It sounds like they sent him several letters and he simply never replied... what should they have done instead? Like I said, I think it's a total waste of resources what happened... but based on the information given, I don't see how this guy is simply some innocent being getting screwed. He did not reply to multiple requests. If I don't pay my rent and after multiple requests, regardless of my financial situation, guess what happens? The court gets involved.

LOL. Why don't they just buy him a lawn? Seems cheaper than the costs of keeping him in jail.

Jacked, plastic pvc is basically free at Lowe's if he had a buried system. A hose and sprinkler can be had for twenty bucks.

WTF?

It hasn't rained here all week. I'm going outside and water my bushes. Goodnight!

On second thought I'll just let them die and spend thousands next year replacing them.




Nah, I'll do the normal thing .......... Goodnight.

yeah it's just thats easy... i'm sure anyone can dismantle a sprinkler system and put a new one in... especially when theirs usually town codes involved with burying pipes underground

not to mention the work involved

if they allow him to have a hose and sprinkler attachment thats another story

but cmon you can sit here all day and try to justify the bullshit at the end of the day the guy is 60 something, broke, and just trying to get by with his family...

what 60 year old do you know could go out dig up his entire lawn, replace the sprinkler system and so on...

he's a fucking old man they want the lawn replaced they should have replaced it and put him into collections so he could make payments he can't afford that shit in one lump sum obviously...

what landscaper do you know that's willing to put 5-10k out of pocket to spot someone for their lawn...

Move into a HOA area and you get what you deserve. Nobody is ever forced into buying a house in such an area, often where everything is very damn rule bound.

A court also needs teeth. If the courts can not enforce their rulings then there really is no point in having them. Everyone could just keep ignoring court orders.

The HOA is not just after him, it is their job to represent everyone in the HOA that owns property. One messed up lawn, even if it just has some brown spots and a bit weedy does effect others property values. Other people who have done nothing wrong at all and are loosing value on their property and often largest investment.

Recovering costs associated with enforcing codes and rules is only fair. Why should the association be out of pocket for doing what is required of them enforcing rules everyone agreed to in the first place? If they could not collect their costs then anyone could just keep challenging them without much concern wasting the HOA's money.

Paying for his lawn would be cheaper than going after him anyways. Why should they? Would you repair the neighbors car out of your pocket because it has been sitting on the street for months now on blocks, since that would be cheaper than taking them to court? If you answer yes, then shouldn't there also be plenty of such neighbors or people who hear of this story who would go fix the issue for him, hold a fundraiser, etc. Hell I would reason to bet it could be some great free advertising for some lawn company to jump on. Though hell, it is better to get all up in the HOA's and courts ass right?

Ok, I agree the guy could have just watered his lawn, or put up a walker sprinkler at least.

But replacing or correcting a sprinkler system, is not cheap. Ours cost around $4k, each head in the back yard is $45 each. If you get those water flow ones, they can be $100-$150 each. It costs about $50 to add a new garden. When an underground line broke, it was about $100 just in parts, before labor, and new sod.

It's something like $1.25 per sq foot for a sprinkler system, and about $50 per 50 feet for drippers.

I wouldn't say it's cheap for someone that can't afford a car. But a garden hose damn sure is :)

He chose where he wanted to live. He chose the shitty mortgage he that he got. It IS a waste of taxpayer's money but shit - if you have a court order to resod your lawn, meaning you would face jail time if you don't, you scrap together the money to do it - that or sell the house and rent an apartment somewhere where it wouldn't be an issue. If they had done this without warning and it wasn't written into his HOA agreement, I could see where he'd have an excuse, but he really doesn't. He dug his own hole and didn't get out of the way before someone pushed him into it. Tough shit.

What 60 year old? Lots of them. 60 is not that old. Just about all of the most "handy do it yourselfers" are 60 to 80+ years old. Often you have to about tie them up so they do not go out and do such things, if you feel they are just to damn old. Besides he has a daughter that could also dig or perform the hard on you manual labor.

A damn sprinkler system and sod does not cost no 5-10k out of pocket to a landscaper. Especially for a lawn his size which is almost a postage stamp compared to many. Labor wise it is about 200-400 bucks. Sod wise it is about 200-500 bucks. Parts wise for a broken sprinkler system is about a 1-50 bucks. All in all it would come out under a grand in about any case, out of pocket for a landscaper. My wife has only been doing such crap for several years. Only huge variance could be what is broken in the sprinkler system. Unless the control panel went out though, it would be cheap to fix. If it was the control panel then manual override still works.

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