Mow Your Lawn or Do The Time

In the past, I've had neighbors that didn't take care of their yards. While I'd want my local government to enforce code, I'd never want neighbors to go to jail over something like an unkempt yard. Of course, I realized that no government would ever throw someone in the clink for keeping a yucky yard. This is the land of the free, right?

Wrong.

From the west side of Michigan:

A Newaygo County man could spend another weekend behind bars if he doesn't take care of his yard.

David Burch says he tried to seed the yard last fall but it wouldn't take root. This all stems from a contractor who failed to sod the yard in the first place. Now a judge is saying, do the yard or do the time.

"The people who work at the court, at the jail, thought it was funny," Burch said. "They said there had to be more. I said, 'No, it's just because I don't have grass growing.' They said, 'You're in here for that?'"

He claims he is not skirting the law. Burch said the contractor for his new house is responsible for the lawn. But a White Cloud city ordinance states otherwise.

"This has been in the courts for over a year," said White Cloud Police Chief Roger Ungrey. "I believe Mr. Burch has made an attempt. He did bring me in some receipts for grass seed."

But when it didn't grow, a county judge ordered the yard planted. It never happened. Again this April - no sprouts. Then, in jail, an inspiration. Burch is sodding his yard with donated turf.

"He has been working on it," Ungrey said. "However, he remains to this day noncompliant."

That is because the backyard must also be green.

But will the patchwork sod qualify as a lawn? "It's not your normal sod that you would have, that you would go to a sod farm and purchase," Ungrey told 24 Hour News 8. "So that remains to be seen. I can't answer that question."

Burch was back in court Thursday. The judge told him he has two weeks to complete the job. If not, it's another weekend back in jail.

And from Georgia:

A Gwinnett County woman's grass is high; there are cars in her front yard, and now the 21-year-old pregnant woman has gone to jail because of it.

It's part of a new clean-up initiative in Gwinnett County -- but Nicole Schandera's family has said that the clean-up has gone too far.

The broken down car in the front yard gives it away. Officers cited the owner of the house south of Snellville for high grass and weeds, improper outdoor signage, excess trash, and tree debris, among other things.

Family members admit there are some problems.

"I mean there's a little bit of stuff that needs to be done -- the grass needs to be cut, we need to get a car out of the yard, but half of the stuff on there is absolutely false," said Lewis Schandera, the woman's father.

Thirteen violations in all, and some that Lewis does not agree with.

"They wrote this car up as a junk car," he said about one car. "It's got tags and insurance, it's drivable -- my ex-wife's brother drives it everyday. There's not a single broken window on the house."

Lewis is taking pictures to try and prove his case to authorities, but what really shocks him is what happened to his daughter because of this.

"Seven months pregnant and they carried her to jail for code violations," Lewis said. "Seven months pregnant, (they) handcuffed her, hands behind her back put her in a patrol car with no A/C and the window down, and it was 90 degrees at 2:00 in the afternoon."

It took Nicole almost 12 hours to bond out of jail after her arrest. Now, family members say they are working on cleaning up the problems.

The family said they plan to get the car out of the yard this weekend, and they're going to mow the grass and cleanup. But the trip to jail is still hard for them to understand.

"We're tryin' to make progress, but I really don't see all that much," Lewis said. "There's some work, absolutely, but not enough to take my daughter to jail seven months pregnant."

It is an effort to clean up that Lewis said he feels has gone too far.

"Shocked," he said. "I could not believe it. I still can't believe it."

Gwinnet County police said a trip to jail is not a typical result. They said they always issue a written notice of violation first, then try to work with the homeowner to get things cleaned up.