From our email: Photographic confirmation that the 90-ft.-tall billboard in the front yard of the house at 4743 Banning has indeed been removed.
After the jump, the billboard that Afton Oaks ate!
Read more about: 77027, Afton Oaks, Billboards, Lawn Care, Neighborhood Disputes, Retail, Signs
This three-bedroom, three-bath, 3,504-square-foot home on a half-acre lot in Memorial is notable for three reasons: The asking price was dropped to just below $650,000 only a few days after it went on the market, shortly before Christmas; it sits on a street whose name Susan Vreeland-Wendt probably wouldn’t approve of (foundation problems and fires generally aren’t the kinds of connotations you look for these days); and its main MLS listing photo features a remarkably bad Photoshop hack job.
What is it that’s been covered over on that front lawn with a hundred rubber-stamp-tool grass plugs? Is it just that the real sod isn’t taking underneath all those pine trees? Or is this a photo from heavy trash day? After the jump: more (presumably undoctored) photos of the house on Leaning Ash Lane.
Read more about: 77079, Ashwood, Buying and Selling, Homes for Sale, Lawn Care, Memorial, Photos, Real Estate Marketing
What do you do when you’ve got one of those pesky neighbors who just won’t take care of her overgrown back yard?
“We’ve had nutria rats — the ones that look like beavers — caught in the trap in my backyard. . . . I have had run-ins with large snakes. My dog has been sprayed by a skunk. … My children are not allowed to walk the property unless I go out there first.
“Anytime you try to entertain with friends, you have to explain why there is a jungle next door creeping through the fence. … It’s just the craziest thing.”
Sounds bad. But here’s a suggestion: Do you have any sway with the neighborhood homeowners’ association? Are you, say, its president? Well, then, why don’t you just have the reluctant gardener next door put in jail until she agrees to take care of the problem?
The Kirkmont Association first sued Ballew and won a permanent injunction against her in 2004, requiring her to mow her entire lawn twice a month and trim her trees and shrubs once a year. Ballew failed to appear in court at that time to respond to the lawsuit, which resulted in a default judgment.
But little has changed since then, Carroll said. Only the front yard has been mowed.
During a follow-up hearing in April 2006, Ballew was found to be in contempt of court for failing to comply with the injunction. She was sentenced to three days in jail, but that sentence was suspended for four months to give her time to do the required yard work, homeowners association attorney Michael Treece said.
She was ordered to return to Davidson’s court for a compliance hearing in August but failed to appear.
Davidson issued an order for Ballew’s arrest last fall. She was taken into custody Friday. The judge told Ballew he sought her arrest “very reluctantly.”
After the jump, the advice mowing scofflaw Linda Ballew took too far: tips for a healthy but shaggy lawn from the Kirkwood South website. Plus, more Kirkwood South yards of the month.
Read more about: 77089, Back Yards, Gardening, Homeowners' Associations, Kirkwood South, Landscape, Lawn Care
