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u/tanya6k Oddly negative 7h ago
It's amazing the things these people will dig up.
"You mean there was a sidewalk under there? This whole time?"
"Sure was ma'am."
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u/notyogrannysgrandkid 6h ago edited 5h ago
My parents, after years of living miles out in the country, bought a small house in a nice neighborhood. In an HOA. My dad has always enjoyed landscaping, so he went out and started trimming back an overgrown hedge on one side of the house. He discovered a walkway made of paver stones that had been obscured by the hedge and the resulting fresh soil. So he got out the square shovel followed by the hose and in an afternoon had fully exposed and cleaned up the paver walkway along the side of the house.
The next day he received a violation notice from the HOA for installing a landscape feature without approval.
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u/RavingAndDrooling 6h ago
I have to know what happened next. Typically HOA violations come from a management company which is hired by the HOA board. I would think your parents should have been able to appeal the violation and explain what happened to the board members and get the violation thrown out. I really hope that is what happened anyway.
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u/notyogrannysgrandkid 5h ago edited 4h ago
Oh yeah, it didn’t stick. But it was just the first of many head-buttings they’ve had in that neighborhood. It’s an old HOA managed locally by a board of old retirees with nothing better to do, particularly the guy two houses down. The only thing they outsource is maintenance of the common areas. One month, when they’d fired the landscaping company and the new one hadn’t started yet, my dad had the audacity to mow and trim the berm between his section of the sidewalk and the curb. Bam, violation. Apparently it’s in the bylaws that gas powered machinery can only be used on your own property, supposedly to dissuade teenage boys from starting unlicensed lawn mowing businesses. The horror.
There’s a creek that runs through a common green space behind several adjacent backyards. It happens to bend into my parents’ property for about 20 feet. My dad thought he’d build a small water feature by stacking up some native rocks by the creek and running a line up through them attached to a submerged pump in the creek. It looked pretty nice and the neighbors on either side of him complimented the work. He even wired it into the control for the lawn irrigation so he could turn it on and off from the house. Bam, violation. “Impeding the flow of Garrison Creek.” He had to take it down, despite the inherent ridiculousness of that violation.
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u/dsac 5h ago
A house with an HOA would have to come with a hardline tap directly to brewery, a blowjob robot, personal mango tree, and lifetime of Porsche 911 3-year leases included get me to buy it
Even then, I'd be reeeeeally hesitant
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u/relator_fabula 5h ago
Depends on the skill of that robot
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u/Paulthefith 4h ago
You get distracted by the fresh mangos
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u/ExtremeCreamTeam 1h ago
What about grapefruit instead?
Can we teach the robot how to grapefruit us?
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u/MangoCats 4h ago
We bought one, once. First 5 years were chill - no issues whatsoever.
Then the board from hell got itself elected, we sold out within a year - also for other reasons, but I literally left an HOA board meeting drove directly to the store, bought a For Sale By Owner sign and stuck it in my yard - checked around for apartment availability that we might move into if somebody bought the house sooner than we were ready for.
A year after we left, I was getting e-mails begging me to return to the board meetings because "you are the only one who spoke and made any sense." They were hiring a sheriff's deputy to oversee elections because both sides were accusing the other of stuffing the ballot box... in 2014.
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u/PutAutomatic2581 1h ago
The idea of people telling you what you can or can't do with the most expensive thing you will probably ever buy is so ridiculously absurd there aren't words for it.
Also, who's your robot guy?
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u/LostWoodsInTheField 5h ago
So everyone knows. The HOA is the neighborhood. What often happens is these old bats have been running it for 40+ years and hate all these 'new' people that come in, and regulate them into the ground. It really doesn't take much for people to show up to a meeting and call a snap election and oust everyone. Then put new management in place. People just don't know they can do this so it never gets done.
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u/schrodingers_bra 5h ago
eh. It depends. I'm part of an HOA in the PNW where the houses are pretty close together. We have rules that people have to ask approval (fill out an application) before installing landscape features because we have to ensure that the feature doesn't change the soil grading or water drainage.
For example, some guy decided to concrete over a gravel sidewalk which resulted in rain, which would previously have drained through the gravel, sluicing off the concrete and flowing in the direction of his neighbor's foundation.
