Originally published by The Clifton Courier, October 21, 2020

When mowing a communal lawn, where should you draw the line?

I make no secrets of the fact that I love mowing the lawn. I also like a bit of easy listening Fleetwood Mac. I like going to pubs where you can hear what other people are saying. I’ve caught myself thinking “oooh that would be a lovely place for a cup of tea” while watching Scream… I still watch Scream. I know I’m no longer classed as a “young adult”. I’ve reached that age, and I’m ok with it.

Mowing the lawn is a bit of a mid-week treat for me, except when I get out to the nature strip. Because there’s a lot to think about. 

Take, for example, a mowing expedition many moons ago. 

My house doesn’t have a paved driveway, so it’s just all grass between both neighbours’ driveways either side. There’s no clear border dividing the nature strip between houses, and when I tried to line up the mower with the fence line, I realised I’d overshot it by a metre or so. So I kept on going up to their driveway and then, thinking it’d be rude not to do it on the other side, when up to the boundary of my other neighbour’s yard. 

But then I was struck with a moral quandary, as I often am. Was this the right thing to do?

I mean, I don’t want to be cutting anyone’s grass, figuratively speaking. Because what if they were saving that job for the weekend and were really, really looking forward to the feeling of satisfaction of mowing the lawn. Am I robbing them of not only a weekend activity, but a sense of pride? What if they really needed that self-esteem boost and I just chopped them down like a rogue tuft of dandelions in the middle of a backyard?

I mean, I personally was a little disappointed when my housemate last mowed the lawn, because it meant it would be another week (well, I actually did it six days later, but we’d had a bit of rain so I think it was justified) before I could break out the mower again.  

And, let’s be honest, neighbourly relations can be highly political. There’s a lot of different ways someone could take a neighbour mowing their nature strip. 

Sure, there’s a school of thought that mowing a nature strip for your neighbour is a nice thing to do. You’re saving them the trouble of having to drag clunky piece of machinery around in the hot sun. You’re saving them making apologetic grimaces at passers by who get a few flicks of grass on their crisp white sneakers. You’re saving them from getting those sticky black weed seed things on their legs as they walk from the car to their home after a long day at work. You’re just a neighbourly person with a bit too much energy and a newfound obsession with cutting grass. 

But there are other ways it could be taken. 

It could be taken as a passive aggressive move, not so subtly telling your neighbours that they’re filthy grubs who need to clean up their act. That you’re sick of seeing their messy habits on display via a nature strip. That they’re bringing down the value of the entire street with their filthy un-lawn-mowing ways. It could be taken as a bold declaration that you think they’re incredibly lazy and that you’re better than them because you actually pull your finger out and get stuff done.

But, then, what if I’d mowed just my patch, what kind of message does that send? It would easily be interpreted as extremely petty, going right up to your fence line and only your fence line, especially when there’s a dividing driveway not far from your property boundaries. This might project hostility, in that you’re not willing to assist your neighbours, as well as a certain air of arrogance that goes beyond garden pride.

Would this be considered bad diplomacy? 

In the end, I reasoned that I’d made the right choice. If I’d half mowed one neighbour’s nature strip, I may as well have finished it. And I had to do the other neighbour’s side because I didn’t want to be accused of forming an alliance with one side and spurning the other. 

I just hope they never, ever return the favour, because I really don’t like it when someone cuts my grass, not figuratively speaking and absolutely not literally speaking. 

Keep off my lawn.