession. She said something jokingly about the dogs and I calmly said, “we do plant things on that side of the fence you know”. I have mixed feelings because we live in a working class neighborhood and she has made polite conversation over the fence before about how she used to do a lot of gardening when she had a house. So part of me is sympathetic that she probably misses having a space to garden. If she had asked I would have dug one out of my veg bed for her as they often pop up there. But I work really hard in my garden and my initial knee jerk reaction was anger because I’m responsible for dramatically improving that area for pollinators and general aesthetics really, and it’s an ongoing project. I was considering posting some sort of cute hand-painted sign saying please don’t pick the flowers, they’re for the bees or something like that. I have caught others picking things from there before; I’m betting people just assume it’s public property and aren’t being malicious (well, except the little gremlin children). Or should I just let it go? I have ADD and gardening is one of my obsessions so I realize I may be (internally) over reacting!

I have pets, my dog especially who is still young loves to eat any and all plants on the ground. I’ve been in the process of removing every possible toxic plant from my lawn. My neighbor and me share a fence line and they have Lily of the Valley planted on their side that has crept up into my back and front yard all along my fence. Lily of the Valley has a connected root system, and I’m worried about it spreading in my yard again. Would I be the asshole for digging it up on my side or using herbicide on it’s roots?

Edit:grammar

47M, with wife, kids, dog. We live in the city, in a somewhat quiet neighborhood. Keeping up on the inside chores keeps me busy as it is and I dislike gardening in general, so I do as little as possible outside. Most of our neighbors have well maintained lawns with small flower gardens or shrubs. We have a very diverse mix of grass, clover, dandelion, creeping charlie, and various broadleaf weeds. When it gets too long I mow it down. I feel guilty about this because I realize the seeds from our lawn might blow into the neighbor's lawns. But we really can't afford a service and I don't like the idea of using pesticides.

Also, I avoid raking entirely and I will wait as long as possible before mulching all of it at once. I don't water, and during droughts I might not mow for weeks. Tree branches that fall outside mowing season tend to sit in small piles until the grass gets long enough to mow.

That said, I do try to otherwise keep the lawn free of debris and uncluttered, and I don't mind string trimming after I mow. It's actually kind of fun.

Maybe if I had a lot more time, energy, and money, I could have a great looking lawn, but this seems to be the best I can do. I have looked into lower maintenance options that might be more environmentally friendly like going all-clover, but I'm not sure that's the answer either. So AITG? And what would you recommend? Thanks!

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone for your comments. I have decided to put in just a little more effort, so I recently purchased a great tool called "Grampa's Weeder" to remove the dandelions and plantain, or the occasional spiky weed. I've pulled about 50 pounds of weeds in just the few days since I got it. At some point I'm going to start some very overdue dethatching to deal with the creepers, and then I'm going to aim for a clover/turf grass combination.

My other concern is weeds growing in sidewalk and pavement cracks. I've tried salting these areas or using homemade weed killer (vinegar, dish soap, and Epsom salt) which helped briefly but doesn't seem to take. I'm considering digging down into these cracks and replacing the dirt with a sand/salt combination but I'm worried this might have unintended negative effects, and it sounds like a lot of work besides. Any feedback here would be appreciated!

I live in the back of beyond.... Farm country, an have a small farm. Perennial plants fully fenced in 5' to keep the rats with antlers from destroying everything. Post Plague a lot of cityots have moved in.

Came home to find the newbies on the W side doing something by the property line. This section is 275' and their side is a field, then my rubble wall, then my fence. They very proudly showed me the line of English Walnuts they planted the length of the property line. Said they were going to make their retirement on walnut oil (dear lord) and hoped their trees wouldn't shade my gardens too much. I told them that by the time those twiglets grew big enough to throw shade, we'd all be dead (none of us are spring chickens) and did they know they were crawling around in poison ivy? They both jumped up and he backed into multiflora rose, and she into wild hops... Both getting scraped up in the process. All this had been growing out of the rubble and encroaching thru my fence also.

They kind of muttered about it and I said I was thinking of hitting it all with Burnout or Roundup. Then I got the lecture. From those people. Seriously. They lease out 120 ac. To a friend of my who plants hay, soy and Roundup ready corn. Like AITG by not even wasting my time explaining this to them?? I just want to be able to mow along my fence without weed whacking 275' by vertical 5' first. And I promise not to overspray the stoopid walnut twigs

Maybe

I've lived in my home for almost 30 years, my husband most of his life, it's his family home. We've seen many changes to the neighborhood, some good, some, not so much. For the first 15 years, things were great. The next door neighbors had been in our subdivision since it became one and took special care of their home and property. Sadly, due to ill health, they had to move in with family and sold their home. Our new neighbors, for the first 5 years, were just as vigilant in maintaining their property. We got along with them great. In the last 8 years they've become almost recluse and neglectful of their property, not the lawn, just the fence line weeds. Their kids and grandkids go outside, but they pretty much just stay inside now and he works full time. The problem is their weeds. They don't regularly maintain the outside any more and their side of our shared fence becomes a small jungle by mid July. They don't pull their weeds and they grow several feet over the top of the fence. We trim the weeds that grow thru the fence, but the area behind our garage on their side of the fence has been so neglected, their weeds are now trees.

I've been wanting to call the city to complain for the last few years, but my husband is opposed. He doesn't want to start trouble. I can understand his reasoning. The neighbors front yard bushes hides the weeds from street view. The only way the city will know is if we call. We have talked to them about the weeds. They always say they're gonna take care of it and never do. Knowing they'll figure it was us that called, should I call anyway?

Edit: Also, I've offered to pull the weeds and also help them with weeds and they've always declined. They aren't elderly or in poor health.

Edit: Our shared fence line is about 40-45 feet in length. Their weeds grow so dense by mid summer, you can't see their rose bush or ornamental bushes in the border because of the weeds. The only way to tell they're still there is when the rose bush blooms and the flowers grow between the fence into our yard. several times throughout the years, they've hired lawn services to pull them. The weeds are so bad, the landscapers leave only doing half the work. I don't know why, they just never finish. The weeds at the back fence have been allowed to grow to the point they are now trees. It got to the point, the weed trees where pulling up our shared fence. My husband got their permission to go into their yard to cut them down with a chain saw. I hope this helps clarify the situation.

Edit: I'd like to thank everyone for all the insight and opinions, it's been very helpful. I won't be calling the city about the weeds. I'm not really sure what we'll do, but we'll figure it out some other way. Again, thank you for your help!

Edit: A few days ago they hired a company to come and remove all the weeds. The fence line is now clear.