curated wildlife yard<\/a>, one homeowner chose compliance as payback.<\/p>\nAnd it shut things down fast.<\/p>\n
Keep reading for the full story<\/p>\n
Our yard is wild. I mean that in the real definition of \u201cliving or growing in the natural environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
We have no \u201clawn.\u201d<\/p>\n
This homeowner doesn\u2019t take the traditional route for landscaping, but the results can be quite beautiful.<\/p>\n
We aggressively remove and prevent invasive and noxious species of plants and ensure that what grows is native to our area and drought resistant.<\/p>\n
The wildflowers that grow include lupine, blue flax, spiderwort, black-eyed Susan, and sunflowers, among others.<\/p>\n
We have natural elements like driftwood logs to retain water, and we even have an elk skull in the yard to act as a shelter for critters.<\/p>\n
There are a plethora of birds, bees, bunnies, and other wildlife. More wildlife than any yard in the area, as far as I can tell.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s beautiful and alive, but definitely not a manicured lawn with perfectly cut grass and landscaping.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, not all neighbors seemed to think so.<\/p>\n
Last summer, we got a notice from the county that our yard was in violation of some county ordinance.<\/p>\n
My husband called the number on the notice and got a very \u201cover it\u201d employee who let out a big sigh and said he had gotten around 30 complaints from one person for the entire strip of road that we live on.<\/p>\n
Keep in mind, you can\u2019t \u201cbatch\u201d report an area. You have to file reports house by house.<\/p>\n
This means this neighbor really put a lot of time into being petty, although the homeowners hadn\u2019t broken any rules.<\/p>\n
So someone had the time and energy to pull up Google Maps and file a report for about 30 houses for \u201covergrown weeds.\u201d<\/p>\n
I checked the county ordinance and made sure everything we had in our yard was in compliance.<\/p>\n
Things like \u201cpurposely cultivated,\u201d which our wildflowers definitely were. We planted specific species of seeds and remove whatever isn\u2019t native.<\/p>\n
None of the wild plants block any sidewalks, nor do they hang over onto any other properties.<\/p>\n
So the homeowners decided to fight back in their own way.<\/p>\n
Knowing now that it was someone with way too much time on their hands, I did some reading and learned that my yard had everything needed \u2014 and then some \u2014 to qualify as a National Wildlife Habitat.<\/p>\n
So I filled out the form, paid the fee, and got my certificate.<\/p>\n
My husband called the county employee back, who said, \u201cSend me that certificate.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked it over, thanked my husband for the new information he could use in the future, and closed our case.<\/p>\n
I now have signs in my yard announcing the property as a wildlife habitat, and the birds and bees get to keep living happily in the wild.<\/p>\n
Take that, neighbor!<\/p>\n
What did Reddit think of this story?<\/p>\n
Sometimes you just have to fight back against the powers that be.<\/p>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load-0.7\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" "\\"Homeowner")
<\/p>\n
This commenter is all for an unconventional yard.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This commenter figures they\u2019d get along quite well with this homeowner.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Many pushes for HOAs are just power trips in disguise.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The yard got verified, and the complaints got buried for good.<\/p>\n
Nature wins this round!<\/p>\n
If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pexels\/Reddit Neighborhood complaints are often made by people with way too much time on their hands. When a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[144798,64284,242,6301,85,46,144799,64286,9479,3123,141,16433,144800,144801],"class_list":{"0":"post-281797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-bad-neighbor","9":"tag-entity","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-homeowners","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-malicious-compilance","15":"tag-neighbor","16":"tag-picture","17":"tag-reddit","18":"tag-science","19":"tag-top","20":"tag-wildflowers","21":"tag-wildlife-habitat"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}