Despite taking every precaution with their HOA's landscaping company, one Redditor said the company completely destroyed their new flowers at the end of its contract with the association.
"Looking for some emotional support," the Redditor said in a post in the r/gardening subreddit. "HOA landscapers used herbicides on all my flowers."
HOA residents often find themselves in conflict with the local board over their landscaping choices. One homeowner faced a similar issue when their HOA entered their property to spray weed killer and managed to contaminate their child's play equipment.
In this case, though, the Redditor said they were a member of their HOA board, which was about to transition to new leadership. Instead, the problem seems to have been the landscaping company that the HOA hired.
"We sent a notice to cancel our contract in the beginning of January to end our contract in February and to proceed with a different landscaping company," they explained in a comment.
In their post, they also said, "This landscaping company's last month was this month and I had an agreement with them that they do not cut or spray my flowers. Well, yesterday upon exit, they sprayed my flowers. Most everything is now dead or dying."
While it's possible that there was some misunderstanding, the original poster didn't think so.
"The HOA has no restriction on or bylaws preventing the planting of flowers," they said. "The landscaping company does the neighborhood and allowed and documented individual owner requests (like mine to not spray or cut flowers or remove weeds)."
The history of special requests and the suspicious timing of the company's last day serving this HOA makes the move look like retaliation against a board member. If not, it was certainly a careless move that cost the homeowner money and polluted the area.
"This is why I could never live in an HOA or have anyone else work on my landscaping," said one commenter. "Applying pesticides without permission is not only morally wrong it is 100% illegal and they could have their applicator license revoked if you forward this to the correct authorities … Send them a bill for replacement plants."
"This is considered chemical trespass," said another user. "You need to contact your department of agriculture or whoever issues the applicators licenses in your state."
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