Except that those other laws actually affect other people’s wellbeing. If on the other hand you choose to have more bushes on your property than your neighbour, perhaps because you like the songbirds it attracts, those around you are affected not at all.
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Again, where in the world are you people inferring depression? This is a failure of a house flipper who has no problem stating that she’d ask for help now that she knows that the law has teeth. This story isn’t about the oppression of society against those struggling with mental illness. I do know people who have battled depression. That’s not what’s at play here. She stated that “family issues” have kept them from being able to work on the house.
For 12 years.
I hate raking leaves, but even I’m not that bad.
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Not just pointless but wasteful. Forcing people to pollute the air, possibly the ground and water when gas and oil are spilled or disposed of improperly, a waste of fossil fuel and time and money. Cutting grass with anything other than powerless hand tools should be illegal.
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I went with Empire zoysia, and it has been great. I probably cut it four times this year. no weed killer, no fertilizer, no watering, it has grown well in the shade. Compared to the rest of the neighborhood lawns that get professional service I give it a solid “B.”
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WHAT IF that lady was a reptiloid, hunh, didja ever think about that? No, because you’re too focused on your five-fingered warm-blooded abilities to ever think that the shadow cabal that truly controls the world has neither the time nor the opposable thumbs to do their own yard work. Plus probably lazy eye limp lisp python
Shame. SHAME.
This is L. H. Puttgrass signing off and heading out to burn my rubber poison ivy tire towers.
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Just put a sign like this up and make people think that zombie hordes will be arriving…
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Thank you for the WBIR link. Showing photos of what the house looked like in 2012 and 2013, as opposed to now when they’ve been doing what is required before going back to court, makes it clear that the house was NOT being worked on in any way, despite what they claimed.
And I have to admit that how they’re sprucing up the house right now galls me a bit. There are still clogged gutters but hey, they’ve raked some leaves and don’t those Halloween decorations look spiffy. Yeah, that’s the sort of thing that makes me think the physical, mental, and financial ability is there, they just didn’t bother caring until they were made to.
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Seriously. The state interfering with whether my property looks attractive?
Over here in Europe, we like our governments. Sure, we complain (especially here in Austria, complaining is a national pastime), but we really only mean we want better government, not less.
And yet putting someone in jail for failure to maintain property is unthinkable.
I thought that Americans traditionally like government interference in private matters less than Europeans do.
Over here, we regulate handguns to the point that hardly any sane person would think of getting one without a specific reason; we pay 20% VAT on every purchase, in addition to the usual high income taxes PLUS mandatory health and retirment insurance. We have to jump through extra bureaucratic hoops and pay a few fees if you want to start a business. And of course, everyone has the right to go for a walk in a forest even if that forest is someone else’s private property.
But putting someone in jail for failure to keep their own property pretty? We wouldn’t go that far.
And if we don’t go that far, I definitely wouldn’t have expected the US, the “land of the free”, where Freedom is spelt with a capital F more often than not, where “big government” is frowned upon by at least half of the population, the country where real-life libertarians actually exist (even as a minority), where public health insurance is actually seen by some as the first step towards Marxism, to do it.
Maybe it’s time to reexamine whether the word “freedom” actually means the same thing in different cultures.
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Okay, whether the UK counts as Europe or not is open to question… 
Interesting.
Exactly. In many ways, it’s culturally halfway between continental Europe and America.
Poison ivy has nothing to do with looks – it’s a hazard. Stuff d**n near put me in the hospital. Didn’t actually itch, but there were great weeping runnels of lymph practically pouring from my arms.
You don’t get rid of that stuff (and NOT by burning, unless you are suicidal/homicidal) and you are allowing its spread to everyone else. Especially kids that like to run off the edges of the sidewalk.
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No matter the law being violated or circumstances surrounding the violation, no person should be deprived of their liberty for an act of mala prohibita.
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I agree with that in general – and would add being caught with a personal amount of a drug as a similar violation – but apparently notices and fines didn’t work, so what do you do? I suppose the local government could seize the property, but honestly that’s worse for the family than mom hanging out in the local jail for the equivalent of 3 movies in a row.
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Increase the fines as violations continue. Offer the option of voluntary jail time as an alternative to paying the fines.
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OK, I can get on board with that.
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OK, my bad. I keep forgetting that outside of Austria, nature can hurt you even if you don’t voluntarily walk up a mountain ;-).
But still, in all the news links I’ve seen - including the slightly more balanced one @Scott_Milliken posted -, safety hazards a quoted at most as one issue of many. “Overgrown bushes and cars in the yard are just a few of the issues Lenoir city code enforcement officers cite as an ongoing problem”. Jailtime for overgrown bushes.
- Having a law to prohibit overgrown bushes is not OK.
- Having a law to force people to eradicate poison ivy on their properties is OK.
- Punishing people with jail time for not complying with this law is not OK (@dacree has already pointed out there are other ways to enforce a law).
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Which is why I used burning it as an example of a destructive action that shouldn’t be legally demanded.
But dahrlin’ wasn’t it worth it?
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There are plenty of movies I’d take equivalent jail time instead of watching…
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True enough!
I read a follow-up article in which the woman was interviewed about her time in jail, and it sounds like the court was really just using the “sentence” as a marker: she was kept away from the general population and even wore her own clothes. She sounded appreciative of how they treated her, in fact.