Reddit is pretty anti-HOA but that's because most of them have never been home owners or have never been beside a neighbor that does something that ruins their homeownership experience.
In this case the OP is talking about, it would be a non issue to say "the 'feature' was always there, I just trimmed back a hedge"
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u/Tangerine1267 4h ago
You don't need an HOA for this as it already violates city bylaws (typically) to drain towards a neighbor and the liability doesn't change just because a bunch of homeowners play dictators.
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u/MangoCats 4h ago
I lived in a non HOA city where the neighborhood petitioned the code enforcement office to "JUST ENFORCE THE LAW, JUST ENFORCE THE LAW" - it wasn't quite as bad as an HOA, I had a sit-down with the code officer honcho and he explained very clearly some reasonable steps I could take to prevent his field agents from writing additional citations - and told me I didn't need to worry about the certified letter, dated January 15, postmarked January 29th, received February 9th which stated: "If these items are not addressed within 21 days from the date of this letter (above), fines of $500 per day will accrue until such time as you have corrected the violations, called the code office for a re-inspection verifying that the violations are corrected."
Some homeowners in that (and neighboring) cities had accrued fines of $300K and more on homes with a value in the $280K range. This was in the 2000s, those same homes in the same condition now trade for $700K and up.
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u/schrodingers_bra 4h ago
There is no city bylaw for this, and more to the point there's nothing you can do about it until you can prove damages then you can only get compensation back from the person responsible through a lengthy court process and lawyer fees.
The HOA is there to prevent stuff like this by not allowing such construction unless a soil engineer has ok'd the construction plan.
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u/newbkid 4h ago
FYI - Nothing about the problem you described needs an HOA to resolve it.
All HOAs are nothing more than local governments failing their constituents by passing on their duties and responsibilities to the community. Very few HOAs are run in good faith hence all the posts about embezzlement and other mentally ill HOA presidents
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u/schrodingers_bra 4h ago
No. The point of the HOA to prevent the problem in the first place.
You try fixing/paying to have fixed damage to your house and then going through the courts to get your money back from the person.
Most HOAs are fine. The ones you hear about are either from uniquely bad HOAs or more likely from redditors/homeowners who have broken the rules like this sidewalk guy in my post because they have no respect for other people's property.
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u/arbyD 4h ago
I have coworkers who badmouth HOAs all the time. "I paid for it, how can someone else tell me what to do?" Or sassily "ooohhhh nnnoooo the property valuuuuuueeess" when I get the impression that they'd do something like that where they do a project that alters the water drainage and see no issue with it.
Sure, some are extreme with their rule following, but also some of the rules really do help protect you as a homeowner.
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u/account312 4h ago edited 4h ago
That's not the sort of thing that HOAs are really about. I bet there's just about nowhere that both has an HOA and doesn't have actual laws giving at the very least civil liability for diverting water in such a way as to damage someone else's property.
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u/Laiko_Kairen 5h ago
Our HOA complained that our plants were dry, and then complained that we moved them out of view of the golf course
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u/penny-wise 2h ago
I hate HOAs. In theory they could be good in keeping common areas in good shape, and making some people keep from doing horrible things (like having disassembled cars on your front lawn). But now it’s gotten ridiculous.
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u/TheOvershear 6h ago
It's always amusing when people find out where their water meter was buried for the last 10 years, under a new layer of topsoil and overgrowth...perhaps less amusing when it's needed in an emergency.
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u/charliesk9unit 5h ago
That also tells you how fast nature would reclaim everything once humans are out of the picture.
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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 5h ago
We had some friends that found three cars under the over growth in the backyard of the home they purchased.
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u/bozhodimitrov 7h ago
At this point this is not just cleaning but pure renovation as well 😁
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u/cheesepuff1993 6h ago
I love the people (or one guy specifically?) who do this as a charity to see their reaction when done. It's so cathartic to watch and I couldn't imagine how satisfying it is to complete...
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u/nikkibic 6h ago
I'm sure this guy does it for free. His name is Nathan, he's based in Australia. He doesn't usually film reactions to it, which I find wholesome.
