Lawn care.... Who is right?

CowgirlK39 · March 2014

Background: we live in the upstairs of a house, with a crack head living downstairs. We rent this place, and the first summer we lived here we had a discussion wit he landlord because he made us aware we were supposed to maintain the lawn or he would charge us more rent to do so. So we bought a cheap mower and always left it outside since we had no access to the garage behind the house (it's rented out separately).

This past summer the mower had tons of issues from living outside year round, so we need to buy a new one. We also started renting that garage this winter and splitting the rent with ILs, to house things that can't be left in the snow. I told DH I do not want to spend this much money on storage once the weather breaks, but he pointed out that if we have to keep maintaining the lawn, we need to have proper storage for the mower. Our thought is that we will buy a brand new one so that when we finally find a house, we will have one to take with us.

My problem is that I do not think it is fair that we have to pay a ridiculous amount in rent to pay to house a lawn mower to maintain a property that isn't ours. Asking the girl downstairs for help isn't an option. She is completely cracked out and I want to have as little to do with her as possible. As I write this, she is screaming at......something.... downstairs. Are we out of line in thinking this way? I was considering asking the LL for a cut in the rent because of this. I'm sure he will probably say that we rent it so we have to maintain it but I find this very wrong. Thoughts?

bingbongsmama · March 2014

You already agreed to cut the grass. How you store the mower isn't any of the landlord's concern. And the neighbor's rental agreement is between the landlord and her, you can't ask her to do work you agreed to as part of your payment.

spalko · March 2014

I agree with PP. You agreed to maintaining the yard and how you go about that is strictly up to you. Do you plan on staying in this apartment for a long time still? Would the cost of buying another cheapo mower for the next couple of years (depending on how long you plan on staying there) outweigh what you are paying in rent for the storage? Could you buy a nice mower and store it at a finds house? If it were me, I would stop renting the storage garage, buy another cheap mower, and look for an alternative place to keep it in the winter. If that isn't an option maybe sell the mower in the fall to get back a little of what you spent on it.

Xstatic3333 · March 2014

I don't have a mower yet so maybe I'm missing something, but could you bring it inside for the winter and store it on a tarp in the corner or something? Or in a basement or entryway?

daisy662 · March 2014

Agree with pp's. Your agreement with the landlord was to maintain the lawn yourself, this is not her problem. It might be cheaper for you to hire someone to mow the lawn for you versus buying a lawn mower and renting a garage just for it. We have someone do both of our houses and it's not that expensive.

tigerfighter · March 2014

Can you put a cheap shed up, like the rubbermaid ones. I used to have one for horse supplies when I owned a horse. There are pretty decent and a small one should fit a mower.

smerka · March 2014

I would check your lease and see what it says. If you do need to take care of the lawn, I would consider buying an electric mower. I would consider storing that inside over a gas powered mower. Or I would ask the landlord if you can have access to the onsite garage solely for the purpose of storing the mower over the winter.

CowgirlK39 · March 2014

That's what I'm afraid he is going to say. Honestly, we didn't "agree" to take care of the lawn. There is nothing in our lease that says we are responsible for it. We moved in in august of 2010, and at the time the girl downstairs had a bf living with her and he mowed the lawn with a mower they had. They broke up at winter so in the summer of 2011, she tried to mow the lawn herself. Weeks went by with it never being done and soon enough the LL came by and asked what the problem was. Turns out she broke it and couldn't afford to fix it so she did nothing. LL got angry and told both of us we had to do something. DH and I asked him about providing lawn care, since there was nothing stating we had to do it. He told us he would up our rent $100/month if we wanted it cut. So we just assumed do it ourselves and never let crazy neighbor on the thing. After two years of being exposed to the weather all the time, the mower broke repeatedly last year. We spent close to $500 in repairs until DH finally gave up. That storage garage behind us became available so we took it to put other things away, including our snowblower, since we are responsible for that too, but it is an insane $300/mo. I do not know anyone else who rents who is responsible for their lawn, so I cannot help but feel like he is taking us for a ride. I feel like we have no choice but to pay him to maintain HIS property. But from what I am seeing here, we are obviously wrong. I will not be able to buy a house at this rate, if I have to keep paying for crap like this.

