Every year, thousands of Denver-area residents are hounded by the local Lawn Gestapo.
Many of the lazy neighbors who are blighting our streets, of course, have it coming.
Yet, keeping a lawn in Colorado is stressful business – water restrictions and scorching hot summers don’t help. No doubt, the sight of a bureaucratic pinhead measuring inches of grass could put any would-be green thumb over the edge.
Last year, I chronicled the tale of a young Aurora women teetering on the edge of insanity as she endeavored to keep every treasured strand of grass alive before the city fined her family into insolvency.
Sure, the more fastidious among you find the whole lawn-care process therapeutic. But even those who excel at this art can’t escape the nit-pickers’ wrath.
Take, for instance, Luanne Stehno, a woman who won an Arvada-sponsored competition for her Xeriscaped yard – one requiring little or no watering.
Stehno’s creation was so notable and environmentally friendly, in fact, that it was featured on an educational water-saving landscaping DVD produced by the city.
Well, you can imagine Stehno’s surprise when her wonder lawn was ticketed by the very people who had honored her. The blue grama grass grew just a bit too high.
She refused to mow.
Elsewhere in Adams County, we have the plight of Joe Rudd. An average man. An ugly lawn. And, now, a movement.
“I’ve been living in Thornton for around eight years,” he says. “I may not be the best lawn-care person in the world, and there have been times my lawn hasn’t looked great, I admit. But no matter how well or poorly I end up doing, I get one or two notices from code enforcement.
“I thought it was just me, but this past summer I really noticed it wasn’t. Almost all the people in my area who didn’t have perfect lawns were getting ticketed. The whole thing seems so excessive.”
Rudd was given two weeks to resod his lawn at one point. He, too, refused. Now, Rudd and his blemished-lawn neighbors call themselves “The Brownlawns.”
The Brownlawns can be found in old Thornton. Rudd lives in one of the city’s original subdivisions, which, he believes, was built in 1955. The local demographics include many of the original owners and many low-income households who can’t afford the large water bills necessary to keep a lawn in tiptop shape.
“It’s ridiculously hard anyway,” Rudd says. “It’s almost as if you have to be a dedicated lawn hobbyist to make it work. Most people don’t have the time.”
Furthermore, the code enforcement in Thornton is so ambiguous that anyone – save those with an English garden – has the potential to be fined. (A call to the Thornton code-enforcement people was not returned by early Tuesday evening).
“I’m not saying some of the yards aren’t bad. … Some of them really are,” Rudd says. “And I’m not trying to say that something shouldn’t be done about those homes. But I’m not sure how putting nasty notes on our doors and fining us will make the problem go away. Most of us are not doing it on purpose. There must be a better way to solve these problems.”
Rudd asks a broader, more ideological question: How much power does city government have over your personal property?
Answer: A lot.
“City officials go on your property and look around and check everything,” Rudd claims. “They check the tags on your car. Check your grass. It’s too invasive.”
Rudd has made inquiries. He hopes to organize some community resistance to the practice of overzealous lawn enforcement. He believes average folks need a “fighting chance” to avoid the city’s nit-picking lawn detectives.
“We would be interested in the larger issue of personal-property rights, but also solving problems with common sense,” he says. “We are all homeowners and understand how a neighborhood’s looks affect property values. Adams County has one of the highest foreclosure rates, and a lot of people are just living paycheck to paycheck. Punishing them like this is unconscionable.”
No need to get overly dramatic here. But perhaps it’s time to cut these folks some slack.
David Harsanyi’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
