This morning I had garden services come in and do a thorough clean up before I start a new weekly contract. I tried to do the garden on the cheap using myself and one of my employees from work and all we did was create piles of cuttings everywhere which after a few months looks terrible. You are not allowed to burn garden refuse here so you have to cart it off yourself. The problem is the closest dump site is 30 minutes way. The other problem is you could be making homes for pesky rodents which we have in the area due to being close to a river.
With all the rain we have had over the last month the garden was resembling more of a jungle and it just needed doing. The other factor is ticks generally breed in grass and will suddenly appear after periods of rain followed by warm weather. I checked the dogs out last week ad they are all clear, but you can ever take a chance.
Garden services arrived with a crew of 8 people at 8am and left around 2pm after carting away 6 full van loads of garden waste. I even got them to sweep out the roof gutters so they know what is required and expected on their weekly maintenance visits. Todays 6 hour garden party only cost $150 and it was money well spent. They had 4 guys working in the back and 4 in the front so it was a sizeable job.
Hiring a trailer for the day plus having two helpers would have been cheaper, but no ways would it all have been completed in 6 hours. I have learned my lesson now and not to be Mr Cheap as in this case you are costing yourself time and money.
Whilst the garden services were here we had some neighborly love up the road with 3 houses quarreling over a pesky house alarm. You can't make this stuff up ad apparently this has been going on for some time. I was following the chat on our local neighbor WhatsApp group and these guys are keyboard warriors instead of going to talk it out face to face. Pathetic really that even got the police involved because of the language and threats being tossed around. Some people take those things too seriously and they need to row up and get a life. A house alarm can be irritating so having some common decency to try and be more careful is all that is needed.
In our community we generally have no problems and I guess these people detest each other and is not worth the effort to get involved. The WhatsApp group is more for help and assistance when you need it knowing others will be on hand if you are being broke into. Alarms go off all the time and we are very observant and aware. We have had no real crime in our area besides some petty stuff which has since stopped.