Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Water Place.

 Photo by Mary Engelbreit

Breakfast With Bubbie

Dear Bubbie,

I am one of those people that is very proud of my home. I work very hard to keep my yard clean and beautiful. I am very proud of the way my front yard looks and I work hard to keep it that way.
I have installed a water softener system so I am not watering my lawn with hard water.

My issue is my neighbor. His sprinklers water my grass as well and he has hard water. I have asked him repeatedly to make sure his water doesn't get on my grass but he doesn't seem to care. He has even slammed his door in my face.

I called the sheriff's department and the deputy who came out explained to me this was a civil matter, just a neighbor dispute, and would be best taken up with my Home Owner's Association. Then the deputy walked over to my neighbor's sprinkler, which was on at the time and spraying my grass with his hard water. The deputy whipped out a small tool and turned the sprinkler head so the water was no longer getting my grass wet.

While this temporarily fixed the problem, ten minutes later the wind picked up and my neighbor's hard water was once again getting my grass all wet. The deputy said there was nothing he could do to control mother nature and he had done all he could do at that time and after he talked to my neighbor about my concerns, he drove away.

Even though the deputy fixed the problem in less than ten seconds, how can I get my neighbor to understand how important this is to me?

Ticked Off in Temecula




Dear Ticked Off,

    I'm not quite sure what the difference is between watering your grass with hard water as opposed to soft water, so I don't know if hard water would damage your lawn. However, I can say that your neighbor can not control the wind, so over spray is unavoidable.  If you are truly worried about hard water getting on your lawn, the only thing I can suggest is building a solid wall around your lawn. Of course you need to check into any city permits or permits through your home owners association if applicable.
 
   My biggest concern is that you called law enforcement to deal with this situation. When you call the police for matters like this, you are taking them away from important, possibly dangerous, calls. You can literally be putting someone's life at risk....over your lawn. Our law enforcement professionals are not there for us to settle nonsensical situations and silly neighbor disputes that we should be able to deal with on our own, as adults.  Our officers have enough to deal with. Calling the police is for emergency situations, not lawns being over-sprayed with the wrong type of our neighbor's water.





If you have a question you'd like answered private message me or email me at bubbie.rcns@gmail.com