I did this. I wouldnt call it making it shitty, but some people have scoffed and said I “Redneck’ified” the neighborhood. I moved to a suburb in 2009, it’s not HOA thankfully but older people acted like it was. I got cops called on me for my lawn being too tall the week I moved in, like 8 inches and such and they continued to do this often for my grass and my dogs being “too stinky and an eye sore to their view”
I have asthma and can’t use a push mower. I don’t own a riding mower. I can’t mow my lawn timely. I’m also not gonna pay a company to mow here 2x a week. I have a relative mow the front portion of my yard a few times a summer and we call it good. I then rewilded the property so the native plants manage themselves, my backyard is a meadow now. I have lots of trees.
People stopped fussing about the lawn eventually and these old huffy folks eventually moved away. I got chickens, turkeys, quail, rabbits in the meantime. My place is a hobby farm. I planted crops and gardens. My yard isn’t immaculate but it’s okay. I have corn and watermelons growing in my front lawn.
From then on, a neighbor turned a spare acreage across the street into pasture and got a pair of donkeys. A herd of feral guineas roams the whole neighborhood. I’m the poultry lady here. A guy talked to me about turning his property for pigs recently. Someone on another street turned extra lots they bought into a meadow for their herd of goats right in the middle of the suburb. On the other side of the neighborhood someone has horses in a nice big field. At the road entrance to the neighborhood, the first house you see is another hobby farm of a couple dogs, a 4 wheeler, some really happy kids and chickens. And their house is really beautiful too.
All of this because I stopped mowing my lawn regularly when I moved in.
It’s truly a thing of beauty and the homes are getting more affordable! Because someone in a local fb group complained a few months ago about it “I can’t sell a house here for the highest I want to because of all these places here! This used to be a decent neighborhood!”
You don’t have to make things downright shitty. You just have to stop mowing your lawn regularly.
