It never ceases to amaze me the heinous and vitriolic spewage that resonates from people on this board. It really illustrates the ignorance, intolerance, lack of understand of basic human rights and some sinister desire to burn people at the stake.

To throw a 60 year old man - a man that clearly has financial problems, a man that has more pressing issues - in jail over an unkept lawn is nothing short of barbaric. He didn't snub a court order, it was a circumstancial situation. To take away another man's basic human right to freedom and throw him in a cage should be a last resort in a serious condition.

The world isn't just black and white, to you judgemental sick fucks. What you morons don't realize is when you lower the bar where prosecuting an elderly man over an unkept lawn is acceptable and applauded, you're just one step closer to them knocking on your door one day.

What a world we live in. Inprisoned for lack of sod.

florida sucks monkey ballz:2 cents::thumbsup

He did snub the courts and the HOA by ignoring them.
The world is not black and white, I agree. Nobody is lowering the bar at all enforcing a contempt order on him. No different than enforcing a contempt charge on someone who ignores letters, dates, and court orders to pay child support in reality. If they or in this case a guy with a bad lawn explained everything to the courts, they typically work stuff out.
I know that even though we do not live in a HOA as I am opposed to them, we would gladly give almost any elderly person on our block a hand with yard work or any other task they could not do or afford. We actually did help out a neighbor often until he passed away. Even then after his wife moved to Arizona to be with the family and placed the house up for sale. We would go over there each week to water and cut the grass, so that their house would look nice for any potential buyers since the real estate people were not doing nothing and apparently she never thought of arranging a service or could afford it. I do not know. We just did what we felt was the right thing. I did say almost though, there is one old guy on our street that is a 100% prick bastard. For him, I doubt most would lend a hand.

From the article:

Deducing from that, he told them about his situation, and after that, ignored any further demands. Clearly, he could have dealt with the situation a lot better. There is no doubt about that. But like many people, especially those in stressful situations, he didn't handle a particular problem well.

The HOA, probably mainly in response to his stubborn attitude, decided to let the conflict escalate as much as it could.

The court, showing its teeth, didn't throw out the case or insist a compromise should be reached, but instead punished the man's attitude in the harshest possible way.

All parties are at fault here.

The HOA should have realized that the only way to win in this situation would be to draw the conflict out of all possible proportions. A bit like when a drunk wino in the street insults you - you could beat him senseless, but taking the moral high ground and simply reprimanding him and walking away is infinitely better.

The court should have realized immediately that it should not get involved in this situation, because nothing good could come of its involvement.

And obviously, the old man should have been more reasonable in the first place.

But the real problem here is not the old man. It's that this situation should never have been allowed to come this far. Confronted with the man's behaviour, the HOA and the court should have found a solution that did not involve having a harmless old man thrown in jail for failing to sod his lawn.

Sure, the rules were followed. But rules aren't everything. Sometimes, even if you are technically right, you have to accept that you can't get what you want without doing things which are clearly immoral. And that's certainly the case here.

Rules make it exceedingly simple to ignore and even forget the human side of issues. Still, the very core of morality is exactly to stay focused on that human side.

he's in jail for contempt of court. it has nothing to do with his fucking lawn.

should have watered his lawn...........

Yeah thats pretty fucked up

Ehm, yeah, except for the small fact that it has everything to do with his lawn, since the contempt in question fully consists of not sodding his lawn.

plain sick and crazy justice

Wow, that's just unbelievable!!

NO, he left his property deteriorate to the point where simple watering was no longer an option THEN needed to replace all the dead grass. When he allows the paint to peel, doesn't fix broken windows, whatever he will again be in court.

This problem started because he wasn't maintaining his property to the standards that probably attracted him to the neighborhood in the first place. What kind of homeowner can't hold a hose to keep his grass from dying?

What's not fair is neighbors living next to someone that doesn't give a shit.

If this guy has a computer I bet he has never backed up anything.

.

They might want to pay a visit to the judge's neighborhood too :thumbsup

That's fucking retarded.

Wanna put him in jail for that, too?

Don't get the point about simple maintenance not performed can lead to bigger problems?
:helpme