CowgirlK39 · March 2014

tigerfighter said:

Can you put a cheap shed up, like the rubbermaid ones. I used to have one for horse supplies when I owned a horse. There are pretty decent and a small one should fit a mower.

There are actually two other shed on the property, but they are locked and LL has stuff in them. There is also a rat infested camper on the property that he refuses to remove.

blondie42107 · March 2014

Look for another place to rent.

FWIW, H and I rented a duplex for a few years. Landlord gave us a discount on rent because we mowed the lawn (our side and the other side). He has about 5 rentals around the neighborhood so it lessened his work. He still stopped by and did other yard upkeep like fertilizer, spraying, etc. We owned the push mower and stored it in our single car garage.

Xstatic3333 · March 2014

I like tigerfighter's idea. A shed like that is something you could bring with you to your future home.

Honestly, you may be being taken for a ride, but I think it's too late to fix at this point. If initially you'd said, "sure, we'll mow, but can we keep our mower in your shed?" things might have been different. Either way it sounds like this is costing you guys a LOT, so I wouldn't just keep storing a mower outside. Either get a kind you can bring in for the winter, store it at a friend's shed, get a Rubbermaid shed, or maybe even look at getting a cheap, temporary house so you can build up your house savings. OR, see of there is a HS kid whose family has a mower that would do or for $15-$30 a month.

littlemermaid · March 2014

Have you looked into how much a lawn service would be? If it's not a lot of grass they might not charge a lot.

hoffse · March 2014

I mean, what the landlord is doing is crappy, but you've also been playing along for two years. There's an argument that you've implicitly agreed to this arrangement because of your behavior.**

Even if you don't know anybody who has to take care of a lawn while renting, lawn care is very often put into leases. I added lawn care to a lease I was writing just last week, actually. People who rent from corporate-owned apartment complexes usually don't have to do it, because the corporate landlord rents plenty of units to cover the cost of a lawn/garden service. But people who are the only tenants (or one of just a handful of tenants) on the leased premises often do have to maintain the lawn and other outdoor green space. It's a lot of work for a landlord to maintain the property at a location where s/he doesn't live, and it's pretty expensive if they hire somebody else to do it. While it should have been in your lease to begin with, increasing the cost of rent to cover lawn care is (generally) reasonable, and plenty of landlords build that cost into the rental price. And on the other side of things, some landlords will offer rental discounts if their tenant will maintain the space for them.***

I would either move, buy one of those sheds that tigerfighter suggested (because it can be taken with you, and will provide good weather-proofing), or hire a lawn service. By lawn service, I mean find some teenager who will mow the lawn every other week for $10 a pop.

My other source of confusion is that you're willing to pay $300/month for a storage shed... but not an extra $100/month in increased rent, while eliminating the storage shed. What else do you need the storage shed for? A regular storage unit at one of those corporate-owned storage lots costs far less than $300/month.

**This is not legal advice.

Erikan73 · March 2014

I agree with a few of the other PP, it might be worth it to get a few prices from local landscaping companies to see what the price would be to have them come & take care of the lawn for you and then compare the cost of the lawnmower & what it would cost you to keep the the garage throughout the summer to keep the lawnmower in. Also take into consideration the time you will be saving not having to do it yourself either freeing your time up to do other hopefully more fun stuff.

CowgirlK39 · April 2014

Just wanted to update everyone. I called our landlord today just to see how he felt about the situation. He was very accommodating, unlike the first time the situation came up. He said he was going to do some research and see if it was better to hire someone, or cut our rent and allow us to use one of the random sheds on the property to store the mower. Either way, win/win!

Lawn care.... Who is right?

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