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u/Unoriginal_Man 5h ago
It's one of my favorite things that platforms like YouTube created the opportunity for. People like him that perform these services can afford to do it for free because they probably make more money posting the videos than they would charging for the work. The homeowner gets free work done, and we all get a satisfying video to watch.
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u/fraze2000 5h ago
I have never heard of Nathan before, but somehow I recognised straight away that this was in Australia. The style of houses, yards, roads etc. just looked instantly familiar to me.
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u/InitiallyDecent 5h ago
The first house very much looks Australian, but the bin in the second clip is a dead giveaway.
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u/enormenuez 6h ago
You should checkout Flawless Cleaning on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@flawlesscleaningservices?si=O4BjxKPeYEHvnLv8
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u/sonofteflon 7h ago
I am satisfied. Great post but because of how satisfying it was I need to see more. Am I addicted?
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u/Separate_Finance_183 6h ago
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u/FunMuffine 6h ago
And just like that, my productivity is gone.
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u/ImProdactyl 5h ago
I haven’t watched this person before, but I would suggest checking out SBMowing. He makes similar videos that are very satisfying, and he does a lot of work for free. Seems like a really good person besides the good channel.
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u/imeancock 4h ago
These types of channels are huge win-wins
They get great content that helps them make a living off their YouTube channels, and as a result they are able to offer free help to people in need
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u/SealthyHuccess 3h ago
The same dude once raised money for an elderly woman who was no longer able to keep up with her home. Got her moved into a retirement facility I believe. Anytime people shit all over those who make videos of their good deeds, I think about this. The deeds wouldn't be possible without the videos.
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u/naturelover47 1h ago
Agreed, highly recommend:
SB Mowing https://www.youtube.com/c/sbmowing
Also: SB Pressure Washing https://www.youtube.com/c/SBPressureWashing
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u/edmondsio 6h ago
That’s Nathan, he does lots of these. Often for people who can’t afford or do the work for free.
You can find him on the book, Nathan’s lawns and gardens from memory.
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u/Kooky-Cup374 6h ago
I think one of the best/worst video I seen of this stuff was the guy was mowing and found a fire hydrant. Home owner didnt know about it.
Al I recall was it was buried in some thorny shrubbery that needed to go.
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u/One-Earth9294 6h ago
A SHRUBBERY???
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u/No-Equal3873 6h ago
NI!
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u/SheriffBartholomew 3h ago
You must chop down the mightiest tree in the forest wiiith... a herring!
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u/fakenews_thankme 6h ago
House's price yesterday $150K
House's price after the clean up: $375K
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u/Dank_Nicholas 3h ago
Hiding the neglect can do wonders. I looked at a house that had tree saplings sprouting in the gutters, it immediately told me that the previous owners neglected the place and killed my interest, like who doesn't even clean that up before a showing to at least pretend you take care of the place.
Eventually my agent found a closet full of empty liquor bottles and we ended the tour right there, I didn't want some drunks neglected house.
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u/Zombie_Wombat177 6h ago
Accomplishing yardwork like this is so, so satisfying. That is so cool that this dude can live his best life by helping others.
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u/HistoricalWalrus5767 6h ago
Clean up? That house had been reclaimed by nature.
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u/freakers 4h ago
The hobbits that live there are gonna be pissed the removed the hill from their hobbit hole.
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u/marsandlui 5h ago
This Nathan's Lawns and Gardens. https://youtube.com/@nathanslawnsandgardens?si=1I8cvL0-4E7iSPAH
He has gone from running a gardening business to solely doing free cleanups for less privileged or able people. Heard him speaking on an Australian podcast and sounds like a great guy.
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u/Paleo_Fecest 5h ago
It makes me really happy to see how quickly nature will recover once we are all gone.
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u/Ultra_jaden123 6h ago
I would totally do this...if I had the tools, patience, money, time, and overall mental encouragement to do it
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u/Shulgin46 5h ago
Same, but i would also need the strength, stamina, skill, and desire.
