Contractual Garden Work

ComplexP

We are renting a terrace house and the contract states we must maintain the garden, which is fine. However, the back of the garden is a serious mess of brambles and weeds which we have cleared twice in 2 years.

The landlady says she does not want us putting weed killer down but rather that we must do weekly work manually to keep it under control which will be quite time consuming and tiring to keep up, especially in the winter months ahead.

She has basically said that unless we keep the garden maintained to her standards and using the methods she prescribes that she will have no choice but to hire a gardener and pass the cost onto us via the rent.

Can she do this? I dont mind having to keep the garden in order but having her dictate HOW we do it rubs me the wrong way.

neilmcl

If the contract states that you must maintain the garden then fine that's all you are required to do. However, I wouldn't class clearing the garden of weeds twice a year could be classed as "maintaining" it so she does have a point.

DVardysShadow

Cross posted. ComplexP, if you must cross post, at least have the manners to say that is what you have done. Otherwise, you can waste peoples time with an answer which has already been given.

Edit: Looking through your posting history, it looks quite usual for you to start a thread on 2 forums with the same basic text. Please don't.

ComplexP

Shadow - In future I will endevour to mention any cross posting however, I do not consider a duplicate answer to be a waste of time since it can often offer additional information or a different perspective to the original. In fact, I would consider it more valuable than a response which has been potentially biased by the thread up to that point.

Often the nature of posts means that there is no obvious single catagory to post into, as in this case. If I were to have posted only to this forum I would have gotten just one reply because, in hind sight, the best place for it was obviously the other one where I have recieved 10 replies. Going by your logic I should have posted here, waited 3 days until it had disappeared off the front page and then posted into the other thread, by which time any advice I got would be too late.

As for my post history, most of my duplicate posts are bridging the link between the technical forums and the Home, Phone and Broadband areas where I try to offer as much advice as I can and no-one has ever had a problem with it before; in fact most of my posts are giving advice rather than seeking it. I do often mention the cross-posts when I remember to do so.

I am not sure if there is an official rule regarding duplicate posting, I have never seen one but I accept that you are more likely to know if one exists. If you can point me to such a forum rule then I will, of course, respect it and refrain from duplicating in future. If you cannot point me to such a rule then I respectfully disagree with you sir.

Spartacus_Mills

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Cross posted. ComplexP, if you must cross post, at least have the manners to say that is what you have done. Otherwise, you can waste peoples time with an answer which has already been given.

Edit: Looking through your posting history, it looks quite usual for you to start a thread on 2 forums with the same basic text. Please don't.

So who made you a forum guide or forum mod ?

heretolearn_2

I wouldn't call an annual blitz with weedkiller maintaining a garden.

She wants to you keep on top of it on a regular basis (and if you do that you won't really need weedkiller). If you keep it tidied up regularly you won't have to do it every week either. A bit of compromise on both sides would be nice, can you give it an hour or so a fortnight in summer and once a month in winter?

pinkshoes

If your contract states that you need to maintain the garden, then that's what you need to do! You might even find it therapeutic!!

Any property I've rented that had a garden had the same requirement, so when I lived with some lazy people who couldn't be bothered, we just hired a gardener once a month to do the bulk of the work, and we then mowed it and did light weeding.

Optimist

ComplexP wrote: »

We are renting a terrace house and the contract states we must maintain the garden, which is fine. However, the back of the garden is a serious mess of brambles and weeds which we have cleared twice in 2 years.

The landlady says she does not want us putting weed killer down but rather that we must do weekly work manually to keep it under control which will be quite time consuming and tiring to keep up, especially in the winter months ahead.

She has basically said that unless we keep the garden maintained to her standards and using the methods she prescribes that she will have no choice but to hire a gardener and pass the cost onto us via the rent.

Can she do this? I dont mind having to keep the garden in order but having her dictate HOW we do it rubs me the wrong way.

Forgive me if I have read this wrong but your idea of maintain is to blitz it once a year....:eek:

She cant tell you to get out every week that would be unreasonable but she can expect the garden to be a certain standard especially if it is in your tenancy agreement, at all times not just once a year.

I'm not sure about her requirement not to use weedkiller I would imagine that depends on the circumstances.

DVardysShadow

ComplexP wrote: »

Shadow - In future I will endevour to mention any cross posting however, I do not consider a duplicate answer to be a waste of time since it can often offer additional information or a different perspective to the original. In fact, I would consider it more valuable than a response which has been potentially biased by the thread up to that point.

.... If you cannot point me to such a rule then I respectfully disagree with you sir.

This is about good manners more than rules. Imagine posting an answer to a question at length and spending time on it. And then finding the self same question on another thread - which somebody has already answered with substantially the same information before you posted your answer.

By all means attempt to garner more answers, but, sir, wasting people's time by having them post answers in good faith to questions which have already been answered falls a long way short of 'respectful' in my book.