Am I a shitty neighbor?

[CurlyQ284]

Nope, not a shitty neighbor.

[Deleted]

Nope. Now, if she asks why you didn't mow her lawn, she might be the shitty neighbor. It isn't passive aggressive to not mow someones lawn after they've bailed on helping you out. You were doing her a favor, that doesn't mean you have to keep doing it.

[ECB]

If you don't have time, you don't have time.

At first, I was thinking she was older - like 70s or 80s - and NEEDED the help. But if she's only 50 and she mows other people's lawns but is never there to help do yours/hers....  eh, I'd stop feeling so charitable, to be perfectly honest. 

But - to clarify - are you using HER mower??

[cheeseandcrackers]

no way

[sonrisa]

Mowing yours alone is fine. Just use your mower.

[alare]

It's not passive aggressive. You were doing her a favor for a while. That doesn't mean you're stuck doing it for the rest of her life. She's only 50 :-) That could be a long time. As pp said, mow your own lawn but use your own mower.

[ECB]

Jul 10, 2013 13:05:30 GMT -5 kevin arnold said:

No, it's not being a shitty neighbor if the agreement was to take turns and you've done her lawn quite a bit lately. Just make sure to leave the mower with plenty of gas when you're done. And don't make a habit of it, I think doing it this time is fine. But if it turns out that she's not keeping up her end of the bargain anymore this summer, you can't keep using her mower just to do yours.

If it is her mower (which is sounds like it is) I fully agree with this. 

[alare]

Jul 10, 2013 13:28:44 GMT -5 @themommymonster said:

Jul 10, 2013 13:05:30 GMT -5 kevin arnold said:

No, it's not being a shitty neighbor if the agreement was to take turns and you've done her lawn quite a bit lately. Just make sure to leave the mower with plenty of gas when you're done. And don't make a habit of it, I think doing it this time is fine. But if it turns out that she's not keeping up her end of the bargain anymore this summer, you can't keep using her mower just to do yours.

Oh I definitely leave it with gas. I bought the gas AND the gas can. She's got that "I don't give a fuck" attitude. Like, she doesn't give a fuck if she gets a citation for not mowing.

I don't mind helping mow the lawn if she's going to contribute.

I think I'm just going to get a new mower. Our old-fashioned reel mower doesn't work well any longer. Time for a gas machine.

Make sure to get a self-propelled one. My friend insisted we take her mower (she moved to a townhouse). I asked her about 10 times if she was sure it was self-propelled. She said yes. She and I obviously have different ideas of what "self-propelled" means. She must have thought it meant that it would be myself who was propelling it.

[snickers]

That would not make you a shitty neighbor in my books.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I would get my own mower.

[FastHands]

I don't think it's shitty of you, but if I were stopping this agreement, I'd get my own mower first. I get that you've been pulling your end of the bargain and she hasn't, but I'd feel weird about using her mower for my yard and then not doing hers too. I mean, how many times have you mowed alone? Unless the cost of having a company mow her yard that many times was way more than the cost of buying a mower, I'd do hers one last time and then get a mower. Or use my crappy mower for just my yard this time and then get a better one.

[FastHands]

Jul 10, 2013 13:34:49 GMT -5 alare said:

Jul 10, 2013 13:28:44 GMT -5 @themommymonster said:

Oh I definitely leave it with gas. I bought the gas AND the gas can. She's got that "I don't give a fuck" attitude. Like, she doesn't give a fuck if she gets a citation for not mowing.

I don't mind helping mow the lawn if she's going to contribute.

I think I'm just going to get a new mower. Our old-fashioned reel mower doesn't work well any longer. Time for a gas machine.

Make sure to get a self-propelled one. My friend insisted we take her mower (she moved to a townhouse). I asked her about 10 times if she was sure it was self-propelled. She said yes. She and I obviously have different ideas of what "self-propelled" means. She must have thought it meant that it would be myself who was propelling it.

This isn't always the best advice. Self-propelled are NOT generally recommended for small yards. They are significantly heavier, and if you are only going a short distance and turning around, the muscle used to turn the sucker can actually outweigh the benefits of having the propulsion in the first place.

[azurely]

Yep, get your own mower, so you can mow your own lawn without feeling guilty.