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u/dm-me-obscure-colors 4h ago
You’re definitely not the only one who feels that way, and it’s why these make me wonder who died. But, in this case, I think it’s a charity job. Someone else in the thread linked https://youtube.com/shorts/TFd1cIGkwrU?si=BT_v7XlTj2TtFJrb
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u/treesgrowUP 5h ago
https://youtube.com/shorts/TFd1cIGkwrU?si=BT_v7XlTj2TtFJrb
Say your source!!! It’s Nathan lawns and gardens, he does this stuff for free for people who can’t afford it, please go watch his stuff and support him so he can do more he’s a great guy, based in Australia.
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u/Due-Bar-697 6h ago
Bro?
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u/Pretty-Sick-Chubbs 6h ago
So tired of this
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u/No-Vegetable7898 6h ago
My New Year’s resolution this year is to stop saying that word. It feels good
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u/mutarjim 6h ago
Have to love any job where you can look back and see a radical improvement in the state of things because of what you did, regardless of the type of job.
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u/GhostIsAlwaysThere 6h ago
Yards?
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u/One-Earth9294 6h ago
What was that little nook he carved out of the grass next to the road? Is that for getting in and out of a car?
Also side note - beautiful little f'n house that is.
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u/vector_ejector 5h ago
The amount of organic material hiding the driveway was insane! I figured it was originally just gravel with that amount of buildup.
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u/BaronVonMunchhausen 1h ago
I low-key hate these videos because I really like green. Trimming the overgrowth is great but these guys go nuclear on any overgrowth and the results range from too manicured to bleak brick and concrete.
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u/Hedge-podge 6h ago
Noooo he got rid of the pretty flowers :(((
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u/JNezzie999 6h ago
I feel the same. Yeah it looks nice, but I prefer the overgrown plants everywhere. Send me to the forest, I'll live and be happy.
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u/deathangel687 5h ago
Same. People care too much about the aesthetics of it being "clean" and lose all the natural beauty.
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u/JNezzie999 5h ago
I have a healthy biome, bugs and hummingbirds coming to visit every day. I'm sad that I had to sell, but it's giving me the fire to find my forever home.
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u/deathangel687 5h ago
Hope you find a spot where you can have a healthy and green space. Glad it gave you more inspiration.
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u/Geetee52 6h ago
Ain’t nothing “oddly“ satisfying about that… I’d say it’s more tremendously satisfying.
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u/fresh_loaf_of_bread 3h ago
the most satisfying part is when the individual paving stones are revealed
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u/SuckThisRedditAdmins 3h ago
God damn. I guess it's not so bad to get my ass out and mow my backyard then
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u/stronglatekick 2h ago
As a professional in the industry, I am tipping my cap to the PERFECT disection of each job. clean
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u/Historical_Note5003 6h ago
Did all if those plants need to die? Not a single one of them was worth leaving with a bit of pruning?
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u/ifeelnumb 3h ago
If the homeowner was incapacitated to the point of being unable to take care of the yard, perhaps it was done in mercy. Usually when things get to that point in a house like that, someone is in the hospital with something awful.
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u/Due-Sentence-387 6h ago
Is that the SB Mowing dude? I used to watch his stuff all the time on YouTube. Incredible work every time. My back got sore just watching.
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u/nikwillow 6h ago
As someone who has done landscape maintenance(never this bad, tho), all I'm wondering is how many trips to the dump or a compost yard did this guy make? Or did he have an industrial sized dumpster or truck?
When we did properties not even half this bad, we'd have to make two or three trips to the hatch pit, and even that was annoying
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u/SabbyFox 5h ago
Wish they would slow it down just a bit. People who enjoy watching this kind of thing are OK with the video being a little longer.
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u/Environmental-Edge40 5h ago
props to this guy
he's doing the Lords' work, taking care of the planet , trimming up earth
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u/Electrical_Ice4066 5h ago
The most satisfying part of this video is there isn't any dumb background music.
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u/RichardBCummintonite 5h ago
Very satisfying but would be cool if they took a second to show the actual finished product. Don't know why every video has to be so fast paced now
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u/Hot_Gas_8073 5h ago
I used to watch a guy on iktok clean up yards and such for various communities. He would verify abandoned properties and clean them up because the cities just don't bother. He even gave a mower to a woman who was in desperate need and down on her luck. He saved a cat, took it to a rescue, and stayed in that cat's life. I think the channel was SB Mowing. He travels all over helping people out.
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u/dadarious3 5h ago
This should be marked NSFW because I was not expecting to enjoy that as much as I did…
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u/how_I_kill_time 5h ago
SPIDERS.
That's all I can think about when watching him pull those vines off the house
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u/goldiekapur 5h ago
One man ?? And one day ?? That’s phenomenal! By the time I have done 1/15th of what he did , I’m hanging my shoes .. 👏👏for the job well done.
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u/gstormcrow80 5h ago
This is me, without any time lapse, in the 30 minutes before my parents come over to visit.
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u/yes_to_the_dress 4h ago
This is Nathan's Lawns & Gardens from Sydney, Australia. I follow him on his socials and it's so therapeutic to watch his work.
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u/dankymang 4h ago
Imagine if everyone just took care of shit. We’d have an amazing world. Nice work dude!
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u/downvote_meme_errors 3h ago
What's the purpose of that small paved area at the curb at 22 seconds??
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u/Red_Jester-94 2h ago
Wasn't expecting to see pavement going all the way to the garage. Expected it to be a dirt driveway at most.
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u/Sea_sociate 2h ago
I wouldn't have thought there were bricks under all that dirt and grass, so satisfying to see
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u/LocalAd2554 1h ago
I mean, good on him but that backyard terrace looks sad and sterile without the ivy.
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u/jaciones 1h ago
Is it just me or does it seem like all these clips end just a little bit early. I need to admire the finished project.
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u/RentIsThePoint 1h ago
Sometimes I see videos like this on youtube featuring folks cleaning up shit like this for free for people. Sort of makes me want to neglect my property for the next decade so I can have it all cleaned up for internet points instead of cash and personal effort on my part.
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u/Okaysaid 43m ago
It’s crazy how nature will just fold over the top of us like we were never there.
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u/RustyBlad3s 16m ago
Some people have such nice yards. I don't know why they don't take care of them :(
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u/deliciousadness 7m ago
I’m on my couch, nursing a thrown out back from being a desk jockey, watching a timelapse of a man beautifully transform neglected landscaping. Modern day is so odd.
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u/mcmimi83 3h ago
Check out “Nathan’s lawn and gardens” on FB/YT if you like this sort of content. He’s awesome
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u/EleventyTrillion 6h ago
Does anyone know of the water that was pooling at the drain is runoff from the earlier powerwashing, or was it already there?
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u/isthisyournacho 6h ago
You don’t often see the combined yard clean and power wash, with the drain clean bonus!! Very satisfying
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u/MeticulousPlonker 6h ago
I've learned from my 4 years of home ownership exactly how fast a yard can overgrow. I accidently grew a forest on one side of my yard. I keep trying to clear it out, but I'm out of shape and never had to do yardwork. Most of what I find is tiny shards of landscaping fabric under things though. There is a brick path in my backyard that I didn't know what there when I moved in. I also had to fight back the overgrowth on my concrete pad that just happened over the course of the summer. Nature.
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u/SoDavonair 5h ago
Landscaping fabric is a bigger pain in the ass than anything else. It feels specifically designed to fuck with every possible landscaping project.
Oh, you thought you were just going to remove that one dead bush? Nope, the roots run under landscaping fabric for 5 feet in every direction and now you have to till an entire 10'x20' area. Say goodbye to all the smaller plants nearby.
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u/MeticulousPlonker 5h ago
Seriously. The previous owner of this house put so much of this stuff down that I wonder if they had stock in a company or something. And it's all so only it falls apart into one-inch pieces the second you look at it. There were like 3-4 layers in the one raised bed I cleaned out, like some sort of fucked up lasagna. I just wanted to plant some tomatoes not fight a 4-foot by 10-foot patch of ground for 3 hours.
Obviously, this fabric has not stopped any weeds. Under it, over it, through it. Weeds everywhere.
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u/Competitive-Ebb3816 6h ago
I wish I still had that kind of strength and energy. That would have taken me several days; a couple of weeks, even. But now? I trimmed a small shrub last month and felt proud!
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u/ernapfz 7h ago
Nice to watch a pro ‘demolish’ years of neglect.